原文标题：Red light, green lightWhat “Squid Game: The Challenge” reveals about the state of TVReality television is more important than you might think红灯、绿灯《鱿鱼游戏：大挑战》揭示了电视行业现状电视真人秀比你想象的更重要

[Paragraph 1]CONTESTANT 299 sobs and retches; his face turns crimson as he focuses on the fiendish task at hand. 参赛者299号嚎啕大哭，恶心难耐；当他专注于手头那可怕的任务时，他的脸变得通红。

Using a needle, he and his fellow players must try to extricate an umbrella shape stamped into a circular piece of honeycomb. If it snaps, they are eliminated from the contest. 他和其他选手必须用针把压印在圆形蜂窝片上的伞形图案弄出来。如果图案折断，他们就会被淘汰出局。

The challenge may sound familiar: it featured in an episode of “Squid Game”, a South Korean thriller of 2021. 这个挑战可能听起来有点耳熟：2021 年韩国惊悚片《鱿鱼游戏》中的一集就曾出现过。

The show remains Netflix’s biggest-ever hit: in the first month after its release subscribers spent around 1.65bn hours watching it, equivalent to 190,000 years.该剧至今仍是网飞最热门的电视剧：在上线后的第一个月，用户们花了约 16.5 亿小时观看该剧，相当于 19 万年。

[Paragraph 2]In the fictional game, the penalty for failure was death. 在虚构游戏中，失败的惩罚是死亡。

In “Squid Game: The Challenge”, a spin-off competition starring real people, “obviously we weren’t going to do that,” says Stephen Lambert, who co-produced the show. 在衍生真人秀竞赛节目《鱿鱼游戏：大挑战》中，“显然我们不会这样做，”该节目的联合制作人斯蒂芬·兰伯特说。

(Players are, however, strapped with ink packs that explode when they are knocked out, grimly mimicking a gunshot.) （不过，参赛选手身上绑有墨包，当他们被淘汰时，墨包就会爆炸，会发出模拟枪弹爆炸的声音。）

In this version, the stakes may not be life or death, but they are still hefty: 456 people from across the world vie to win nearly $4.6m. 在《鱿鱼游戏》真人秀节目中，赌注可能不会生死攸关，但仍然很大：来自世界各地的 456 名玩家展开角逐，赢取最后近460万美元的奖金。

[Paragraph 3]Mr Lambert describes it as “the largest, most ambitious unscripted show ever produced”. 兰伯特将其描述为“有史以来规模最大、最雄心勃勃的无脚本节目”。

(“Unscripted” refers to game shows, as well as dating and true-crime programmes and some documentaries.) （“无脚本”包括游戏节目、相亲节目、真实犯罪节目、一些纪录片。）

As in the original “Squid Game” drama, the way participants behave during challenges exposes a great deal about their nature. 就像在原作《鱿鱼游戏》剧中一样，参与者在游戏中的行为方式揭示了他们的本性。

“How you play is who you are,” the tagline declares. But the show is revealing on another level, too, as it points to several trends in television.真人秀宣传标语说：“你玩游戏的方式揭示你的本性。” 但该节目还在另一个层面上揭示了电视行业的几个趋势。

[Paragraph 4]First, a show on this scale is testimony to the pre-eminence of reality TV. 首先，这档大型节目证明了真人秀的卓越地位。

The genre is ubiquitous partly because viewers like it: “American Idol”, “Jeopardy! Masters” and “Survivor” were among the most-watched programmes in America last year. 真人秀节目非常普遍，部分原因是观众喜欢看：《美国偶像》、《危险边缘》和《幸存者》是居美国去年收视率最高的节目前列。

Unlike prestige dramas, such programmes rarely require your full attention. But therein lies reality TV’s appeal. 与殿堂级剧集不同的是，此类真人秀节目不需要你全神贯注。但正因如此，真人秀才有吸引力。

Shows challenge the contestants, but viewers not so much.节目对参赛者提出了挑战，但对观众没有太多要求。

[Paragraph 5]Television executives are keen on it, too, because it is cheap to make. 电视高管也热衷于真人秀节目，因为它的制作成本低。

An episode of a sumptuous drama can cost millions of dollars, whereas an episode of even a flagship game show can be made for less than $100,000. 一集华丽巨制电视剧可能成本达数百万美元，而一集旗舰游戏节目的制作成本不到10万美元。

(“Squid Game: The Challenge” is an outlier, costing more than $1m per instalment.) （《鱿鱼游戏：大挑战》是个例外，每集制作成本超过100万美元。）

[Paragraph 6]In the first half of 2023 almost 70% of the shows commissioned globally were unscripted, according to Ampere Analysis, a research firm. 根据研究公司 Ampere Analysis 的数据，2023 年上半年，全球近 70% 委托制作的节目都是无脚本节目。

In America, reality TV was given a boost by the (now resolved) writers’ and actors’ strikes. During the shutdown, drama producers started developing reality fare instead. 在美国，编剧和演员罢工（现已解决）推动了真人秀节目的发展。在罢工期间，电视剧制作人开始转而开发真人秀节目。

This type of entertainment has the benefit of not depending on famous writers, actors or showrunners, says Lucas Green of Banijay, a production company: “The format is king.”制片公司 Banijay 的卢卡斯·格林说，真人秀娱乐节目的优点是不依赖知名编剧、演员或制片人：“节目形式才是王道。”

[Paragraph 7]Second, “Squid Game: The Challenge” is evidence of the current zeal for exploiting existing intellectual property. 其次，《鱿鱼游戏：大挑战》表明电视行业目前热衷于利用现有知识产权。

Amazon recently released “007: Road to a Million”, a competition show yoked to the James Bond franchise, which features contestants travelling around the world acting like secret agents and trying to win a jackpot of ￡1m ($1.25m). 亚马逊最近推出了《007：百万之路》，这是一部与詹姆斯·邦德系列相关的竞赛节目，参赛者们环游世界扮演秘密特工，努力赢得100万英镑（125万美元）的奖金。

[Paragraph 8]If a show resonates in one country, it will traverse the globe, too. 如果一档节目在一个国家引起了共鸣，那么它也会在全球传播。

“Big Brother”, featuring strangers enjoying life under surveillance, has been produced in 67 markets. 《老大哥》是以陌生人在监控下生活为主题的真人秀节目，已在67个国家和地区出现。

TV executives now scour the world for new IP. “Married at First Sight”, for example, in which people agree to wed strangers, started in Denmark. 现在，电视高管正在全球范围内寻找新的 IP。例如，《一见面就结婚》是关于人们同意与陌生人结婚的节目，始于丹麦。

As well as being an exporter of popular dramas, South Korea is one of the top incubators of reality TV. 韩国不仅是热门电视剧的出口国，也是真人秀节目的主要孵化地之一。

[Paragraph 9]Hits can be reconfigured in different ways. 热门节目可以通过不同的方式进行再配置。

“MasterChef” has nine spin-offs from the original cooking-competition show. 《厨艺大师》从原始的烹饪竞赛中延伸出了9个衍生节目。

No wonder Netflix sought to leverage the immense interest in “Squid Game”: on TikTok, the hashtag has 84.3bn views. 难怪网飞要利用人们对《鱿鱼游戏》的巨大兴趣：在 TikTok 上，该话题浏览量达高达843亿次。

[Paragraph 10]Finally, the release of “Squid Game: The Challenge” in three batches points to streamers’ changing attitude towards parcelling out content. 最后，《鱿鱼游戏：大挑战》分三批上线，这表明流媒体在内容分销方面的态度正发生变化。

Entertainment bigwigs are fond of saying that staggered releases recreate the kind of “collective viewing experience” and water-cooler chatter lost in the digital age. 娱乐巨头们喜欢说，分批上线可以重新营造数字时代失去的 "集体观看体验 "和办公室的闲聊氛围。

But media companies are also trying to make their on-demand services more profitable. 但媒体公司也在努力提高他们即时服务的利润。

A steady drip of episodes, rather than a sudden deluge, can keep viewers subscribed for longer. 稳定地一集一集地发布，而不是一次性全部发布，可以让观众订阅更长时间。

Don’t you want to know if contestant 299 can go all the way? 难道你不想知道299号选手能否走到最后吗？

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量804左右）原文出自：2023年11月25日《The Economist》Culture版块

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

本文翻译整理: Irene

本文编辑校对: Irene仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）无脚本节目Unscripted是指一种不经过事先写剧本或台词的电视节目，通常使用真实的场景和人物来表现故事情节。这种节目通常具有高度的真实感和生活化，吸引了很多观众的关注。节目的形式包括纪录片、选秀比赛、真人秀、户外探险等等，各种类型不一，但都关注在人和事件上，在观众中享有很高的声誉。

即时服务On-demand services，也称按需服务，点播服务，是指一种基于网络和移动技术的服务模式，可以通过手机或电脑等终端随时随地提供服务。这些服务可以包括各种日常生活所需，例如外卖送餐、快递物流、洗衣清洗、家政服务等等。通过在线平台，用户可以直接向服务提供者发送请求，服务提供者则根据需求实时响应并提供服务。这种服务模式的优势是便捷、快速、灵活，用户不再需要等待或预约。

【重点句子】（3个）Unlike prestige dramas, such programmes rarely require your full attention. But therein lies reality TV’s appeal. 与殿堂级剧集不同的是，此类真人秀节目不需要你全神贯注。但正因如此，真人秀才有吸引力。

Second, “Squid Game: The Challenge” is evidence of the current zeal for exploiting existing intellectual property. 其次，《鱿鱼游戏：挑战》说明电视行业目前热衷于利用现有知识产权。

A steady drip of episodes, rather than a sudden deluge, can keep viewers subscribed for longer. 稳定地一集一集地发布，而不是一次性全部发布，可以让观众订阅更长时间。