Take The Money And Run (where would you hide $100,000 in your city?)

i have a love/hate relationship with reality tv of all kinds. i watch some of it. and i don't feel the need to take a big pretentious stance and claim that it is evidence of the total decline of human kind (although, some shows make it really hard not to).

i think some of it is awful, some of it is a guilty pleasure and some of it is actually good. based on the premier episode, Take The Money And Run falls into the good camp. and you don't know how surprised i am to be writing that.

i will admit i really liked the concept and was looking forward to this one. but i have been burned many times before when a show, that seemed like it was going to be interesting, ends up sucking. so, today when i got home from work i went into the list of shows on my dvr and clicked play on Take The Money And Run with hesitant excitement. but that soon turned to plain enjoyment.

you can't watch the show without thinking about how you would do it if you had a chance. if you had a briefcase with $100,000 and an hour to hide it, where would you put it? how would you try to divert the detectives and how would you stand up to spending the next 48 hours locked up in solitary and being interrogated by professional (and really good) interrogators. the show is exciting in the game/challenge aspect of it, but it is also an interesting look at human nature and how people react in situations.

we are so used to seeing tv show cops interrogate suspect and such, but to see the real ones do it is fascinating. how they read body language, call them on their lies and back them into a hole and force them to change their story, etc... then watching them piece things together based on what they know and what they don't know is so interesting and quite impressive.

also, on a purely production level it is really good. you get a little "about-the-players" stuff at the beginning of the show - which is standard. but once the game starts it is all about that. no wasted time with extraneous and boring crap that would slow down the flow and excitement and tension of the chase/game.

i don't blame you if you didn't bother to check it out, assuming it would disappoint. but give it a shot next week.