Boring People Should Be Tortured
How many times have we seen people on Big Brother or The Real World literally just lying around doing absolutely nothing? It's dull and a waste of time. In HG, when the contestants are hiding out and not creating captivating television, the masterminds of the game find ways to put killer bees or walls of fire into play to keep the competitors on their toes and on the run. I'd pay money to watch Julie Chen electrically zap people if they slept more than six hours a day.

Actual Survival Skills Should Be Needed
Before the HG kids are sent into the games, they receive a great deal of training on how to shoot, make fires, set traps, find berries, etc... If the folks on Survivor actually had to find a way to survive, without the benefit of shipped-in rice, nearby medics and reward challenges, it would make things a whole lot more interesting. It would put a new shift in alliances and force people to be more aggressive. The Colony has elements of this, but they do still have supplies around to work with.

Lives Should Be at Stake
Okay, not literal lives, but one of the reasons HG is so compelling is that the players aren't just competing for the fame and fortune that they are assured of if they win the game, but also for their very existence... not to mention that their loved ones are also in danger if they don't play by the rules. At the very least, our reality TV losers should be told that they will not be given their own reality show or Us Weekly covers if they don't prevail. Imagine how motivating that would be!

Random Lottery to Get Contestants
Right now, the majority of reality TV is filled up with aspiring actors/actresses or just general famewhores desperate to make a buck. It is the rare show that has actual, genuine people. And on all of these shows, the contestants are quite willing to do anything in order to win because they've given up their morals along the way. But if the contestants were plucked from a random sampling of the population, we might get a very different mix of contestants. Like people who might take issue with selling out their newfound friends for cash, for instance.

Need to Impress Audiences to Win Prizes
HG has a unique spin on the concept of sponsorship, wherein the the contestants who are fighting for their lives have to look glamorous and be very aware of how their actions are being perceived by the public in order to get folks back home to shell out big bucks to send them care packages of weapons, tools and medicine while they're playing the game. You can't just be a hateful beast and still get the supplies you need to make it to the end. If people on The Hills had to really work for their Patron tequila and True Religion apparel, it would have been a much livelier show.

Assigned Showmances
In HG, two contestants who have been randomly thrown together essentially have to feign that they love each other in order to curry favor with the audience and avoid having to kill each other at the end of the game. Recently, a version of this idea was put into motion by Kovacs on Bachelor Pad: he really doesn't seem to like Elizabeth, but he's aware that he needs her in order to further himself in the game. We need to see more of that sort of creative conniving.

Set People on Fire
Much like the Olympics opening ceremonies, the Hunger Games in the books have a showcase component before the big event, where the players are paraded around in the most over-the-top ridiculous costumes you can imagine. What makes it exciting is that the designers are always trying to outdo themselves for their own ends, so comfort isn't even a thought and igniting a dress on fire is perfectly acceptable. This kind of thing might actually make Project Runway's extra half hour tolerable.

Make Everyone More Attractive
Let's call this the Susan Boyle effect, but imagine it at work on younger people. In HG, the lottery "winners" have to go through an extreme makeover in order to look more pleasing to the demanding viewers and potential sponsors. I'm not talking about just fake breasts and gross hair extensions, but actual head-to-toe physical transformations. You know who needs that? Just about everyone on America's Got Talent. Even you, Prince Poppycock.

Drunken Mentors
In HG, the players (or "tributes") from each community are assigned a former winner as a mentor, and since most of these veteran competitors have been completely mentally destroyed by their stints in the twisted game, many of them have turned to drinking or drugs. They're like Don Draper in his recent dark days: still brilliant, but barely able to put a sentence together without heaving. I'd be down with a drunk (or even a sober) Richard Hatch doling out advice to the Survivor newbies on how to win that game.

Have you read the books? Other ideas? Feel free to suggest them below.

What the hell is the story with Prince Poppycock from America's Got Talent? Find out.

See what Jimmy Johnson had to say about being a Survivor castaway.

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