Born in the early days of the epidemic, "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" has gradually become a domestic phenomenon-level variety show since its first season in 2020: Weibo topics have been read over 10 billion; Douban has more than 160,000 comments; Tranquility, Zhang Yuqi, Wan Qian , Huang Ling, Wang Feifei and other female artists became popular overnight and became representatives of independent women; at the same time, they not only launched three seasons of programs for three consecutive years, but also created "Brother Overcoming Toughness" last year, and gave birth to other stations such as "Chasing" Light it up!

Brother" and the equivalent program.

But on the whole, this show, which has been broadcast for three seasons so far and carries the audience's high expectations, has not become a sustainable hit. The second season scored only 5.1 points, and the third season was renamed "Riding the Wind and Waves". After three episodes, the score 6.5 points.

　　Although the first episode of the third season relied on the topic of "Wang Xinling Boy" to drive the popularity of the show, after the second episode, the topic became a cliff, and the third episode of Yi Gong's performance ended. top of the list.

Why did a program that once stirred major social platforms and was regarded as a successful product idea for domestic entertainment, gained such a bad reputation in less than three years, can it still be like "The Voice of China" and "I" Is it the same as "Singer", "Running Brothers" and other programs, and has become a comprehensive N generation that has produced more than five seasons?

　　As a series of variety shows, the biggest problem with "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" is the ambiguity of the program's positioning: is it a talent show or a star reality show?

As we all know, the show was inspired by the prosperous idol talent show troupe in China at the time. It brought together 30 female stars of different ages and used singing and dancing as the main form of performance. After several rounds of knockout competitions, several sisters were selected as Group debut.

This is the basic structure of the content of the show.

Because of this, we can find that the show is full of paradoxes from the very beginning: the sisters have become famous, they have achieved outstanding achievements in their respective fields, and there is no need to make their debut through this show; It is impossible for sisters in sports and other industries to be tied together and debut in a group like the Rocket Girls. They belong to different brokerage companies, and they each have busy performing arts work and even competition activities. Therefore, the "debut in a group" originally belonged to the show. The most core link has become the most important and least important thing, no matter for the actresses who participated in it, or for the audience in front of the TV.

　　In fact, this program mode is only suitable for "amateur" drafts.

The contestants participated in the program, and after round after round of hard work, they hoped to get a good ranking, so as to obtain tickets to enter the entertainment circle.

For the audience, from the first issue to the last issue, watching these "amateur" players, from ordinary strangers to gradually blooming, who will win the championship in the end?

Or who will get the chance to debut as a group?

The whole is like watching a series of suspenseful series. Only after the last episode, do you know what the result is.

This is the narrative line of such shows, that is, keeping the suspense from the first installment to the last.

"Super Girl", "The Voice of China", "The Son of Tomorrow" and so on all belong to this type of program. Li Yuchun, Tan Weiwei, Zhou Shen, Mao Buyi, Rocket Girl, etc., they stood out from countless competitors and completed a competition from "amateur" "The metamorphosis to star also constitutes the most dramatic narrative of a TV show.

　　But in "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves", when the main body of the story (participant) of the show changes from "amateur" to a star, the narrative momentum (suspense) and the fate of the show no longer exist, and the show loses its progressive progression. visibility.

Coupled with the elimination list that has long flowed out on the Internet, the suspense of the talent show has been resolved to nothing.

This is the reason why "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" opened up and down.

The audience's interest and topical enthusiasm will always stay in the first episode. Everyone is only curious about who will participate in the new season of the show. No one cares about who will form a group in the end, and they don't know what they will do after they form a group.

After the first season of the show, the organizer also launched a music travel reality show "Sister's Philharmonic". As a work after the sisters formed a group, the show was extremely boring and could only be ended hastily, so the second season of the show After the end, there is simply no follow-up work.

Therefore, when the audience found out that a talent show that claimed to be "debuting in a group" was just a pretense, they gradually lost interest in the show.

　　In the book "Entertainment Whirlwind - Understanding Reality TV Shows", scholar Yin Hong divides reality shows into eight types: survival challenge type, situational experience type, performance draft type, identity replacement type, and game competition type.

Judging from the three seasons of shows that have been broadcast, "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" is not a talent show, but more like a star reality show with identity replacement and game competition.

Star reality show is currently the largest type of domestic TV variety show, and its program mode is to let what kind of star (subject) do what kind of thing (task) in what kind of place (situation).

Over the years, we have seen stars open restaurants, open inns, travel abroad, go on adventures in the jungle in different shows... All the jobs we can think of, reality TV shows have let stars do it.

　　For the reality show, "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves", its biggest breakthrough is to refine the main body of star reality show into female stars, and innovate the task of star reality show to "debut as a group".

So, we saw the program team assign different songs to the actresses, let them train, and then perform on the stage that was made into a "boat shape" - "Ride the Wind and Waves".

Therefore, the content of the program consists of two parts: the training documentary show and the stage performance. The main line of the narrative is elimination and selection.

However, after the third season of the program, we saw that the documentary part of the program was too homogeneous, basically recording the difficulty of the sisters' training, which seemed monotonous and boring; and the stage performance part, which was the core content of the program, was difficult to bring to the audience. Astonishment.

As a reality show, if the "show" part cannot satisfy the audience, it is fatal.

Sisters work hard, but hard work does not equal professionalism.

In terms of professionalism, the singers in "I Am a Singer" compete with each other in singing, and the dancers in "Dance Storm" compete in dance skills, all of which have brought unforgettable performances to the audience one after another.

However, on the stage of "Riding the Wind and Waves", because of the difference in professionalism, these female stars (singers, dancers, actors, hosts, athletes, etc.) from different industries are called together, which needs to be done in a very short period of time. , Dedicating a stage show with excellent singing and dancing is really a bit difficult.

This is also the reason why this season's "One Public Performance" will be criticized by the audience.

Zhang Li and Wang Zixuan from Yu Wenwen's group have never touched the keyboard and bass, and they still performed in the show. Their courage is commendable, but the effect can be imagined.

　　Of course, "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" advertises this kind of courage to break through. Using the age of 30 as a landmark, it hopes to extend serious topics such as age anxiety, gender order, and female consciousness.

But today, it seems that this is just the cunning of the program team, using various anxieties of women to attract the attention of audiences, especially female audiences, so as to pursue TV ratings and Internet clicks, and enjoy the dividends of "her variety show" .

When the original cast of the show released "Brother Who Overcame Toughness" last year, the so-called female narrative it had constructed before was instantly deconstructed.

I don't know if in the third season, the show was renamed "Riding the Wind and Waves", and the word "sister" was deleted. Whether it has something to do with this.

　　Therefore, aside from the part of social issues, only from the perspective of the show itself, "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" is not a successful reality show: it claims to let female stars make their debut in a group, but it is impossible to complete the task and lose "Real"; female stars are not "amateur", they don't need to debut again, and the "human" part can't stand up; and the only remaining "show" part, because of homogeneity and lack of professionalism, very It is difficult to retain an audience with increasingly discerning tastes.

These famous female stars, just like the teenagers who switched identities in "The Metamorphosis", were replaced with ordinary "amateurs" to participate in a game called "Girls Team Draft".

In this game, they set up cards with different people, went on stage and competed with each other, just to compete for the last chance to debut.

In this process, some people were eliminated early, and some people were left to the end after "fighting".

The audience in front of the TV and the Internet is the real "behind the scenes". The remote control and mouse in their hands determine the real rise and fall of the contestants and even the program.

　　(Author: Huang Zhongjun is a professor at the School of Cultural Creativity and Communication, Zhejiang Normal University)