ReAction: Better As a Half Hour Show?

[LSN80]

As anyone who watched last night knows, Reaction was pre-empted by Spike for the first half hour, and bumped to 11:30pm. I was interested to see if a 30-minute version of Reaction gets over the stories without being redundant, which the full-hour version has a tendency to do, at times.

In my opinion, this was easily the best episode of Reaction yet. They were in and out focusing on each of the key matches next week while putting the matches in a broader context of key storylines going in TNA. As I said before, a half-hour show eliminates redundancy, while quickening the pace organically. It also tells the viewer what they need to know without taking too long to explain the story. I think it's a much better format for Reaction. The very focused promos from TNA wrestlers selling match-ups and their characters were well done.

So would Reaction benefit from being a half hour every week? Or was this just Reaction at its absolute best, regardless of time?

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Not necessarily, no, because with the full hour usually came the "iMPACT! Player of the Week", which often did a great job of focussing on a lesser-known competitor, or a lesser-featured competitor who got a decent push that week, be it on Xplosion or on iMPACT!

The issue with ReAction is and always has been time-slot. Running the three-hour block was a bad idea, and it still is IMO, because it's just too difficult to retain the attention span of the iMPACT! audience once the show goes off the air.

ReAction immediately airing after iMPACT! kneecaps iMPACT! from ever running a three-hour special, too, which is another negative about the time-slot, but not necessarily about the actual length of ReAction.

 

[Joe's Gonna Kill You]

I personally think that ReAction is Excellent every week wether its only Half an Hour or Full Hour. Last nights episode was excellent and very entertaining just like every episode has been to me since the its re debut after The Whole F'n Show. So to answer your question I think Reaction is an excellent show if its 1 hour or half an hour

 

[billm75]

I don't even follow TNA on a regular basis, mostly through this web site to be honest, but I will tune in to watch Reaction quite a bit. I think it's a great idea that they can continue developing and turn it into something truly unique. It gives the TNA product a more "legitimate" feel to me. Like there's more going on than just the weekly wrestling show. I like it and wish that WWE did something similar instead of that lousy "superstars" thing they have. A highlight show with interviews would be awesome.

 

[WWTNA]

Its a great idea putting Reaction as a half-hour show. An hour show of Reaction is too long and they can ramble about the same things at times. For example, Jeff Hardy will talk about Matt Morgan and Mr. Anderson for about 6 minutes or so and at the near end or Reaction, will show him talking about the same shit. A half-hour show will give descent interviews then a long boring interview just to kill of time.

 

[DangerousDave]

I would like to see Impact go for 2 1/2 hours followed by a 1/2 hour Reaction. This would allow for longer or more matches on Impact. Reaction is a great show, but many times gets repetitive as if they have run out of things to say. Last nights half hour show was great, gave me what I need to know without dragging things out or repeating segments.

The major problem with Reaction is its time slot. Most working stiffs call it a day at 11PM and go to bed. The ideal schedule would be to start Impact at 8PM and finish Reaction at 11. I don't ever see this happening, but it would be nice.

 

[ABMorales787]

No, I think the 1 hour format leaves more possibility to add newer concepts. Not just the Impact Player Of The Week, but also stuff like the MMG/GenMe brawl, the Immortal Recap special and other ideas.

One particular thing I would really like is if TNA would actually air House Show footage. Regardless of being the standard broadcast format or the format used for backstage segments a la "camcorder". TNA seems to be pushing their house shows really hard lately, and really what better way to promote them than to show what actually goes on in them? To add more to the benefits, that means TNA outside the Impact Zone, which give TV viewers a chance to see the audience's reaction tot he programming without the tourists and Crucial Crew that seem to plague the Impact broadcasts weekly.

 

[Kenny Powers]

I don't think people will tune in to see ReAction if it starts at a different time instead of right after Impact. The ratings for ReAction were pretty low for starting at 11:30. The show being 30 minutes isn't a bad idea. It seems that most of interviews on ReAction are pretty much the same every week and they are even shown on Impact. I like Killjoy's idea of ReAction showing not only Impact Player of the week, but also brawls and house show footage. TNA always say at house shows they are recording the show to show it later on Impact. Generally they never do.

ReAction could go with 30 minutes of interviews for the first half of the show, and for the second half show matches from house shows or Xplosion.

 

[DangerousDave]

Last night's Reaction (12/23) has reinforced my belief that the show should only go a half hour. There was a lot of repetition, especially AJ saying he was part of the "core four" at least three times. The problem I see is that Reaction is a separate production from Impact and produced by Bishoff/Harvey. Contractually it probably isn't possible to cut the show back to a half hour and extend Impact to fill the gap. They either need to come up with more content or extend Impact further into Reaction to avoid a lot of repetition that I'm sure makes many people tune out.

 

[cliffordlfc]

I can only answer when I see the storylines, if it was a storyline with AJ Styles and Kurt Angle, I'd like it to be an hour, if it was just Matt Morgan and Jeff Hardy, I'd like it to be 30, I presume you get my point.

But, all in all, 30 minutes would be better. People get too tired on Thursday cause of work and school etc. plus 30 minutes is fairly enough time to build storylines as it only seems to revolve around the main event storyline anyway...

 

[Rasha]

I don't think they should have Reaction as a seperate show at all. Why waste that third hour on programming that is ultimately non-essential to your average fan? I would take aspects of Reaction and blend them into a three-hour Impact; using these post-match/event interviews and reactions as part of the pre-match hype for the current show. How easy would it be to air one of those segments and then have Tenay transition with something like, "that was Matt Morgan last week in the aftermath of Immortal's attack. Has that anger carried over to tonight's match? Let's find out now!"

As many have said, Reaction's content can get repetitive. My idea would help to avoid that problem PLUS giving you more flexibility with the third hour to just have some more matches and/or "live" happenings as needed.