Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Anonymous’ On USA Network, A Reality Competition Where People Are Nice To Each Other’s Faces But Vicious In An Anonymous Chat

Two of the more popular reality competitions on our screens lately are The Circle and The Traitors . Studio Lambert , who produces both shows, has taken elements of both and created a new format, where people “socialize and strategize” face-to-face, but can be vicious with each other behind an avatar in an anonymous chat.

Opening Shot: In a wooded area — supposedly, somewhere in Europe — a round structure is shown. It’s called “The Round House.”

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The Gist: In The Anonymous , twelve contestants gather at that Round House and are told by a disembodied voice about the rules of the game. The voice is from the Digital Anonymous Networking Interface, or DANI for short.

During the game, the contestants will congregate at The Round House, and be how people are with each other during reality competitions; they will live at a place called The Square House (which is, of course, square). But the other half of the game will be spent in The Hideouts, underground bunkers where each player will participate in a chat behind an anonymous avatar of their choosing. In Anonymous mode, the players can call out other players, and are encouraged by DANI to be as vicious as possible.

The goal is to remain as anonymous as possible in the chats. The ultimate winner of the contest will win however much of a $100,000 pot they build up via challenges.

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Among the players are people like Jack Usher, a master of the board game Settlers of Catan, and Robbi Jade Lew, a professional poker player. Also in the group is Xavier E. Prather, who won the 23rd season of Big Brother , and Andy King, who planned the ill-fated Fyre Festival and will do anything to help the cause, as we found out during the Netflix documentary about the festival.

In the first challenge, the group has 20 minutes to memorize sequences of the contestants’ avatars and push buttons in that sequence in order to build the pot. The contestant with the longest successful sequence is safe from elimination.

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Then the contestants go into Anonymous mode, have a not-very-nice chat with each other, and then vote on who they think should leave. Anyone who gets one vote is considered “at risk.” Then, after more face-to-face strategizing, they go into the bunker again to take a test on who they think is behind each avatar. The person who gets the least number of right guesses is considered “The Anonymous” for that round, and picks the at risk person to be eliminated.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Produced by Studio Lambert, who created both The Circle and The Traitors , The Anonymous has elements of both shows.

Our Take: Given the solid formats of both The Circle and The Traitors , it stands to reason that The Anonymous will also have a pretty solid format. But it’s definitely going to need to eliminate a few people first before things get going.

Because the producers have to get through some procedural stuff in the first episode, like showing each person choosing their avatars, going through and announcing the first vote, and showing each person who isn’t The Anonymous for that round, things slow down in a number of spots. It could be because the first episode runs almost an hour without commercials, but shaving down those segments would have made the pacing a whole lot better.

The “memory falls” challenge was a little dull, but thankfully it was edited in a way where we saw the more challenging rounds instead of the first number of easy ones. But that also allowed the producers to spend more time with the contestants talking to themselves in The Hideouts, which isn’t nearly as dynamic as the show is when everyone is interacting with each other.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: After investing almost an hour, we end the first episode knowing who isn’t The Anonymous for the first round, but we have to wait until the second episode to find out who is The Anonymous, and who that person eliminated.

Sleeper Star: Of course, Andy King is the draw here, along with Xavier E. Prather, and Dillian Freloe fills the usual “spilling the tea in public” personality slot. But we root for Lilly Jenkins, who says in one of her interview segments that she is pretty introverted in mixed crowds but extroverted with people she knows. That’s killer in this contest, but it’s exactly the way we are — which is why we don’t apply for reality compeitions.

Most Pilot-y Line: Is The Round House really a house? Or is it a shelter for an outdoor bar and lounge area? And it seems that at times scenes are labeled as taking place in The Round House but look like they’re in The Square House.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The first episode of The Anonymous has a bit of filler, but the format is solid and the contestants all know what the assignment is and are ready to play.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

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