The annual ranking of Western television series adapted from books has been moved out of the studio and onto open range, with every panelist required to ride in on horseback for the taping, producers confirmed on Tuesday.
Production staff said the change was adopted after the first two rounds of judging were held seated, which the programme's executive editor described as «the single greatest failure of seriousness in the history of this format.» Ten corrals were leased on the outskirts of the city, and a stable was converted from a former parking garage to house forty-two saddled mares for the panel and their guests.
Each entry in the ranking will now be introduced by a rider who reads the source novel aloud from the saddle while crossing a river at a walk. Crews said the first episode required three hundred metres of temporary fencing to keep spectators from being trampled by critics dismounting in the wrong order.
The network has also instructed its writers to adopt a frontier schedule: broadcasts will begin at sunrise, and any segment that runs past noon must be continued the following morning by the same riders. A written guide distributed to staff says that anyone who refuses to dismount for a commercial break will be assigned to the next season's wagon train.
The editor told reporters that the ten-episode ranking would conclude with a single, unbroken shot of the final rider reaching the studio door. «We have tested it,» the editor said. «The door is wide enough.»