• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, June 9, 2020

For the second time this year, a new TV show wishes to entertain us all with the spectacle of a person forced (for the sake of winning money) to eat the world’s spiciest substances, and in the process, get gradually sicker before our eyes.

This new exercise in tele-sadism is titled “Don’t,” a new game show premiering Thursday on ABC.

Unlike TruTV’s “Hot Sauce Challenge,” its 2020 predecessor in the eat-hot-pepper-and-get-sick TV space, ingesting hot peppers and the sauces they are made from is not the central theme of this new show.

However, a hot pepper-eating challenge is one of the feats featured in this week’s premiere of “Don’t,” a one-word title referring to the extraordinary activities the show’s contestants are asked to undertake for cash prizes -- activities they would not otherwise undertake. 

A TV show title such as “Don’t” also serves to excite a TV critic’s natural instinct to exploit such a title in the text of a review or in a headline.

The tantalizing possibilities include "Don’t’ Watch This Show; Do Watch Something Else" or "Do’s And Don’ts Of Summer TV" or "Another Fun Game Show On ABC? 'Don’t' You Believe It."

However, as tempting as it is to use this show’s title against it in a headline, the problem is that "Don't" does not deserve to be so offhandedly dismissed.

This in and of itself might come as a surprise because this show is little more than a snarky, airy, juvenile game show.

But at the same time, when you consider what else has been playing out on our TV screens over the last 10 days or so (and even longer if you consider the entire COVID-19 era of 2020), then this silly game show comes along at just the right time.

Hosted by actor Adam Scott, one of this show’s most striking features is its sarcasm. At least several times every minute, a voiceover provides a sarcastic remark that is supposed to be connected with what we are seeing onscreen.

Depending on one’s individual taste, these sarcastic disruptions will either be welcomed as a fun entertaining touch, or received in the manner of fingernails scraping a blackboard.

My own reaction was somewhere in between. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give the show’s sarcastic interludes a 5. 

Some of the show is actually fun, despite the agonies of the hot-pepper challenge. This next statement might read to some as faint praise, but like I always say, “faint” praise is still praise.

For those with nothing better to do, and needing an escape from the wretched state of our world right now, you could do a lot worse than watch “Don’t” Thursday night on ABC. 

Or to put it another way, under certain circumstances, this "Don't" is a do.

“Don’t” premieres Thursday night (June 11) at 9 Eastern on ABC.