WCG Ultimate Gamer (Syfy)

The most important rules of reality shows are casting, casting, and casting, and this show breaks them all. The contestants may be outstanding gamers, but for the most part they're dull to watch in real life. The group's communal loft lacks the petty bickering and other dramas of many other reality shows, but there's plenty of footage of people playing video games. "We were all freaking out," one character says during the standard confessional moment, but there was little onscreen evidence that any of them expressed any emotion at all.

In some ways, the show is held back by its format. A series about video games needs to include gaming, but watching other people play games just isn't that exciting. To get around this, the show introduces some non-gaming moments, such as the "Real Life Challenge," in which the players participate in live-action events based on video games. It's a concept that sounds interesting in theory but presents its own problems. In the "Real Life Challenge" based on the popular Rock Band 2 game, for example, the players are divided into groups and must perform a rock song onstage at a nightclub. With little musical background, the groups are predictably awful; even though it's far less exciting for viewers, these folks should just stick to video games.