Television review: ‘Top Shot’ on the History Channel

One day, in the possibly not so far future, anything that you can do that I can do better, or that I can do that you can do better, or anyone can do better than somebody else, will have been made into a television show. Every profession, any pursuit — all you’ll have to do is add “Top” or “Project” to it and you’ll have created another reality competition: “Top Undertaker,” “Project Unicycle,” I could sit here all day making up these things. (Indeed, I believe that people do.) In some ways it’s better than actually watching television.

“The Next Great Reality Show” — I am going to have to write that one down.

Meanwhile, there is “Top Shot,” which I did not make up and which debuts Sunday on the History Channel. It is your usual stressful-dormitory elimination show, with 16 players to start and a $100,000 prize at the end but with guns and the sort of people who are good at shooting them. (Other weapons will be shot as well.) Given that this is already a sport, or a variety of sports, it’s not a particularly long conceptual leap to this show; what makes it novel, from the gun angle, at least, is that the shooters have to live together and continually reflect on whatever just happened, or is about to. They have to have feelings.

Viewers who know their blunderbuss from a Winchester and who understand the technical elements obviously will be more richly rewarded here, but it’s easy enough to get into the spirit of the thing — even if you (as I) harbor no particular or even general affection for firearms — because what the players are doing is patently difficult, and they do it well. (Some of them are famous in their world.) And given a cast of even moderately differing characters, a little back story and a contest, it is nearly impossible not to root for some of them against others.

If it is less colorful or creative than “Project Runway” or “Top Chef,” a decent amount of drama is edited in, and the producers try to keep things visually lively with obstacle courses and exploding targets. Host-narrator Colby Donaldson, who was himself a contestant on “Survivor: The Australian Outback,” keeps his delivery dialed to macho. Time is made a factor to keep the pressure on, and unfamiliar weapons take contestants out of their comfort zone. (The series’ first challenge involves rifles associated with the First World War, Second World War, Korea and Vietnam.) Still, the shooting itself is relatively static — you have to keep still to do it right — and everyone does it more or less the same way.

The cast is relatively homogenous as well — it is mostly white and, with one exception, male — although it does represent a range of ages and accents and the usual mix of hubris and humility. Still, none of these characters is what you’d call, you know, fabulous, not even the guy in the cowboy hat. There is not a Christian Siriano among them.

“Five minutes to 9?” says one, back at the house, as the evening winds down. “No wonder I’m so tired.”

robert.lloyd@latimes.com