Such is the scenario that characterized this year’s cycle of general election presidential debates. In their three joint appearances Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump appeared to be playing two separate, incompatible games. For Clinton the debates were an exercise in competitive political communication. This is terrain with which she is familiar, something she has a knack for. For Trump the debates were a form of reality television, in which the objective is to wipe out your opponent by any means necessary: insults, threats, hissy fits, facial contortions, physical intimidation.

As a viewing experience, this year’s debates came across as abnormally unsatisfying — not to mention downright dissonant. What made this particular pas de deux feel so weird? In large measure the strangeness can be attributed to the conflict that surfaced between television genres: Clinton stepped onstage ready to engage in a Nixon-Kennedy debate, the way she had debated Rick Lazio and Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders. Trump stepped onstage as the finalist in a high-stakes reality show, hoping he would not be voted off the island.

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For more than 50 years, the accepted norms of presidential debate meant that all participants operated according to the same ground rules. A few exceptions have cropped up along the way: the unorthodox performances of Ross Perot and James Stockdale in 1992, Bob Dole snarling his way through the 1976 vice presidential joust, Sarah Palin deploying memorized sound bites in 2008 to mask an almost total lack of policy knowledge. But never before have we witnessed two candidates enter the arena with incompatible visions of what presidential debates are supposed to be. Watching this year’s debates was like watching two different TV shows from two different genres being edited together in real time.

In retrospect, this clash of cultures should not have come as a surprise. From the very first question in the very first Republican primary debate, Trump made it clear that he would approach these events not as a politician but as an entertainer. The 24 million viewers who tuned in to that debate — and the high ratings for subsequent matches — seemed to validate Trump’s framing of the debates as programming equally at home on the WWE Network and C-SPAN. Trump used the primary debates to dismantle his competition by biting their heads off on live TV — great theater, and so much less boring than swapping policy ideas.

But that same disregard for convention could not withstand the rigors of a general election debate. What succeeded for Trump in the primaries backfired in one-on-one, 90-minute debates, where his guerrilla tactics were no match for Clinton’s relentless carpet-bombing. Undergirding the Clinton-Trump series was a battle over who would define the playing field: Would the debates play out in Hillary’s preferred Kennedy-Nixon mode, or in Donald’s world of reality TV? If Trump could successfully navigate a major political rite of passage, would he seem presidential, or would he ultimately remain a figure of show business?

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Early in their first encounter it became obvious that Clinton’s vision would prevail. Trump’s absence of a strategic plan and blatant lack of preparation allowed his opponent to land one blow after another: Undermining his business prowess. Invoking Rosie O’Donnell. Dredging up Miss Universe. Instead of accepting his loss and hunkering down for a comeback — the way Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Obama did after bad first debates — Trump at first denied that he had lost, then blamed that loss on everything and everybody but himself: a defective microphone, an unfair moderator, a “rigged” debate commission. All of this amounted to the trash-talk of a professional wrestler. In Trump’s mind, he probably did win — indeed, he declared himself the winner of the first, second and third debates. Ratings were historically high, and he earned a huge amount of coverage. But this again underscores the degree to which Clinton and Trump were playing two separate games.

Trump’s reality show ethos most strongly manifested itself in the town hall, the ugliest joint appearance between two party nominees in the 56-year history of presidential debates. Consider the candidate’s decision to bring a bevy of Clinton accusers to the town hall debate. For Trump, the four women functioned as supporting cast members, hired for the express purpose of shaking up the plot and scaring the bejesus out of his on-screen rival. Their presence had no political value, but as show business it made perfect sense.

It is no coincidence that the town hall handed Clinton her worst debate of the series. Although she did not completely relinquish control, the town hall felt a lot more like a Trump production than a Clinton production. Even when she attempted to physically isolate herself from her co-star, he planted himself in her camera shots. The only thing Trump lacked was a lucha libre mask.

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Clinton regained her footing in the third encounter, which returned the players to the familiar contours of the TV debate genre. Trump even attempted to observe the rules — at least for the first 30 minutes — when his opponent reignited her strategy of baiting him into flare-ups. By the time moderator Chris Wallace elicited the now-infamous “I will keep you in suspense” moment, Trump had fully regressed into reality show bluster, willing to say anything as long as it made for good programming. Unfortunately, good programming doesn’t make for good politics. Trump has suffered in the polls since the debates began.