The latest brand new series for the WWE Network—WWE Photo Shoot—debuted tonight with a double dose of episodes featuring The Miz and Cesaro.
Is it worth watching, or is it something that I think should just be ignored in favor of doing something better with your time?
Keep in mind that this is all just my own perspective and since we all have different tastes and expectations, your point of view may vary.
At a quick glance, this is the type of show WWE seems to be really trying to focus on, wherein it costs virtually nothing to produce as it revolves entirely around setting up a camera pointed at someone who just talks for a little bit.
Sometimes, that’s all you need to create a decent enough program to watch. Other times, it can be very frustrating that WWE merely slaps a new logo on the screen and tries to pretend that it’s some revolutionary new concept (ie, Straight from the Source vs. Unfiltered vs. tell-all specials)
Thankfully, this is a case of the former, in my mind.
This didn’t feel as manufactured as some of the interview-based shows tend to be, where I can’t help but feel like there was an outline of topics set ahead of time and easy soft-ball questions lobbed toward someone to set up a particular joke or anything of the sort.
In this show, The Miz and Cesaro (and presumably everyone else who will follow suit) are shown pictures from their career’s past and they walk down memory lane in any way they are inclined to bring up.
Of course, we don’t know if this is super heavily edited to ignore some of the gut reactions and first responses or that they aren’t supplemented with questions to set up potential talking points, but it feels a bit more natural to me to have someone see a picture and react to it rather than simply be told to talk about a particular subject.
For instance, The Miz talking about how he “had to fight” for the Hollywood gimmick could be an interesting story to dive into more detail later down the line that he only touched on here. That was something I figured was more of a WWE concoction rather than an idea Miz brought to the table.
Similarly, Cesaro laughing at the way he used to look with long hair back during his indie days was a good response that we all have had when going through old pictures, wondering how we ever thought we looked cool. The Miz did just the same with his former ring gear of the shorts and suspenders.
If future episodes follow this same format, they’ll be rather quick installments that aren’t really taking up too much of our time, but can give us some interesting insights regarding some of our favorite performers, sitting down and just opening up the same as they would if they took out a family photo album and started to explain what was going on.
I can definitely see a scenario where people are frowning upon this, wanting more out of the WWE Network than just variations of interviews over and over again, but as far as I’m concerned, this is one of the more interesting versions of that basic structure that they’ve put out recently.
See it or skip it? = See it.
In particular, if someone you’re especially a fan of comes onto the show for a future edition, you should definitely check it out. After spending 3 hours watching Monday Night Raw and being able to skip a good portion of that, I’m fairly certain 20 minutes won’t make or break your day, and if it does, there’s always the option to log in another time to check it out later on in the week.
What did you think of the debut episodes of WWE Photo Shoot? Does it pass your test of a recommendation, or do you think this is another failed attempt for the WWE Network that you’re hoping gets cancelled after season one?
Continue the discussion by dropping your thoughts in the comments section below!
