Poll Results - Outstanding Reality-Competition Series

We had the most votes cast in this category than any of the others so far this year – six. And those votes were pretty well spread out, but we did have a winner. Lifetime’s Project Runway received no votes at all (and I’m going to drop in an “I’m not surprised” for reasons that I’ll make clear shortly). The Amazing Race, American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, and Top Chef each picked up one vote (16.6%). But the big winner with two votes (33.3%) is So You Think You Can Dance.

This is a bit of a puzzle to me I confess. I don’t watch the show. Indeed of the six nominees I only watch about three, and one of those – last year’s winner the original Top Chef – only sporadically. So You Think You Can Dance is the only one to run during the summer so there’s a part of me that thinks that people could be voting for this summer’s season – which I‘ve heard was great – rather than last season’s. And if there were more voters I’d suspect it even more. As it stands I just have to believe that people like the performance based aspects of So You Think You Can Dance more than I do.

I didn’t vote this year, or – and I’m sure you know this – there would have been a tie between So You Think You Can Dance and my favourite Reality-Competition series, The Amazing Race. That show has so many dimensions beyond what I think you see in the other  shows in this category. I am afraid however that the show could use a bit of “freshening” to keep it on top. I’ve also said that even I would be hard pressed to vote for The Amazing Race or any of the other contenders in this category if the Redemption Island edition of Survivor had been nominated. It is rare when you see a player in any of these Reality-Competition series play as close to a perfect game as Boston Rob Mariano did in that season of Survivor. It was a thing of beauty and it ought to have been recognised.

New poll up shortly. It’ll be a bit different.