Chip and Joanna Gaines revamped their content offerings this fall with an emphasis on family-friendly content. Not that the Gaineses ever produced programs that weren’t acceptable to children (unless we count some questionably dangerous choices made by Chip on the “Fixer Upper” construction sites), but that these new, unscripted titles were created specifically to to entertain all ages: a roller derby competition, a show comparing the skills of a human and a hamster, and a talent show for late-life performers.
“With streaming on Max, we saw this opportunity where we could create content that felt a little bigger and a little different than the shows we’ve built so far with our Magnolia Network, but that would create a space where families can come together watching,” Chip Gaines said. “Knowing that we have five kids, and the way people interact with their devices these days, everyone is always doing something in their own space, in their own time. And we just thought, what if we created content that brings people together?
In “Roller Jam,” which concluded its first season on Nov. 14, “Human vs. Hamster,” which debuted Nov. 21, “Second Chance Stage,” which comes out Thursday, and “Back to the Frontier,” which premieres next year, the Gaineses say they only have two real lines for the four new shows : ’emotional’ content that is family-friendly.
“You’ll find the range of emotions you experience as you watch all four episodes – ‘Roller Jam,’ thrilling – and I cried during those episodes too,” Joanna Gaines said. “It’s going back to that human emotion and feeling these things that are really special when you can feel those emotions with the people you love the most.”
Chip Gaines described the shows as “very different” from what viewers have come to expect from the “Fixer Upper” couple and what they have previously created for HGTV and now for their own Magnolia Network. And that means it’s still up in the air whether there will be more episodes of the shows in the future, until the Gaineses find out if this is what their audience wants as much as more “Fixer.”
“We really want these four shows to stand on their own two feet. If they make it, and the Max universe adapts to it and appreciates it and wants more of it, then we want to make more of it,” he said. “We’re eagerly awaiting the results of the shows and the ratings and how people interact with them and what people think about them. And once that data gets back into our ecosystem, we start making decisions. That’s how we do a lot of things. We take bold risks and make really risky moves. In all honesty, it’s an option for us to just say, okay, we’ll stick with this genre that we’re clearly already very comfortable with, which is the lifestyle space. Perhaps it is the place where we should actually stay and where we should continue to operate collectively. But Jo and I think something new is just around the corner. We are experimenting with what exactly that could be.”
But while they’re looking at fresh ideas for future projects, they’re also going back to the well with their staples: The Gaineses are currently working on ideas for their next special episode of “Fixer Upper,” which recently aired a season-focused episode. about renovating a lake house, and before that they followed by converting an actual castle near their hometown of Waco, Texas, and then redesigning a hotel that they now operate.
“We’re struggling with some ideas,” Joanna Gaines said. “Today is a fun day because we have a brainstorming meeting. Renovation is something we’re always doing, whether the cameras are on or off, and so it’s more about, what’s going to be a great story to tell? It is a current question. We don’t know which one yet, but we certainly dream about the future.”
Before whatever next “Fixer Upper” airs, the Gaineses will debut the fourth and final show in their first wave of Max family content: “Back to the Frontier.” And this one actually hits pretty close for the Gaineses, in that these contestants—while trying to live historically accurate lives for the American frontier era—build their own houses, albeit with far fewer resources than Chip and Jo usually have. at their disposal.
“The families were so cute because we were two-thirds of the way through the whole process. And when we entered their universe, these families said, ‘Come in here, look at my kitchen! Look at my room!’ And then we’re talking about cabins. These are just barns,” Chip Gaines said. “But these kids and these families, because they had been there for weeks and weeks and weeks now, they didn’t really see it that way. They remembered all the hard work they had to do to get that wall upright, or to get the roof up, or to get it leaking, or to keep out the winter, the cool air, and they experimented with all these versions. of insulation. I was so proud and so overwhelmed. According to Jo, you get a little emotional because they show you something that almost looks like a child. It’s very healing and simple, but as proud as they are of it, it was like we had invented a rocket that could take us to Mars and back.”