Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
I don’t know what I thought running a TV network would be like, but I thought it would be more stressful than this.
The Networks: Primetime, Allplay’s new edition of Gil Hova’s 2016 The Networks, puts you in the C-suite of a television network, where you get to make all the big decisions. What shows to run, who to cast, and who to take on as an advertiser, it’s all up to you. Every round, players take turns buying cards that represent the various programs, actors, and advertisers from the market and programming their lineup.
You have three blocks of programming available, and different shows attract different audience levels at different times. Law & Odor does its best work for the network during the Daytime, filling up slots left and right while you reap the advertising revenue. Quiver yearns for the attention of Primetime. American Samurai Warrior is better suited to Late Night, when all the inebriated college students get home and need something to veg out in front of.
Your actors and advertisers too are best suited to particular types of programs. You’re welcome to cast the Cult Sci-Fi Star in anything you want—you are the boss, after all—but she is going to earn you significantly more viewers if you cast her in a Sci-Fi show. Ads for Seismic SUVs bring in a lot more revenue if you slot them in during a sporting event. These sorts of things are the puzzle of The Networks, such as it is, trying to synergize all of your cards into a powerful programming block.
In order to produce a show, you have to be able to pay for it, and you have to have whatever combination of name actors and advertisers it calls for. Star Jaunt needs either a big star or an advertiser, while Normal Stuff requires a star. You can’t pick up the show unless you already have the other requirements. This is where The Networks finds what modest player interaction there is. I might notice that you’re well-equipped to run four seasons of Dawson’s Reek, a show for which I have a less ideal slot, but hey, denying you viewers is just as good as getting myself viewers in the long run, right?
As shows run, their viewership ebbs and flows. Actors gain and lose appeal. Hot new scripts are always in development, trends are always being chased. A show may become too costly for your budget. You may reach a point when it’s more in your interest to cancel a show, to recast a lead, to change advertisers, and that’s all within your power.
As a system for decisions, The Networks: Primetime is perfectly alright. There’s neither anything wrong with it nor anything exemplary about it. It is at its strongest in the stories it suggests. “We’re replacing Socially Conscious Star with someone else, she’s costing us too much money and she’s alienating viewers.” “We are so excited to announce our new partnership with the Wildlife Wrestling Federation (good joke) and sponsor Blast Radius Pure Sugar Cereal!” The game has an angle on television, capitalism, and fan culture, and it is at its unalloyed best when you let yourself drink that all in.
There’s a lot to be said for the mercenary thrill of dumping a failing actor for someone reaching their prime. But, for my groups at least, even those joys wore out fairly quickly. The problem, as I found it, is that The Networks: Primetime is a repetitive game, one without highs or lows. Your first turn feels an awful lot like your last one. Number go up, score get bigger, sure, but it doesn’t feel different. Ten years ago, when this game was new, I suspect I would have liked it more. The theme still separates it from the herd, but it doesn’t quite get it over. Like much of cable TV, The Networks: Primetime is fine if you’re staying in a hotel and looking to kill time, but I think I’d rather read a book.
