Dog Eat Dog

Reviewed by:
Paul Ulane

The latest in NBC’s reality shows, Dog Eat Dog pits six obnoxious contestants against each other in a quest for $25,000. The game begins with the contestants spending a day together in a boot camp environment before moving to the studio setting, where the attractive but emotionless host Brooke Burns (Baywatch) explains how each round will consist of the entire group voting on one contestant to tackle a physical or mental challenge. If the contestant succeeds, he picks one from the rest to go into the “Dog Pound” until the final round; if the contestant fails, he or she must enter said pound. In the end, the “Top Dog” (the survivor of the challenges) takes on the rest of the contestants in a Dog Pound–based question-and-answer session for the right to claim the 25 Gs.

Interesting premise, horrible execution. Brooke Burns is not capable of emoting beyond a smile and an awkward laugh, while the contestants seem as though they are reciting scripted dialogue over canned crowd noise. The games, with titles like “Celebrity Three Way” and “Pole Sway,” hardly deliver what they promise and are so easy it’s embarrassing to watch virtually all of the contestants fail miserably. Dog Eat Dog may actually need to be put down.