With Huang Lei, He Jiong, Zhang Yixing, Peng Yuchang, Zhang Zifeng as the main guest lineup, the slow-life variety show "Always Life" officially returns for the sixth season.
Before the start of this season's program, the pre-heated derivative variety show "Welcome to the Mushroom House" with "0713 Fast Guy" as a guest has repeatedly detonated topics on social media, which also raised everyone's expectations for "Longing for Life 6". Full.
Unfortunately, the greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment.
Last Friday, after the show aired the second episode with Liu Haoran, Wen Qi, and Zhang Youhao serving as flying guests, it was ruthlessly complained by the audience. People are not embarrassed.
On the one hand, it is the earnest expectation of the old fans, and on the other hand, it is the freshness that keeps disappearing... Is the "Longing for Life" in its 6th year still yearning?
Embarrassing situation:
Derivatives are on fire, and feature films are more difficult
Less than a month before the launch of the sixth season, a "preheating derivative variety show" with only 5 episodes was unexpectedly popular. Based on the concept of "sharing", "Longing for Life" will be the peach blossom mushroom in the fifth season program. The house is open to the guests who dream of rural life to live by themselves, thus creating "Welcome to the Mushroom House".
The first guests of "Welcome to Mushroom House" are the "0713 Fast Boys Reemployment Boys Group" composed of six members: Chen Chusheng, Su Xing, Lu Rover, Wang Lixin, Zhang Yuan, and Wang Zhengliang.
Unexpectedly, relying on the production team of the first directing tube, the props pieced together, and the publicity fund of only 48,000 yuan, the "re-employment men's team" pulled "Welcome to the Mushroom House" out of the circle.
In the end, "Welcome to the Mushroom House" exceeded the pre-heating task for "Zhengzhu" and "Longing for Life" with a score of 8.7 points on Douban, and also received good news - tailor-made for the "re-employment men's team" Preparations for the ensemble have begun.
However, the momentum of pre-heating derivative variety shows is too great, the expectations of the audience have been significantly raised, and the requirements for the sixth season of "Longing for Life" have become more and more strict. The embarrassing scene of being on the top of the hot search.
On May 17th, according to the popularity list of Maoyan, the sixth season of "Longing for Life", which has been on air for 19 days, only ranks fifth in the popularity list of variety shows on the entire network, losing to "Ace vs. Ace 7" and "Run 10". ", "The Sound of Life" and "New Travels".
In fact, the decline in word-of-mouth ratings is the biggest test facing this veteran slow variety show.
Looking back at the first five seasons of the show, from the first season to the third season, "Longing for Life" won the Douban score of 7.5, 8.0, and 7.3 respectively, and the number of scorers also exceeded 80,000 twice, which is a win-win for word of mouth and ratings.
However, the Douban ratings for the fourth and fifth seasons not only dropped to 6.9 and 6.6, but the number of ratings also dropped sharply to around 50,000.
Mode limited:
Content does not break
Netizens call it "boring"
Since the show's launch, "Longing for Life" has slogans such as "What the city can't give you, the mountains can!" "We are together is the life we long for", "Let's live a good life every day" and other slogans to carry out the slow life to the end.
One of the biggest highlights of this season is the opening of the "island season" for the first time.
Previously, "Mushroom House Family" has traveled to Miyun Garden Village in Beijing, Heling Village in Tonglu County, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Xiangxi in Hunan, Xishuangbanna in Yunnan, Bailinzhou Village in Taohuayuan, Changde, Hunan and other recording places. This time the program team set the recording location in Changjiang, Hainan. Shayutang Village, here is quiet and quiet, looking out to the sea, and the island season begins.
Visiting houses, eating, sleeping, welcoming guests, working, chatting, playing games, the content settings of the sixth season have not changed much.
In the first episode, the program took 100 minutes to complete the reunion of the mushroom house family, allocating rooms, lighting a fire to cook, and introducing the rules.
In the evening, the guests played a game of cards leisurely.
In the second phase, welcoming flying guests, fishing at sea, and picking up trash by the sea become the main content.
Liu Haoran and other guests have very limited space to play, and they have become tool people who follow the real fishermen to pull the net and pull the rope. It is no wonder that netizens complained that they were "boring".
The particularity of slow variety shows makes viewers who have lost their sense of freshness polarize the evaluation of the show - those who like it can feel all kinds of life tastes from the light of the clouds and the wind; those who have no sense are confused and interested. Missing.
Hard to solve:
Is there a spark
too dependent on guests
The program mode without a clear story line, no competition mechanism, lack of drama and suspense makes the visibility of "Longing for Life" extremely dependent on the sense of variety of the guests and the chemical reaction that is stimulated by each other.
In previous seasons programs, Song Dandan, Chen He, Huang Bo, Yang Zi, and Huang Yali all gave the program a good response. They are either seniors in the entertainment industry with super ability to control the field, or regulars in variety shows full of laughter. , or a social expert who can mingle with the guests, or a true lover who dares to blew himself up on the show, such as marriage and other major life events...
It can be seen that the sixth season also put a lot of thought into the selection of guests: Wen Qi, Zhang Youhao, Peng Yuchang, and Zhang Zifeng have all collaborated with Liu Haoran, and the show has become "Liu Haoran's Friends Bureau".
As soon as they met, Liu Haoran unceremoniously scolded Zhang Youhao, "You're a fan", and the latter responded with "eye mucus", which became one of the jokes of the show.
It is a pity that these interesting interactions did not last, limited by the depth of communication, the atmosphere among the guests was still polite and dull.
The age difference also hindered the in-depth communication of the guests: Zhang Youhao, who was born in 1995 when he first arrived in the fishing village, greatly sighed at the age difference of 8 years between himself and Wen Qi of the post-00s generation. Huang Lei, who is already 51 years old, said Zhang Zifeng. Just turned 20 years old, it is also a sigh.
The chemical reaction between the guests is not only the prerequisite for the establishment of Slow Variety, but also a "trap" in its long-term development.
In the fourth season, the program team invited several young idols in the same episode. Although the room was full of people, the atmosphere was restrained and awkward.
It was not until the arrival of Zheng Jun and Lao Lang, two old friends who had close personal friendships, that Huang Lei, who was once black-faced, "has passed the rain."
Since then, the program team has also intentionally avoided the recurrence of similar scenes, and invited members who are familiar with many resident guests as flying guests as much as possible.
The number of showbiz members who can have a chemical reaction with the resident guests is limited. In the first 5 seasons of the show, Chen He, Li Dan and other guests have come to the mushroom house more than once. In the future, the repeated appearance of flying guests may be even more. frequently.
No, at the beginning of the sixth season, Peng Yuchang has already begun to ask, "Is Brother He (Chen He) coming this season?" Huang Lei also repeats from time to time: "This work is suitable for Huang Bo"...
The rules are hard to break:
freshness
Can't keep the audience
The decline in word-of-mouth and ratings is almost an inevitable problem for longevity variety shows. The once-popular phenomenon-level variety show "Where Are We Going, Dad" ended in its fifth season, and the benchmark for music competition variety shows "I Am a Singer" ended in its eighth season.
The same goes for slow variety shows.
In the sixth season of the broadcast, some viewers summed up a set of "Longing for Life" "Universal Table Book": First, He Jiong and Huang Lei negotiated with the program team to obtain ingredients; second, the guests came to the mushroom house, and everyone greeted them like a tour group. Take a tour and interact with the animal members of the mushroom house; then, Huang Lei starts cooking in the kitchen, and the guests are doing farm work under the leadership of Zhang Yixing, Peng Yuchang, Zhang Zifeng, etc. Sit at the table, eat, chat and blow water; the fifth step, go back indoors after dinner, play games and chat, rest and sleep...
"Longing for Life", which has gradually become a big business owner, has been repeatedly criticized for being "too much implanted" and "reduced to an advertisement", which is also one of the reasons for the decline of the program's reputation - in the most implanted season of the program, there are even as many as 14 sponsors.
In the sixth season, the guests picked up garbage on the beach and found the implantation method of the "rafting bottle sent by the cow", and they were also complained: "The starting point of creativity is good, but a good environmental protection action has become more than simple. "
Objectively, in recent years, slow variety shows with production standards and different entry points have emerged, such as "Unforgettable Restaurant", "Adventures in Life", "Friends Please Listen", and "Hello Life", which also diverted audiences who love this type of show. .
Although there are still long-lived variety shows such as "Run", "The Voice of China", "Ace vs. Ace", "Happy Comedian", and "Star Detective", none of them belong to the category of slow variety shows.
Being able to stick to the sixth season with its "plain as water" content, "Longing for Life" is already a leader in slow variety shows.
Therefore, it is no wonder that there are longing loyal fans calling for more tolerance and more space for the show: "Now everyone complains about 'boring' without mercy. When it's time to say goodbye, the 'boring' you complain about will become a warm and classic memory" !
Reporter Ai Xiuyu