Last week I was looking for a new dinnertime show, and I stumbled upon a scripted drama called Panic on Amazon Prime. The premise hooked me immediately:
Every summer in a small Texas town, graduating seniors compete in a series of challenges, which they believe is their only chance to escape their circumstances and make their lives better.
So, like Hunger Games but without the unnecessary death and motivated by more than just entertainment? Yes! I was in.
Unfortunately, while the show is technically true to that description, the execution is much different than what I imagined. In Panic, the competition is only 5% of the show. The rest of the show is teen drama (and not the good kind–this is the kind where they don’t say obvious things they should say, characters completely change from one episode to the next, and best friends say incredibly cruel things about each other), family drama, and police procedural (the competition is run by the kids, not the town, and the police are trying to learn about it). Also, it’s the biggest “small town” I’ve ever seen on television.
And when the show does briefly focus on the competition, the events are incredibly dangerous. An element of danger is fine, but basically every challenge is life threatening. A series of Survivor-style challenges/puzzles would have made more sense, as well as some events that would test how prepared the person is to handle the outside world.
I really don’t mean to bash the show. It’s fine, and it was good enough for us to watch all 10 episodes. A lot of people worked hard to bring it to life. But I can only imagine how cool it would have been if the show was about a small town that puts together its resources every year to host a competition to sponsor one person’s ascent into the world. By making the whole town a participant, you don’t waste hours of screen time watching police bumble around trying to figure out what the competition is–you can instead spend that time on the competition itself.
Heck, this could be a real thing that a town does. Start small and simple to build buzz, put videos of the events on YouTube, and then start selling tickets to outsiders who want to watch, with the money funding more robust events and increasing the prize pool. I’d watch that.
Did you watch Panic? What did you think?