The Floor is the Best Show on Television

I love game shows. I’m a simple, slow Neanderthal.

Jeopardy is a half-hour-long attack on my self-esteem as I struggle to get one answer right and if I do get it right, I don’t say my answer until after the contestant does and I’ll whisper to myself “Yea, I knew that.”

The Floor has the polar opposite effect—challenging me with the task of seeing a picture of a thing and saying what that thing is.

Once a week on Fox, Rob Lowe hosts the gameshow where 100 contestants fill a stage—all standing in their own individual square, along with the one specific category they are experts in.

From wrestling to junk food to pop stars to star constellations—100 people prepare to go back-and-forth naming the images they see on the screen.

Each episode starts with “The Randomizer” selecting a player on “The Floor”, who then challenges anyone whose square on the stage touches theirs. The two then walk onto the stage, chat with Rob Lowe for a second, before locking in to yell “stapler” when they see a photo of a stapler.

The winner then elects to either go back to the Floor to avoid playing again and potentially being eliminated and sent home or they can keep challenging more players.

The smart move is to sit down and play as little as possible but they incentivize players to stay up there by offering them a 5-second bonus if they are able to win 3 in a row.

At the end of every episode, whoever possesses the most territory wins a $20,000 prize but ultimately, the last person standing gets $250,000 for their ability to identify images, quickly.

But there’s more to this show than just naming items you see, although that’s absolutely a bulk of the content here.

Besides the ones eliminated, everyone comes back every episode so you start to have favorites. Like this season I am rooting for my girl, Sharday—the 30-year-old, military vet from Texas who is completely unphased by the pressure, answering immediately with no hesitation and getting all her questions right. She also happens to be the hottest but that’s not the point.

You start to hate some players whose main character syndrome is unlocked the moment the randomizer chooses them as they pretend the entire show is built around them.

The game is also a little more difficult than it sounds.

Frequently they’ll throw something obscure on the screen or a weird photo that’s hard to recognize for no reason. My favorite is when someone doesn’t realize it’s their turn to speak and they just stand there, statuesque, as their time dwindles.

There’s drama, character development, high stakes, Rob Lowe. What more can you ask for from an hour-long television broadcast? You can have your dating shows and cop dramas and superhero-related IP. I’ll take The Floor 11 times out of 10.

Hey, there’s just a whole ass episode someone posted on Youtube so uh, here’s an example before this for sure gets taken down:

The perfect show.

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