We Don’t Deserve This

Over the years we all seen our fair share of game shows. There are the classics, like Jeopardy and Wheel Of Forturne, flashes in the pan like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, The Weakest Link, and Deal Or No Deal, and show that were – in one way or another – duds. Million Dollar Money Drop, Show Me The Money (starring William Shatner), and of course Downfall (the one where if you don’t answer the questions in time your prizes – and in some circumstances your friend, and you – get dropped off a ten story building). In my opinion the new ABC series, You Deserve It, which debuted on Monday following a one hour episode of Dancing With The Stars, falls into the dud category.

The hook for You Deserve It (because every good game show needs a hook whether it’s answering in the form of a question or dropping the prizes off the side of a building) is that the players aren’t actually playing for themselves but for some person – or I suppose some organization though that isn’t clear – that the player thinks “deserves” the money. In the series premiere the woman who was playing the game was playing to benefit her best friend since college, a widowed mother of two young children whose husband drowned while diving. The woman was faced with bills that needed to be paid particularly health insurance (I’d like to point out that if she were Canadian she wouldn’t have to worry about that). The beneficiary of the game – who doesn’t know that she’s the beneficiary – is sequestered (in this case she and her kids went, or were taken, to a movie).

The show opens with host Chris Harrison (better known as the host of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette) introducing the player of the game and showing a tear-jerking piece about what makes the beneficiary deserving. Then the player, who is accompanied by some of the people who appeared in the introductory piece starts to play the game. I should mention here that the people who are with the player play absolutely no part in the actual play of the game. They’re entirely there for moral support.

The gameplay itself is pretty basic. The game has five rounds of increasing value: $10,000, $25,000, $50,000, $100,000 and $250,000. There are three types of questions: Who, What, and Where. In each round the player has to identify the person, place or thing to win money. If they give the wrong answer they don’t get money for that round but do carry on to the next round. The player is given one “Free” clue. There are nine other clues available but each clue has a price. There are nine prices for clues, which are randomly assigned to numbers from 1 to 9. Each time a player decides to buy a clue after the “Free Clue” (which is so general as to be virtually useless; in one case the Free Clue was “White Collar” from which the player was supposed to deduce “Santa Claus”) they give a number. The value that has been assigned to that number is then deducted from the prize that the player is able to win. So, for example in the $250,000 round, if the player picks “8” first and “8” has a dollar value of $75,000, the maximum the Player can win is $175,000. So while theoretically the player can win $435,000 for the person they’re trying to help the reality is that they will win significantly less. The total of the nine levels is the same amount as that round’s value so if someone uses all nine clues in a round they’d get nothing. Needless to say the best policy is for the player to have an answer by the eighth clue.

Meanwhile the show’s other host, Brooke Burns (who I at least remember fondly from when she hosted Dog Eat Dog on NBC a few years back) hangs around the place where the beneficiary is being sequestered with more friends who are rooting for the player. That’s all she does for the first 50 or so minutes of the show (including commercials. In this particular episode she stands in the lobby of the theater with the beneficiary’s friends and introduces shots of the woman in the movie theater watching the movie with her kids and eating popcorn. At one point she “sneaks” up into the projection booth to do one of these intros, leading one to ask “Why?” But surely you say she comes into her own when the game ends right? Well not quite. Once the final round of the game is over and the audience knows how much has been won for the beneficiary, Burns leads the group of friends in the lobby into the theater, where the film is stopped and she reveals that they’re with You Deserve It and that there’s a special message for her from… Chris Harrison and the player projected onto the movie screen. That’s pretty much all that Brooke Burns has to do on the show.

I really don’t like the mechanics of this show. The random nature of how much is taken from the pot for each round is straight out of Deal Or No Deal but in this situation it really doesn’t feel “right” somehow. There is no linkage between the amount lost in each round and the quality of the clue that is given. Which is a problem when the first three clues are just about as useless as the "”Free Clue.” Still I guess I could forgive this in the name of randomness if it weren’t for the fact that I believe that for the most part players are going to be more cautious in taking a guess when they’re playing to win money for someone that that they have an emotional connection to than they might if they were playing to win money for themselves. The woman who played the game in the first episode averaged about six clues before she ventured an answer even though in a couple of cases she had the answer (or maybe should have had the answer) earlier. Then there were the friends who were with the player. They needed more of a role in this game than simply cheering the player on. For one thing they really didn’t get much chance to even fulfill that role. For another thing, these people could be a valuable resource for the player. There was at least one question where I could see one of the people (the beneficiary’s father-in-law) knew the answer a couple of clues before the player knew the answer. Even interviewing the friends about the beneficiary between rounds would have been better – particularly if that cut down on the segments of Brooke Burns doing nothing.

But my real problem with the show is tied to the very nature of the show. It is maudlin, mawkish and self congratulatory. It embodies all of those things that I came to dislike and then hate about ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Yes, I know that the people who participate on this show on behalf of their friends are sincere in their desire to help their friends. I just don’t like the way that this show goes about it. Chris Harrison comes across as particularly unctuous in this, and I can form no opinion of Brooke Burns because quite frankly I can’t see what she contributed to this show. I can’t even say that ABC has even a portion of its heart in the right place because this show has enough of being a cynical ratings grab that I find it off-putting. And based on the ratings, which lost a large percentage of the Dancing With The Stars finale lead-in and which were lower than the rating for the show that followed it (Castle), it would seem that the viewing public didn’t care much for the show either. With Dancing With The Stars off the air until March and “encore programming” (repeats) leading into it until it ends its run, expect the ratings for this mess to sink even lower. It is likely that You Deserve It will complete it’s intended six-week lifespan no matter how low the ratings go, if only because ABC doesn’t have anything that they can replace it with. If we’re all very lucky we won’t be seeing it again.

Downfall Falls Down For Me

There are things that I give ABC credit for. One of those things is doing new series during the summer. Some of these shows are scripted dramas, some are reality shows – a few masquerading as "News" programs – and some are game shows. One of their most popular game shows over the past few summers has been Wipeout. In the last two years that show was partnered with something called I Survived A Japanese Game Show. ABC cancelled I Survived A Japanese Game Show for this summer and replaced it with a new all-American game show called Downfall. After watching the first episode of Downfall I found myself wishing wistfully for I Survived A Japanese Game Show to come back and replace this mess. After watching the second episode of Downfall I found myself wishing that ABC would bring a real Japanese game show on – with or without translation – to replace Downfall. This show is such a blot on the TV landscape that the prospect of people cheering wildly about a game whose rules I couldn't even pretend to understand that give prizes I don't know the value of would be preferable.

Downfall, hosted by professional wrestler Chris Jericho, is a show with a pretty basic skeleton and a gimmick. The skeleton is pretty simple. There's a ladder structure in which players compete for increasing amounts of money by answering questions. The higher the amount of money available to be won the more questions you have to answer. For $5,000 you have to answer four questions; for $10,000, five questions, for $25,000 six questions and so on. Each level also has physical prizes, ranging from popcorn machines and poker tables to big screen TV, large appliances, and cars. These can be lost as time passes. There are seven rungs on the ladder with a top prize of $1,000,000, and players who reach the $25,000 level are guaranteed that amount of money pluc any prizes they've won to that point in time. There is an effective time limit for each set of questions. There are nine sets of questions on different categories because if player find themselves running out of time they can push "The Panic Button" which will stop the "clock" at the expense of losing any surviving physical prizes at this level. The player gets a chance to play for the money at the level by risking either a personal possession or their "Panic Partner," usually a spouse or a family friend (although the first competitor picked her husband's naval CO who had put him on a deployment before the show).The possession or person may or may not be saved while the player wins the money. That by the way is why there are nine sets of questions even though there are only seven rungs on the prize ladder. The player can leave the game at the start of any level but if they run out of time at any stage – whether they've used their two Panic Buttons or not – they leave the game.

That's the skeleton, and let's admit that it is a skeleton that has become common on just about every game show, including that primetime show that Drew Carey did and the most recent version of Password. Now let's get to the gimmick. The show is shot on the top of a ten story building, although they insist on describing it as a skyscraper. There isn't a clock. Instead there's a conveyor belt, and the prizes are placed on the conveyor belt, with the prize money at the farthest end of the conveyor belt. A the end of the conveyor belt is a sort of chute or ramp to clear the building. When Chris Jericho starts asking questions the conveyor belt moves forward. When the prize – which is actually a full sized replica of the real prize – reaches the end of the conveyor belt it falls onto the chute/ramp and thence to ground 100 feet below. Spectacular results occur when you've got fluids, like bottled water, a giant cup of coffee, or cans of paint flying though the air and smashing to the ground. When the player puts a personal object on the conveyor belt it's at risk in the same way that the prizes that the show provides are. If you don't answer the questions over it goes. If the object is something you don't particularly like – like a man who put a particularly ugly Christmas clock that his wife loved and he hated – you might be tempted to blow off the questions until object goes over the side. Similarly the "Panic Partner" is put on the conveyor belt – they're in a harness with a safety line – and they can go over the side as well. It's not like a bungee jump but more like being lowered. Finally, if the player runs out of time, signified by the fake show money falling off the conveyor belt and fluttering to the ground, that person gets lifted up – they too are in a harness, as is Chris Jericho although his harness is designed to keep him from "accidentally" stepping over the side of the building – swung out over the side and dropped off the building.

Downfall is a
lousy game show. There is nothing original or innovative in the game play. The gimmick is just that, a gimmick and frankly one that, even when you know that the prizes are replicas and studio props and not real cars or dining room sets or aquariums still seems insultingly wasteful. The less said about Chris Jericho as host the better. He may be a charismatic wrestler, but as a game show host he's no Wink Martindale, or even – dare I say it – a William Shatner. (Well maybe close to Shatner but in terms of game show hosting, being close to Shatner is no compliment.) But I think that the worst thing you can say any game show is something that you have to say about this show: it is B-O-R-I-N-G. There have been no changes to the basic skeleton of the game that would give it greater interest over the general run of uses of this skeleton. The gimmick is fun to see once or twice but after repeated viewings simply becomes repetitive and annoying. And the host tries to compensate for having a significant deficiency in charisma (in this venue) by displaying a lot of energy. It doesn't compensate for the lack of charisma however, it only serves to annoy.

By comparison, consider I Survived a Japanese Game Show. The basic skeleton was taken from Survivor and Big Brother (a group of people isolated in a house and essentially marooned in an unfamiliar environment – Tokyo rather than a deserted island) and they have to face reward and elimination challenges. But the skeleton has been given an interesting change with the location and the nature of the challenges. The gimmick too has changed. The contestants didn't face major physical and endurance challenges; the Reward and Elimination challenges were quite frankly good clean goofy dirty fun. Even the Eliminations, featuring the insane Elimination Squad were hilarious. And host Rome Kanda was no Jeff Probst. The format didn't call for one, it called for a typically unctuous game show host and that's what Kanda (an actor) gave us. I Survived A Japanese Game Show gave us far more imagination than I suspect the producers of Downfall even possess.

Please ABC, send Chris Jericho and this show to a well deserved "retirement" and bring back I Survived A Japanese Game Show.

Beat The Clock – 2010 Style

If you're as old as I am – somewhat younger than dirt but older than some of the hills, at least in my neighbourhood – you will probably remember an old TV game show called Beat The Clock. The premise of Beat The Clock was incredibly simple. Contestants had to perform a simple task or a stunt within a certain time limit. Of course the task always involved a twist, like you had to stuff ten balloons into a pair of oversized pants, but you had to do it while wearing boxing gloves. If you succeeded you won some money. It wasn't a lot of money – usually around $100 or $200 – but the major thing was being on TV. When I was watching Beat The Clock it was as old as the hills; the original version of the show debuted in 1950, and while the first version ended in 1961 a second version, made in Montreal debuted in 1969. I bring up Beat The Clock because 60 years after that show debuted a new series called Minute To Win It has debuted on NBC in which people perform an assortment of party games for money.

The basic elements of Beat The Clock are found in Minute To Win It. Contestants are given stunts to perform within a given time limit. While the time limit in Beat The Clock often varied, on Minute To Win It the time is obvious – one minute. But the stunts are pretty much the same. On Sunday's episode one contestant had to move three cotton balls from a bowl full of cotton balls... using only his nose. He first had to dip his nose into some Vaseline and then putting his nose into the pile of cotton balls to pick one up. Too little Vaseline on his nose could let the cotton ball drop off before he reached the other side of the stage, while too much would make it extremely difficult to get the cotton ball off of his nose.

There a some significant differences from Beat The Clock of course. Most are made to conform to the modern vision of game shows. Instead of contestants having to complete a single task for a set amount of money (in the old show it was about $100, and in some versions there was the option for the most successful players of the day to come back for another task for more money) there is a "ladder" system by which a contestant who completes a task for a sum of money can either take that money and leave or do another, more complex task for a higher amount of money. In theory at least a player can win $1 million, although the highest I've seen is $125,000. And while a contestant on Beat The Clock had only one chance to complete his task, contestants on Minute To Win It have three "mulligans" or "do-overs" (in this game called "lives") over the period of the game to do tasks. So, if a contestant fails to stack three golf balls on top of each other without any sort of mechanical aid (which a contestant on Sunday was able to do – I've only been able to do two) the first time he gets another chance (and if he has the lives left, another and another). Contestants who fail to complete their tasks and run out of lives go down to base levels. If they haven't reached the $50,000 level they get nothing; if they're above the $50,000 level when they use up their last life they win $50,000. And of course they have the opportunity to quit and take their money, but not if they've tried and failed and still have lives left.

Minute To Win It has done a very interesting thing with their games. All of the games use common household items – coin, ping pong balls, cookies, golf balls, and so on – and the producers have posted video instructions for the games online so that viewers can try the games. They are encouraging viewers to submit videos of them performing the various stunts. In addition to open casting calls for people in the Los Angeles area, and e-mails to the casting department, the show is accepting those video submissions as a way to audition for the show.

Minute To Win It is hosted by LA restaurateur and Food Network star Guy Fieri. He's hosted several shows for that network, most notable Diners Drive-Ins And Dives. Minute To Win It is a major departure for him, but his energy and personality make it work. He's a bit off the wall but this sort of show needs someone who is personable and energetic. It wouldn't work with a host like Howie Mandel (Deal Or No Deal) or Regis Philbin (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?). The show isn't a static production where a host can stand or sit behind a table or desk. Fieri talks to contestants wherever they are in the playing area, but then usually has to back off while they are performing the task. He does manage to keep a high energy doing commentary for the various tasks and keeping the viewers interested.

A major difference between the old Beat The Clock and Minute To Win It is in production values. I'm not sure that the change is for the better. The set for the show is what you might want to call a generic "game show modern." The playing area is a circle in the center of the set which is set up in a faux theatre in the round style, so that we always see the audience. Everything is done in black except the railings around the playing area which are in chrome, or something resembling chrome, and underlit with blue neon lights. There are big projections screens above the audience which sometimes convey information but more often are used to create the impression that there is a second tier to the audience. The player receives his instructions, called the blueprint for the stunt because it is drawn rather than photographed or shown in video, on a large screen. The blueprint is presented by a female, apparently British voice, which seems at time to be mimicking a computerized voice rather than a real woman. The whole thing is more than a bit overproduced.

One area where there is a problem is in resetting the stage. Frequently, when a task is completed the playing area is more than a bit messy. And because of the theatre in the round style of the set there is no moving to a different area of the set while the one that was most recently used is being set up for a future task. Consequently there are times when Fieri introduces the blueprint for the next task amidst the detritus of the task that has just been completed, and when the blueprint is completed the set is miraculously cleaned up and set up for the next task, a chore that obviously could not be completed in the time that it took the blueprint to run. The result is sometimes rather unsettling, particularly when they set up the new stunt and then break for commercial before the contestant starts the next task. For me this makes the editing more than a bit choppy and it can come across as a bit amateurish.

Minute To Win It is not doing well in the ratings with the episode on March 21^st drawing 5.16 million viewers and a 1.8/5 rating in the 18-49 demographic. That put it into fourth place for the first half hour and third place for the second when it beat the animated Cleveland Show on Fox. It did not beat time slot winner The Amazing Race or the more than somewhat cloying Extreme Makeover Home Edition. I certainly can't disagree with the results. While the show has more than a few fun moments, and the challenges are something everyone can try, they don't hold a candle to the scenery and experiences on The Amazing Race or the deliberately heart-tugging stories that make up Extreme Makeover Home Edition. While I scarcely regard Minute To Win It as original or compelling TV, I have seen worse game shows – remember The Singing Bee, or that series that Shatner hosted Show Me The Money – and even worse scripted shows. This show just doesn't seem like a real contender for the Sunday night time slot and totally doesn't fit with either its lead-in, the news magazine Dateline or the show that follows it Celebrity Apprentice. I'm afraid that the show would do well in the sink hole that Friday night has become on every network except CBS, but maybe a better alternative would be for the show to enter syndication as a daytime game show. The show is pleasant enough, has the right type of host, and I think if it could find the right audience it would do reasonably well. The problem is that it isn't going to find that audience in the Sunday night time slot it now occupies.

Here's a clip of one of the blueprints for a stunt on the show.

Hole In The Wall Was A Hole In My Night.

I wasted half an hour on Sunday night watching FOX's new game show Hole In The Wall. It gave me a headache. When the show stopped so did the headache. Draw your own conclusions.

Or better yet, I'll draw one for you, and use just two words and an exclamation point to do so – It sucked!

Of course you knew it would. Marc Berman talked about this show in his Programming Insider podcast and stated that it seemed like "summer fare" with respect to Marc, he's undervaluing summer shows. I'd rather watch most of them than Hole In The Wall.

Ah, you may ask, but what makes this show so awful? After all you've probably watch the YouTube clips from Japan and other places of "Human Tetris" and laughed yourself silly. This is the same thing, so why doesn't it work? There are a lot of parts to the answer but what it really comes down to is this; a ten minute clip on YouTube in a language that you don't understand showing an event that you don't know the rules of is far different than a half hour show in a language that you understand and rules that you get. And there are plenty of annoying things in addition to that.

The show is hosted by Mark Thompson who is the local weather and lifestyles reporter at FOX's LA affiliate KTTV and has worked for the network in a number of other network reality shows as well as some acting work. The floor reporter is actress Brooke Burns who may be best known for appearing on Baywatch but was also the host of the NBC series Dog Eat Dog a few years ago. There's not much for either one of them to do. Brooke gets to talk to the contestants for a few moments who are in two three person teams. Not that the contestants on the first episode had much to say – mostly they stood around posing taunting the other team. And really she had more to do than Thompson whose principal role was to explain the number of holes (and therefore the number of people who would be participating). There's not much more to the roles of either host.

As I mentioned the game involves two teams of three. The members of each team are linked by common occupations or interests. In the first episode there was one team of body builders called "The Six Packs" and one team of overweight radio station employees called "The Beer Bellies." There are four rounds to the game before a final grand prize round for the team that earned the most points in the preliminary rounds. In the first round one person had to fit through a hole cut in a moving Styrofoam wall. If he (the first episode had two teams of men although supposedly subsequent episodes will pit men against women) made it through he got one point for his team; if he didn't he got dunked in a pool. Then a player from the other team faced a different opening. In the "Double Wall Round" the other two players on each team had to try to fit through one or two holes. Of both players did it they earned two points for their team, although it wasn't made clear in the introduction to the round what would happen if only one made it through (apparently the team wouldn't get any points). In the Triple Wall Round" all three team members had to pass through one or three holes. Finally, in the "Speed Round" all three members of each team participate, trying to pass through holes in the wall which is moving towards the team members at twice the normal speed. In this round, if some members of the team pass through a hole while the others fail, the team gets points equal to the number of players who get through. If all three players pass through the "Speed Wall" they win an extra $5,000. The team with the most points after the four rounds wins $25,000 (plus the $5,000 if they passed through the Speed Wall) and the chance to play in the grand prize round.

The grand prize round is known as the "Blind Wall." One member of the winning team is blindfolded (actually give a set of goggles to wear that don't admit light) and has to pass through a hole guided only by instructions from the other members of his team. If he manages to accomplish this, his team will add an extra $100,000 to their prize fund. Needless to say this seems close to impossible and "The Six Packs," who won the first show, failed miserably at it.

There were several things that I find annoying about this show. The sound seemed to be set up so that everything that the announcers and even the contestants said seemed to have a slight echo, like an announcer at a sporting event. The mugging, posing, and taunting by the various contestants was way over the top, particularly the supposedly "amusing" antics of the "Beer Bellies" who, given a chance to wear Spandex for the first – and hopefully last – time in their lives proceeded to give us shows of them wiggling their flab. And there was the audience who seemingly cheered and applauded this mess as though it were every play in a tight Super Bowl game. Presumably they were exhorted to do this by the producers because for the life of me I couldn't see anything that exciting in this mess.

In the end however I can't see much that's entertaining about this show. As I said, the YouTube clips were funny, almost certainly because we got them in small doses, and we didn't have a set of rules or anything that we understood about what was going on. The clips were just another example of one of those crazy Japanese game shows. Viewed with an understanding of what is going on it stops being funny and turns into something really stupid. Brooke Burns old series, Dog Eat Dog was far more engaging than this mess. About the only thing worse than a half hour of this show would be a whole hour of it. And before you laugh at that prospect, be aware that when FOX ordered this series they ordered thirteen hour long shows although it was done with the understanding that they could be split into twenty-six half-hour shows. For once I'm hoping that this mess will turn out to be a ratings disaster of the highest magnitude and that FOX will pull the trigger on it quickly. For all of our sakes.

Good...Not; Bad...Not

I'm not sure what I can say about Million Dollar Password. I didn't care for it but I'm not sure why. Or maybe I'm just not sure if I can articulate why I didn't care for it.

Let me clear one thing up first. My feelings about this show have nothing to do with the fact that it wasn't in Hi Def. Oh, to be sure it was an annoyance and it's something that I would have expected. After all, this is a studio based show not Survivor (which will be in HD; give me my Amazing Race in HD and I'll be a happy puppy) so you'd think that it would be easier for them to do the show in HD than it would be to do Survivor. But I am not an HD snob. I am not one of those people, like the guys on the forums of DigitalHome.ca who say they never watch anything if it isn't in HD (one of these guys also said that he didn't watch black & white movies because he doesn't like the way that the actors in black & white movies acted). It's an annoyance, and if I record it on the PVR from an HD station it takes up a lot more space than a similar recording from a non-HD digital or (shudder) an analog source, but that's all it is, an annoyance.

So what was it about the show that turned me off? I guess it's a number of things, some of which are things that bother me about a lot of the primetime game shows that are on the air or have been in the past couple of years. In this version of Password the players and the celebrities participate in a four round "front game." This is a major departure from previous versions of the show. Each set of players and celebrities is given a minute and a half to put together clues and answers for five words. In other words it's not a case of teams alternating with the same word and the winner getting points based on how many clues were used, as was the case in the original show. After each celebrity and each player has done two minute and a half sessions (one with the celebrity giving clues and one with the player giving clues), the players switch celebrities. The player with the highest number of correct words wins the front game and goes on to the part of the show that actually gives money, working with the celebrity with whom that player completed the most "correct word" combinations.

In the original Password this part would be called the "bonus session," but in truth this is where the "real" game (as I'm going to call it for the rest of this review) lies. Inevitably it is a "ladder system" where players complete steps along the way. There are six levels: $10,000, $25,000, $50,000, $100,000, $250,000, and $1,000,000. At each level the person giving clues has to get five correct answers from the person getting them within a minute and a half. Only three clues can be given per word, and at each level the number of words you can miss (by passing on the word, not getting a correct answer with three clues, or giving an invalid clue) is reduced. At the $10,000 level the player can miss up to five times – there are ten words available – while at the million dollar level the player has to be perfect. They can of course quit at any time and take the money, and there is a safety point at $25,000. If you make it to that level you cannot leave with less than $25,000.

In the episode that was seen on Sunday night, the two celebrity players were food expert and talk show host Rachel Ray, who claimed that she did a lot of talking with her hands which she knew was against the show's rules, and actor Neil Patrick Harris from How I Met Your Mother. It became apparent relatively quickly that Harris was the better celebrity player as both of the contestants who went past the qualifying "front game" earned the most points with Harris as their partner who got the clues and he failed both of them at the $100,000 level, and as I recall he got four out of the five right in each case. I suspect that this is key to being a good player – celebrity or "civilian – at this level of the contest, the ability to make connections quickly. I can't imagine either player who made it to the "real" game doing as well as they did with Rachel Ray as their partner.

Still I think this aspect is part of what left me dissatisfied by the show. While I have to confess that this may be the only episode of any version of Password that I have watched in its entirety (I did have a copy of the home game though) my sense is that the head to head confrontation was the meat and potatoes of the original series, and the bonus round – which varied depending on the version of the show – was just that, a bonus. In this version the head to head competition is less apparent because they aren't sharing words. The show has actually turned into a race, with players trying to give as many correct words as quickly as they can. The "real" game takes up about the same amount of time as the competitive game in this version.

Aspects of this show remind me of a number of other game shows that are either currently on or are fairly recent cancellations. The biggest of these is the "other" Drew Carey game show The Power Of Ten, where the entire point of the competitive game was to decide a participant for the "real" game. The ladder set-up for this side of things is similar to a lot of game shows, from The Power Of Ten to the second (or was it the third) revision to the rules of 1 vs 100 to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? And the truth is that I'd like something a little different. The beauty of the original, limited run, incarnation of Duel was that the head to head competition between the players actually meant something other than you qualified to go against the game. In that show there was strategy that had to be used to beat the other player – and even selecting your next opponent – and victory in duels built the pot. In Million Dollar Password I always had the sense that the part of the game that we all remember from the days of Allen Ludden, the part where players competed directly to get the secret word from the clues provided, seemed more like prologue than the important part.

In terms of production values, the show seemed typically overproduced. The set is huge, bigger by far than anything that Alan Ludden ever worked on. The players stand at Lucite lecterns and see the words they have to convey to their partner on small screens, rather than sitting at a desk and getting the clues in that little viewing box. Then, during the "real" game the celebrity and the civilian stand without any props on a circular platform that mysteriously rises up above the rest of the stage with what looks to be a "chase light" of the show name that runs along the side of the platform. That of course could just be a visual effect made to mimic a chase light. As for that host, it's Regis Philbin so what can you really say. To paraphrase one of the Peanuts specials, "of all the Regis Philbins in the world, he's the Regis Philbin-est." You know what you're getting with Reeg; you may not like it but you know what you're getting.

I suppose at the heart of my antipathy towards Million Dollar Password is the show's assumption of the storied name Password. On its own it is a perfectly serviceable little game show that's not going to set the world on fire but at the same time isn't the worst of its kind on the show (like for example Moment Of Truth. But it has that name, Password, attached to it and I suppose the memories of the show – even for someone who only know it by reputation – lead me at least to hope for more than what I got. Apparently – according to Media Week's Marc Berman (my source for ratings) – the show did well in the ratings with a 7.4 rating and a 13 share, easily winning the time slot on a weak, post-sweeps Sunday night, although Berman points out that the show seems to skew toward the older demographic. And I expect that it will continue to do well in the ratings. I just can't help wishing that it was better in some way that I can't really articulate.

I Wish I Could Forget This Show

A couple of weeks ago, when NBC Entertainment President Ben Silverman was discussing whether or not the network would renew Friday Night Lights he uttered a phrase which I hope to hell will come back to haunt him: "We're NBC. We've got a reputation to protect." Friday NBC cancelled one of my favourite shows on the network, Las Vegas and seems to be desperately shopping for another network partner to help pay for Friday Night Lights... or something. Meanwhile on Friday night, occupying the time slot previously occupied by Friday Night Lights (which won't be doing any more episodes this season at least, and maybe ever) is one of the shows that Ben Silverman is "protecting" the reputation of NBC with. It is called Amne$ia and after watching it I wish I had it. Amnesia that is; that way I could forget this steaming pile of ... something awful.

Amne$ia is a game show... allegedly. In essence you have a contestant who is asked questions about what I guess I'd call the trivia of his life. The show ran in three phases. The first is a lightning round in which the contestant has to answer up to seven questions in a minute and receives a thousand dollars for each correct answer. Next – in the first episode at least – someone from the contestant's past is brought on. The contestant is sent to a "sound proof booth" while host Dennis Miller interviews the person about particular events in the contestant's life, but not in too much detail of course. Once the interview is finished the guest is seated and the contestant asked a couple of trivia questions related to the person who has been brought out. It might be a question like the room number of the classroom where the contestant's father taught the contestant science. On the other hand the contestant might be asked to pick out the doormat of the family home where he left the house key for his brother from a selection of about a dozen mats. (The contestant in this case left the house key under the mat for his brother and then left a note on the door telling his brother that the key was under the mat.) A total of three guests are brought on for the contestant, each generating two or three questions. The amount of money for each question tied to a guest goes up with each guest. The first guest's questions are worth $2,500, the second guest's $5,000, and the third's $10,000. Once the questions tied to the third guest are asked, the three guests are each handed an envelope. In each of these is a question. This time around if the player gets the question wrong the value of the question is subtracted from the amount of money that the contestant has won. The contestant chooses one of the guests and Miller asks the question. The first question is worth $25,000, the second $50,000 and the third $100,000. The player can stop before any of these questions including the first. If the player loses all of his previous winnings, the game ends and he leaves with nothing.

This show is awful. In my book the game shows that work are the ones that are well paced, build drama effectively, and have a certain consistency about them. Having a good host helps a lot too but I'll get into that one shortly. Amne$ia fails on the first three counts. The pace was horrible, in that the entire episode was given over to a single contestant and the only point at which he could lose any money was in the last five to ten minutes. That pretty much cut out the idea of building dramatic tension too. There was no sense of jeopardy for the player which in turn meant that there was very little reason to ether identify with him or feel sympathy for him. Finally this show was all over the map stylistically. I mean I could see some of what they were intending. The lightning round was meant to build up the player's bankroll while the subsequent rounds seemed to be meant to make him work for the money. Part of the trouble was that while the stories that this contestant's three guests (his father who was also his former science teacher, his brother, and his wife) were asked about were amusing they stopped the action of the game dead and did so for little real purpose.

The single bright spot of this show was the host, Dennis Miller, and even then I am so ambiguous about him that I have a certain amount of difficulty putting it into words. As a host he's good at talking to both the contestant and the guests, and has moments of wittiness when it comes to the normal game show conventions like the use of lights and dramatic musical stings. That said, there's a certain "smug jackass" quality about Miller that makes me feel at least like he thinks he's smarter than everyone else and is just dying to let us know the fact. At times it seems as if he's only doing this for the money and the opportunity to show us all his innate superiority. Of course I've always felt this way about Dennis Miller so I can't really say I'm that surprised.

Perhaps the worst thing that could possibly have happened to Amne$ia was to debut it on the particular Friday night they chose. The show followed 1 vs. 100, which itself was on opposite a night time edition of The Price Is Right. These two shows illustrated the weaknesses of Amne$ia with an almost cruel clarity. The Price Is Right has always been fast paced and consistent. It may fall a little short in terms of dramatic tension but the turn-over in contestants compensates for that; each commercial break brings a new contestant in what amounts to a self contained story. There's always the risk of losing everything in the show until you come to the showcase. Drew Carey never comes across as superior to the contestants in either this or his other game show, The Power Of Ten. Carey always makes it appear that he is on the contestant's side. 1 vs. 100, which aired the last show of its current season tonight (more's the pity) doesn't have the contestant turn over that The Price Is Right does, but even with the modifications that were made to the show for this season (a number of permanent mob members rather than replacing everyone who gives wrong answer; setting plateaus in terms of prizes – contestants aren't paid an amount per mob member eliminated as last year but must eliminate 10 mob members to reach a new prize level) the show delivers a lot of dramatic potential. The format is consistent and the risk of failure for the contestant is quite real, particularly as the questions become more difficult. Host Bob Saget has contestant banter down to an art form which I suppose can come across as somewhat "plastic" but works for the show. There's no real sense that he feels superior to contestants although, he sometimes seems a bit more aloof from them than Carey does. By comparison with either of these to shows Amne$ia is an utter and complete failure.

There is something inherently unfair about the fact that Amne$ia will most likely run to the end of this season while neither Las Vegas nor Friday Night Lights will get a proper ending to their seasons – or in the case of Las Vegas (but hopefully
not Friday Night Lights) a proper series wind up. At their worst, either of these shows is far more entertaining than Amne$ia. The single point in which Amne$ia beats them is that it doesn't cost as much to produce, which I suppose is an important point for a network like NBC in terms of programming on what we are consistently told is the worst night for viewership on TV now that Saturday has basically been reduced to a dumping ground for movies and repeats (although programming scripted shows on Friday doesn't seem to effect CBS all that much). My great fear is that this drek will draw good ratings and become a regular series for next season. This show deserves to be not to be lauded but to be cancelled after one episode. Even if it doesn't find a place on next year's schedule, its presence on the NBC line up as anything more than a "strike baby" tells us something about Ben Silverman and his vision for network TV that I don't really like. If this is what Silverman considers "protecting" the reputation of NBC, I have to wonder what exactly he thinks that reputation is.

On The Second Day Of Christmas

On the second day of Christmas, my true love (Television) gave to me....Two singing shows debuting within 24 hours.

Who can forget the hilarity that ensued when The Singing Bee and Don't Forget The Lyrics debuted within days of each other? Okay, okay, who can remember the hilarity that ensued when The Singing Bee and Don't Forget The Lyrics debuted within days of each other? I wasn't sure America thought there was a need for one show where people filled in the missing lyrics to songs and NBC and FOX gave them two. Still there must be something to the format because both shows are still on. Of course that little business of the Writers Strike may have something to do with at least one of these shows still being on, maybe both.

The whole story began with the NBC upfronts in May 2007 when the network announced that The Singing Bee would be given the first hour slot on Friday nights, temporarily replacing 1 vs. 100. The show was described as one where people would give the correct lyrics to popular songs in order to win big prizes. The format would be along the lines of the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee – hence the title. At the time there was no similar show announced from FOX either for their Fall schedule or their Summer schedule. This would change.

FOX revealed in mid-June that they would have a new summer show called Don't Forget The Lyrics in which contestants would have to correctly sing the lyrics to win big prizes. The series would debut on July 11, 2007 and would be hosted by Wayne Brady. Needless to say NBC was livid. On the other hand it wasn't the first time that FOX had taken one of their ideas and tried to put a look-alike series on the air. In November 2004 Fox sprang The Next Great Champ starring Oscar de la Hoya and produced by the Dutch multinational Endemol on an unsuspecting (and largely disinterested) public, about four months ahead of NBC's much hyped The Contender hosted by Sugar Ray Leonard and Sylvester Stallone, which was produced by Mark Burnett of Survivor fame. At that time NBC couldn't respond quickly but this time they could. Swiftly hiring former N'Sync singer Joey Fatone as host, they announced that their show would debut on July 10^th, the day before Don't Forget The Lyrics, and to make the similarities between the two shows even more apparent, the premiere episode was aired on the 11^th, starting a half hour before the debut of the ABC series.

Of course, the shows were quite different. From an originality standpoint, Don't Forget The Lyrics did not impress. If anything it bore a very strong resemblance to the game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, with some modifications. Instead of multiple choice trivia questions, the contestants on Don't Forget The Lyrics had to pick a type of song and after a period of singing karaoke style (with the words put up on a screen) they had to sing the next group of words correctly to win the money at that level. Like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire prizes went up as songs were done correctly while contestants risked losing it all if they got the line of the song wrong (although there was a "Millionaire") style plateau at $25,000. Finally players on Don't Forget The Lyrics had three different "Helps" (aka "Lifelines") that they could use throughout the game.

By contrast The Singing Bee seemed like a far more creative concept. There are several rounds in which contestants are removed until only one contestant is left standing. That contestant participates in "The Final Countdown" in which a player has to remember the correct lyrics for seven songs, each worth $5,000. If the contestant gets all seven right they win $50,000. Between the qualifying sing-off and the Final Countdown, the contestants can face one of at least five different challenges. And it's all presided over by Joey Fatone, who (on those very rare occasions when I watch either of these two shows) has always seemed to be having more fun as a host than Wayne Brady does.

After all the controversy surrounding the one-upsmanship by the networks which led to The Singing Bee being the second highest rated show that week the it debuted (behind Baseball's All-Star Game) the show turned out to be a less than stellar performer in the ratings, pulling a 1.7 rating the Tuesday before it was pulled from line-up. It returned on December 21^st, going head to head with a rerun of Don't Forget The Lyrics – it got creamed, finishing in fifth place, while the Don't Forget The Lyrics rerun tied for first in the 18-49 demographic even though it finished fourth in total viewers.

(Hey, these pieces can't all be winners.)

Head To Head

The other new American show that debuted on Monday was ABC's game show Duel. Like the show, not crazy about the host. I'm not sure – for reasons that should become apparent – whether it will work as a weekly series, but I think it could have the potential to work during sweeps periods.

Duel isn't an ordinary game show. It has a tournament format and unlike a show such as Jeopardy or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? the tournament aspect is integral to how the series works. The mechanics of the game are layered on in such a way as to violate what I feel is the primary rule of game shows, adherence to the KISS Principle (Keep It Simple Stupid). At its heart the game is a multiple choice trivia quiz, with two contestants competing head to head with each other. The twist – or rather the first of several twists – is that you don't have to give just one answer. Each player is given ten chips, which resemble poker chips each chip represents $5,000. A screen made up of two LCD monitors is raised between the players; it not only serves as the place where they see the questions and the possible answers but it also keeps the players from seeing what the other person is answering. Answers are entered by placing chips on the letters for the various answers; A, B, C or D. A player can place chips on as many or as few answers as they wish. However each chip placed on an incorrect answer is taken away and the amount of money they represent is added to the prize pool for the finale of the tournament at the end of the week. So if a player with eight chips places chips on three answers, one of which is correct, he is left with six chips, and $10,000 is added to the prize pool. There is no time limit in terms of a player giving an answer unless his opponent "presses" him. Each player has two Presses which require the other player to answer within seven seconds. If one player doesn't have the right answer covered with a chip, the duel is over and that player but only those chips that covered incorrect answers are added to the prize pool. If both players fail to cover the correct answer, all of their chips are forfeited with the ones covering incorrect answers going to the pool. They then enter a shootout. They are both given four chips with no monetary value; the person to get the correct answer while using the fewest number of shootout chips wins the duel. Players who win their duel get to keep an amount of money equal to the number of chips they have remaining. They then go on to pick from one of three people randomly selected from the show's pool of 24 contestants. The top four contestants in terms of duels won and money earned have seats in the "Leaders Box." The four players in the Box at the start of the final show will play for the amount of money in the Prize Pool.

Sounds complicated right? Well, it's sort of like the difference between Poker and Tournament Poker. In a regular Poker game the focus is on the current hand. In Tournament Poker, the primary focus is on the hand but the player also has to be aware of how the tournament is structured, where they stand in terms of chip count in the tournament and at the table, when the value of the blinds go up and so on. It's another case of where detail is layered on but the primary focus for the player should always be on the hands they're playing. So it is with Duel. The primary focus of the player should be on keeping as many of his own chips as possible while trying to force the opponent to waste chips. (I don't know why I'm using the masculine pronoun here – in two nights of the show only two men have actually competed and only one has won a duel.) This is where the Press option comes in – it forces players who don't know the answer to use more chips. A player who is certain enough of the correct answer that they can play only one or two chips can gain a real advantage using the press against an opponent who is less clear of the correct answer; conversely a player who has no clue about the correct answer can either force an opponent to use the maximum number of chips or rush their thinking process so that they don't cover the right answer. This gives the show a valid strategic aspect to it that you don't see in most game shows. I'm sure experts in Game Theory could analyse correct choices to death, but for my part I'm just happy to see a game show where not only are players pitted against each other, but there is more to playing the game than simply answering a trivia question or picking numbered briefcases.

The tournament format is essential to Duel. The show builds towards the final contest between the four players in the Leaders Box for a guaranteed one million dollar prize (and possibly more depending on how many chips are collected during the week), and there is dramatic tension in having a contestant winning their duel in one episode and having to choose who they'll face... but holding the actual announcement over until the next episode. But the tournament aspect of the show would seem to argue against having it as a weekly series. The format of the current miniseries with six episodes in a week allows the show to have a fixed pool of twenty-four contestants who are there for every episode and allows the actual leaders to stay in the Leaders Box. Now, I realise that the series was probably shot in fewer than six days but there would undoubtedly be logistical problems in trying to have the show run for even thirteen weeks. Do you restrict the pool of challengers or do you bring a new group in every week? Do you bring back the people in the Leaders Box every week or just have them appear as names and pictures on a wall? How high do you allow the prize pool to build?

Duel is hosted by Mike Greenberg who is probably best known as the co-host of the Mike & Mike Show on ESPN. Well at least he's well known among people who watch ESPN in the mornings, or have access to ESPN Radio – obviously I'm in neither of these categories. There are some definite negatives about Greenberg's hosting style. For one thing he doesn't seem to have any gift for humorous banter of any sort. He seems to be totally serious all of the time and it's wearing on the audience. He also seems to have a couple of annoying quirks. Whenever a new duel is about to start, Greenberg seems compelled to restate the rules to the new contestant and the audience, or at least port of the rules (the part where he tells them the chips are worth $5,000 each). Another quirk seems to grow out of his experience on radio. From time to time he seems compelled to announce that "You are watching Duel on ABC." This sort of thing is pretty much necessary on radio where it's not always obvious what show you're listening to and what stations you're hearing; on TV it's redundant. Television has plenty of clues, including the "Bugs" at the bottom of the screen to tell you what network you're watching, and if you've stuck with a show for any length of time you know what the show is just by watching it come back from commercial. And boy do there seem to be a lot of commercials in Duel, all of them timed for moments of "high drama" like a crucial answer or the selection of the next opponent.

The pedigree of Duel is interesting. It originated in France from producers FrenchTV (although the series apparently isn't seen in France yet). It was brought to the United States by Gail Berman (former president of FOX's Entertainment) and Lloyd Braun (former president of ABC Entertainment) and sold to ABC. A British version of show will begin in January 2008 and the show has been optioned in a dozen other countries if the show proves popular in Britain and the United States.

As I've stated, I am enjoying Duel even though I have trouble with Greenburg as host. I like the strategic aspects of it particularly the ability to force an opponent to make less than optimal choices. This aspect makes the show more than just another trivia challenge. It is certainly preferable to shows like last season's stinker Show Me The Money (with William Shatner) or the popular Deal Or No Deal. The fact that Deal Or No Deal and even one of my favourites 1 vs. 100 are popular may be a bad sign for Duel in terms of gaining an American audience. Do Americans like complexity or strategy in their game shows? The fact that a show where the high point in strategy is deciding which briefcase to pick and whether or not to take an offer is one of the hottest shows on TV seems to indicate that they don't. And for all that I love shows like Jeopardy and 1 vs. 100, they are also very basic in terms of what a player has to think about – there isn't much for the player to do beyond getting the right answer to the question. The strategic aspect and the tournament format are what set Duel apart. I don't think you can scrap the tournament format of the show. Certainly you could have players face off against each other, with the current champion playing until they lose and then taking their money and leaving, but that would seem to make it just another trivia challenge. But in my opinion the tournament format would seem to make the show impossible to offer as a continuing series. On the other hand I could definitely see the show as something you could trot out during sweeps (a full week of shows or episodes presented two or three days a week for the full month) or even for a restricted period during the summer. A great deal will depend on ratings of course, and while the show did adequately during its debut (as did Clash Of The Choirs) it didn't set the world on fire, so ABC may not see fit to even try it again once the Writers Strike ends. In my book that would be unfortunate.

The Power Of Carey

I have a theory about game shows, specifically game shows with an escalating prize fund – they shouldn't be too easy. Being easy is what seems to have killed Identity, the show which featured Penn Jillette as host. In a total of twelve episodes, three people won the top prize of $500,000, and one came close by winning $250,000. The first person to win $500,000 on Identity did it on the first night. Considering how long it took for someone to win $1,000,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The hope and expectation that someone would win the show's big prize helped to build tensions and make the show a big success – at least for a time. The same can probably be said for Deal Or No Deal. People are watching, in the hopes of being able to say that they saw someone win a million on the show. After watching the first episode of The Power Of Ten I have to wonder if the game is too easy.

Certainly the premise of the show is fairly simple. To start, two contestants face off in an elimination round. They are asked up to five questions based on a survey of Americans. The person to guess the closest percentage of Americans who gave the answer that host Drew Carey asked about wins that question. For example, the first question asked was "What percentage of Americans said they have a better relationship with their parents as an adult than they did as a child?" Jamie answered 74% while Maureen answered 56%. Jamie won because the correct answer was 89%. In fact Jamie won the first three questions asked and won the elimination round.

Once the elimination round was complete, the winner of the round gets five questions, again based on surveys of Americans. The first question is worth $1,000 with the prize value increasing by 10 times the previous prize. The question wrong their prize drops by a power of 10. I believe that the reduction is from the prize level that the player currently has rather than the level he is trying to win – in other words if the player has won at the $100,000 and answers incorrectly at the $1 million level the prize received will be $10,000 rather than $100,000. The player can walk away with what they have at any time before they lock in their answer for the next level. The questions are of relatively equal difficulty the modifier for each level is the range in which the correct answer has to fall – the range for the $1,000 question is 40% and it drops by 10% so the million dollar question has a range of 10%. But a million dollars isn't the highest level. The show's biggest prize is $10 million. It is also the toughest level to win. Instead of being asked a survey question at that level the player has to state the exact percentage of Americans who answered the million dollar question from the 10% range. In other words if the answer is 32% and the player correctly guessed that the answer fell between 25% and 35% at the million dollar level, the player has to answer 32% to win $10 million.

There are some nice bits of what we used to call "chrome" in the wargaming community. Instead of a number pad for players to enter percentages they use a handle to adjust their predictions. There are no "helps" but the player has a friend or family member sitting nearby who can give them suggestions of what they feel the answer should be. They also show the contestant what the audience thinks is the correct answer. The audience poll results are presented as a rather nifty combined Column and Line chart – well it's nifty if you're into charts and I sort of am. I also like the way that the graphic showing the actual percentage moves up and down the range before finally settling at the actual answer. Okay, so it really doesn't take much to impress me, but it is fun to watch the contestants in the elimination round grow elated when the "bouncing ball" is closer to their answer than the other players and become crestfallen when it moves the other way. It's a simple pleasure, but it's mine.

The math in this game is rather interesting. In Poker there is an idea known as "pot odds." Essentially you compare the amount of money you have to wager with the odds of you winning the hand based on what you know about the cards you have and the "outs" that will allow you to improve your hand to a winning hand. If the return on your bet is greater than the odds of you winning the hand you should call the bet. In virtually all of the situations in The Power Of Ten the odds favour the player continuing. At the $1,000 level (where of course the player has literally nothing to lose) the 40 point margin of error means that the odds are 1.5-1 (or 3-2) against the player winning, but then the answer to the question is usually so obvious that player is virtually guaranteed to win. At the $10,000 level and a 30 point range, the odds are 3.33-1 (or 10-3) against, while at the $100,000 level and a 20 point range the odds are 4-1 against. Now I'm not sure what happens if a player loses at the $10,000 dollar level but at the $100,000 level, where a wrong answer drops the player down to a $1,000 prize, the player is wagering $9,000 (the difference between what the person "has" and what they'd walk away with if they lose) so the return on the bet would either be 11.1-1 (because the $100,000 is the pot before you put in your wager) or 10.1-10, which makes it a good bet. This also holds true at the $1 million level, where you're risking $90,000 to win a million. The pot odds remain the same, but because the range is now 10 points the odds of winning have slipped to 9-1 against. Even then it is still a good bet. The $10 million level is the really tricky one because I think the producers are playing a trick here. It seems as though there are actually eleven possible answers meaning that the odds are so close to the expected return as to make no real difference. The producers add pressure of course by emphasising that the answer had to be exactly right but in fact it isn't that much different from choosing the correct 10% range from 100 – the odds of getting the right range are exactly the same.

Of course, no one outside of the contestants' families was really watching the show for the actual game, and certainly they weren't watching for the whole business of odds and expectation of return on bets. Virtually everyone watched hoping to figure out just how good Drew Carey would be as a game show host and whether he was the right person to take up Bob Barker's skinny microphone. I'm not great expert, but I'd say that he's likely to do reasonably well. He works well with the contestants and obviously has a good sense of humour. More to the point he seems to be on the player's side. He'll even say when he thinks the player's guess might be a bit high or a bit low – fortunately he doesn't know the actual polling results so he cna only give his opinions. There are a few week points. Carey sometimes seems a bit dependent on the teleprompter, and I find his laugh more than a little annoying. Still, based on his performance on Power Of Ten he shouldn't do to badly when he goes on the big show.

I held off on completing this review until the second episode of Power Of Ten aired so that I could see a bigger sample of the game. In the first episode the first contestant on the show, Jamie Sadler a student at Florida University, won a million dollars. Drew Carey actually joked that the producers never expected anyone to get that high. The two contestants on the second episode seemed to bear this out. Both contestants busted out at either the $10,000 or $100,000 levels (CBS is doing a poor job of updating the show's website so I don't have details that I can refer to). The show is a good platform for Carey to reintroduce himself to the public as a game show host prior to taking over at The Price Is Right. As for the game itstelf I think that you will continue to see people taking the risk to go for the million dollar prize. The odds are not outrageous as far as what you're putting up to potential return. It also wouldn't surprise me to see one or more people trying for the $10 million prize and actually locking in an answer. I am concerned that the fact that it may be too easy to reach that level might hurt viewership. People might get bored if it is too easy for someone to win a million dollar prize.

Short Takes – July 24, 2007

Apologies are in order. I meant for this to be longer, earlier, and more interesting. The longer and earlier were harmed by a bit of a problem that's developed with the fingers of my right hand; I suspect it's arthritis, and me without any of Granny Clampett's (well strictly speaking Granny Moses's) Rheumatis medicine. It's made typing a bit of a pain literally. I have a system, really I do, but implementing it has been a bit hit and miss.

Given that this is the time when the professional critics head for Los Angeles for the semi-annual Television Critics Association press tour there's more than a little news out there, but in most cases the news tends to be in the form of who is in what (Katee Sackoff – yay – and Isaiah Washington – not so much of a yay – have both been signed to play recurring roles in Bionic Woman; just an example) and promotional material. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to be down there (all I need is someone to pay me for writing this stuff in dollar amounts large enough to pay the costs of two or three weeks in Los Angeles every six months), but the fact is that a lot of what the TCA press tour is about is the attempt to spin the stories about the networks and their new and returning shows. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Oh, by the way, don't forget to vote in the poll!

The new host of The Price Is Right is...: Drew Carey. One of the only good things about this problem with my hand is that I'm able to feed you this bit of fresh news. Carey, who is hosting the new CBS prime time game show The Power Of 10, revealed that he had finalized the deal to host The Price is Right during his appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman on Monday night, although since the show is taped earlier in the day it was actually completed Monday afternoon. According to Carey he was notified that the deal had been completed less than fifteen minutes before his appearance on the Letterman show. Drew Carey will probably do all right as the host of The Price Is Right. On the plus side, he has had experience hosting a live or live to tape show both from The Power Of 10 and earlier with Whose Line Is It Anyway? In addition he's personable and has something of an everyman vibe about him. On the downside he's not as polished as Barker was and hasn't shown that much experience in dealing with the mass audience on a personal level. The biggest strike against him may be that he's a comedian and sometimes has something of a sarcastic bent to him. The thing about The Price is Right or almost any game show is that you have to take it and the contestants seriously. It's going to be interesting to see how Carey adapts to his new job. The pressure is going to be on him, not unlike the way it was for Katie Couric, to live up to the standards of his predecessor while still making the job his own. But I don't expect Drew Carey to be under the same sort of constant and hypercritical scrutiny that Couric has had to endure.

Schedule changes at NBC: You know what they say about an old broom seeping clean? Well Ben Silverman hasn't exactly swept the NBC schedule clean of the shows that his predecessor as head of the NBC Entertainment Division announced but he did shake the schedule up a bit. He started by moving the new series Chuck from the second hour of Tuesday night to the first hour of Monday as a lead in for Heroes, making Monday night "Science Fiction Night" (Chuck, Heroes, JourneyMan). Next, he extended Biggest Loser from one hour to ninety minutes and put a half-hour version of The Singing Bee on from 9:30 to 10 p.m. (Eastern). The Singing Bee, which had a very successful debut two weeks ago and had been scheduled to alternate with 1 vs. 100 on Friday night. On Friday night, 1 vs. 100 has been shelved and replaced by the second episode of Deal Or No Deal. The game show will serve as the lead-in for Friday Night Lights, which has swapped with Las Vegas, which moves to Friday's third hour.

On the whole I think that this tinkering has been an improvement to the NBC schedule. It gives Friday Night Lights a more accessible time slot with a stronger lead while allowing the comedy-drama Las Vegas to play around with more adult storylines (although the PTC will likely insist that Friday Night Lights is too smutty even for the second hour in much the same way they did with Las Vegas). The Singing Bee will probably do better in its current format as a half-hour show than it would have done at an hour. My one reservation here is that the later time slot puts it up against the last half hour of the Dancing With The Stars results show. The Singing Bee could very easily work as the first show of the night, particularly up against ABC's Cavemen. Finally, by moving Chuck to the first hour of Monday night Silverman has not only established a clear theme for the night but installed a show that probably going to be "friendly" to the "family" audience – youth oriented – in a time slot where it will be effective. There's a lot less contrast in having that show leading out a themed night than serving as the jump between Biggest Loser and Law & Order: SVU. About the only show that is really screwed by these changes is 1 vs. 100, a show that I personally enjoy more than either The Singing Bee or Deal Or No Deal. Best of all this is not the sort of mass schedule modification that Kevin Reilly engaged in last year to "save" Studio 60 from the combination of Grey's Anatomy and CSI, which was immensely destructive to NBC's line-up and didn't even accomplish its main goal. This is more along the lines of surgical tinkering with a sense of logic to it.

Who does the PTC hate this week?: Well the PTC positively loves the US Senate Commerce Committee for "protecting children from indecent content on television." The Committee passed a Bill (do committees actually pass bills?) to institutionalize the ban on any use of "profanity and indecent images" that the FCC attempted to enforce, including the notion of fleeting obscenities that was struck down by the Second Circuit decision. As the PTC writes in their press statement, "We applaud the Senate Commerce Committee, and especially the bipartisan leadership of Senators Rockefeller, Inouye, Stevens, and Pryor, for putting the interests of families above the self-serving interests of the broadcast industry." They further go on to say that "It is clearly in the interest of children and families that nudity and inappropriate sexual content -- such as the infamous Super Bowl strip show -- should not be shown on television before 10 pm. The public interest was clearly served by today's bipartisan Senate action, and we now call on the full Senate to vote on this measure before the August recess." What the PTC misses in its self-congratulatory rhetoric is the quite serious question of whether any such bill would be able to withstand challenge on constitutional grounds, which after all was a major point of the Second Circuit Court's decision. But no, they don't seem to believe that the Television industry has the simple right to sue for redress against arbitrary actions or to seek a clear and consistent definition of what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Note in this excerpt how they define the industry's efforts as "absurd," that the FCC's ruling was an example of "common sense," and how they make it a point to downplay the validity of the Second Circuit's decision by pointing out that it was only two judges: "Through their lawsuits asserting the 'right' to air profanity during the hours when children are in the audience, and the absurd notion that a striptease during the Super Bowl is not indecent, the broadcast networks continue to show they are not responsible stewards of the public airwaves; but as licensees, the responsibility is theirs. The FCC's authority to enforce common sense decency standards, which were recently stripped by two judges in New York City, must be restored. Today's action is a significant step in the right direction." Of course if the two judges had been a majority in favour of their position, the PTC would have said that they were more than enough and would deny any attempt by the industry to appeal to the Supreme Court, an option which the broadcasting industry does not deny to the FCC.

The fact is that the FCC decision overturned by the Second Circuit was not an example of "common sense decency standards" because it went against previously established precedent on the handling of such situations which had been the standard of behaviour for thirty years. Indeed the FCC has contradicted itself since their decision on obscenities by saying that it was in fact acceptable for stations to air Saving Private Ryan with the language uncensored despite the fact that it was an example of scripted obscenities rather than "slips of the tongue" or incidental uses of words like "fuck" or "shit" during something like an awards show. This in and of itself is representative of an inconsistent standard on the part of the FCC. If the words are acceptable in Saving Private Rayan then why not NYPD Blue?

The Cable Worst of the Week is Rescue Me. The Cable Worst of the Week is almost always Rescue Me. And it is almost always Rescue Me for the same reason every time. Details change but the essence lingers on. Allow me to summarise the PTC's complaints in the stylings of Mr. Charles Brown: "Blah blah blah 'graphically and crudely'. Blah blah blah 'hand job.' Blah blah blah, 'eye-popping view of Tommy and Janet sexually healing their ruinous relationship.' Blah blah blah 'nymphomaniac former nun.' Blah blah 'sex during church services.' Blah blah 'penchant for pornography.' Blah blah blah 'salacious slate of programming.'" After that there is of course the usual condemnation of the "fact" that "all cable subscribers are forced to subsidize such programming." I put quotes around the word 'fact' because the PTC insists on using the word "subsidize" which my dictionary at least defines as "to aid or assist with a grant of money or by guaranteeing a market."And while I suppose that the existence of FX as a cable network where shows are – for now at least – unrestricted by the regulations that the FCC imposes on over the air stations might be defined as "guaranteeing a market" the implication of a subsidy is that the product or the manufacturer would not continue to exist without the payment of the grant of money. The only way in which cable subscribers are "subsidizing" Rescue Me is by making FX a profitable corporate entity and the degree to which they do that is subject to scrutiny given that FX sells advertising time of the channel. Certainly it is unfair to say that cable subscribers are subsidizing the program when, at the same time, the PTC condemns advertisers who put their commercials on the show. In fact it might be more valid to say that cable subscribers who pay for FX are subsidizing the commercial-free Fox Movie Channel since the fees paid for FX go into the coffers of News Corp which owns Fox Movie Channel.

Broadcast's Worst of the Week is Big Brother. They state that "In the first two episodes this season sex and foul language dominate" and it seems as though the PTC has feels the need to be more explicit about the language in their press release than the show ever was. The PTC's normal method of dealing with obscenities – and they have a far larger list of such things than most people – is either to give only the first and last letter or to use the initials, like "the S-word" or "the F-word." Here's what the PTC press release on Big Brother being the worst of the week said: "Foul language on the two episodes included poorly bleeped words such as 'asshole,' 'shit,' 'tits,' and eleven instances of the word 'fuck.'" Of almost as much interest as the fact that the PTC used the actual words in their press release is their reasoning for condemning the program (well one of them; we'll get to the other shortly). They acknowledged that the words were bleeped, including the ones which have been used on TV before, but it's not good enough for them. The show should be condemned because the bleeping of the words in question does not meet the PTC's standards for such things!

Ah, but that wasn't the only reason for the PTC to be down on the show. There was it seems explicit sexual references on what the PTC is now describing as "the traditional Family Hour." These references came from "flamboyantly homosexual housemate Joe," and dealt with his accusation against his former boyfriend Dustin. "Joe openly and unapologetically announces that he has contracted the disease from implied unprotected sex with Dustin. Dustin adamantly denies that it was he that gave Joe the STD." I'm sure of course that the PTC would just as rigorously condemn any statement by a heterosexual houseguest about contracting gonorrhoea from a former long term relationship, but they seemed to take inordinate glee from pointing out that it was Gay people having unprotected sex.

The PTC finishes their comments on Big Brother with the almost ritual condemnation of the TV ratings system. According to the PTC "With a TV rating PG-L, no parent could rely on the V-Chip to protect young viewers from such content. Both episodes were unconscionably aired promoting promiscuous and crude behavior in the homes of unsuspecting families." According to Wikipedia, PG-L refers to "mild coarse language." The other "descriptors" at this level are V-moderate violence, S-sexual situations, D-suggestive dialog. The PTC has acknowledged that the strongest language used by the "houseguests" was bleeped, even if it wasn't up to the PTC's standards (they also omit the fact that CBS "fuzzed" the mouths of houseguests when necessary to protect lip-readers). And given the reaction of people both inside the house and outside to Joe's repeated comments about the STD that he claimed Dustin gave to him, it can hardly be seen as "promoting promiscuous behaviour." I would be interested in knowing exactly the PTC would rate any episode of Big Brother using the V-Chip. But of course they will not say what they think would be acceptable, because of course the V-Chip and the ratings system doesn't work.

Don’t Forget The Singing Lyrics Bee

When I heard that NBC would be airing an episode of their new series The Singing Bee on the same night that FOX would be debuting their new show Don't Forget The Lyrics, it seemed obvious to me that I should watch the two shows on the same night and review them at the same time. It's the sort of a "compare and contrast" thing that we used to do in high school, but that makes it a classic. It concerned me slightly that the episode of The Singing Bee that I'd be watching would apparently be the series' second episode...but not that much. Of course it turned out that NBC wasn't airing a new episode of the show but rather a rerun of the previous night's debut show, something that could be regarded as a mistake if what you're intent on is taking a big shot at a show which basically stole your premise. But hey, what do I know.

Let's start with The Singing Bee since the show has at least a vaguely original premise. It's not totally original but it "borrows" from an interesting source – the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee! Host Joey Fatone – second place finisher of Dancing With The Stars who seems to be alternating this gig with appearing on the DWTS live tour – goes into the audience and selects six players at random. I mean supposedly he's listening for people who sing the song that is being played correctly but it certainly helps to be in the front row or the first couple of seats on the aisle. The players are brought on stage to compete. Each player is given the name of a song and the date it was released after which the song is played when the music and the professional singer with the house band "The Buzz" (Bee – Buzz, get it? Good, 'cause I don't want it) stops they have to sing the next line correctly. Correctly means without added "yeahs" "ohs" and various other words that singers – even pros - sometimes add to a song. The first four players to get their line correct go on to the next round, which in theory means that if the first four players get their lines correct on the first try the other two players don't even get to try. In the second round, the four players are paired off. Each has to sing a longer line of a song once the music ends but this time the words of the line are visible to them on a large monitor. The problem is that they're scrambled and the player has to figure out the order. If both players get it right, or both get it wrong, they go on to another round, but when one gets it right he is paired off with the winner of the other match. This leads to the Championship Match. It's similar to the first round but with a higher degree of difficulty. Players have to sing the chorus of a song correctly. As in the second round if both players get their chorus right, or if both get it wrong, they get another song to sing, but if there's a winner he goes on to face "The Final Countdown."

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the word "money" yet. That's because to this point in the game no one else has either. That's left until "The Final Countdown" – everything else has been an elimination process for this. "The Buzz" have seven songs for the "Final Countdown." For each song in which the player correctly sings the line after the band stops he or she wins $5,000, but if the player gets five songs correct the prize becomes $50,000. "The Final Countdown" can also end if the player gets the final line of three songs wrong, in which case the player takes home however much has been won up to the time of the third strike.

Don't Forget The Lyrics has a more familiar vibe about it, like most of the other game shows on TV. The biggest similarity though is to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, though FOX would probably prefer a comparison to Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader. Host Wayne Brady welcomes a contestant who is given nine categories to choose from. Each category has a choice of two songs. The contestant picks one song and sings along to it until the music stops at which point the player has to sing the next words, with the number they have to sing depending on the monetary level they're at. Money start at $2,500and goes up until the fifth question at $25,000. The $25,000 level is a plateau; if you get the words wrong after this point you are guaranteed to win $25,000. After this things get increasingly difficult. Until this point each song has had four missing words; now the number of missing words increases to as many as ten. Players have a total of three "Backups" which are the equivalent of "Helps" on other shows. The three are "Backup Singers," where the player can ask the two family members or friends that they brought with them for help; "2 Words," where the player can check to see if two words from the lyrics they gave are right; and "3 Lines," where the player can see three possible lines for the song one of which is the correct line. If the player gets the correct answers for all nine categories they have the option of facing "The Million Dollar Song," however what the rules for this final obstacle are is as yet unclear.

NBC rushed to get The Singing Bee on the air after FOX announced Don't Forget The Lyrics and I think it's a good thing that they did. The show, which was originally slated to alternate with 1 vs. 100 is more innovative than Don't Forget The Lyrics but I have difficulty seeing it succeeding outside of the summer TV season without some serious retooling. Selecting players "randomly" from the audience gives it a real game show feel, but it takes a long time for the players to get into a position where they can win any money and the prize amount is relatively small. The show seems too compressed for the current half-hour time slot but at the same time I don't see how you could expand it to fit the hour time slot that 1 vs. 100 manages easily. Maybe the best thing about The Singing Bee is Joey Fatone, who has a natural ease and presence as host. I could easily see him hosting a non-singing game show at least as well as a comedian like Bob Saget.

As for Don't Forget The Lyrics, it suffers from mimicking an established format that has been used with variations on other shows. The only thing that really makes it unique is the application of the "singing" gimmick. Certainly the ability to pre-screen contestants has the potential to deliver some "interesting" performances, at least if the performance of the show's first contestant is any benchmark. The woman's voice had only a casual relationship with concepts like pitch and key. The show is quite clearly suited to an hour time slot although the half-hour time period that it occupies also allows for creating drama by way of cliff-hangers, and it doesn't hurt that the show airs on consecutive nights. As host, comedian Wayne Brady is adequate, but doesn't have the freshness of Fatone. I can't shake feeling that any other stand up comedian who is reasonably well known on TV could fill the role of host for this show and no one would really notice.

I can't say that I'll be watching future episodes of either The Singing Bee or Don't Forget The Lyrics. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I am not a huge music fan and my tastes tend to be towards shows that reward people for being smart – or retaining useless trivia, take your pick. Both of these shows did well in the ratings, drawing numbers that would be respectable during the main season and are spectacular for the summer. I have no doubt that both shows will be showered with the "coveted" accolade of "Best of the week" from the PTC. Both shows are innocuous and sincerely good family viewing even if they do deal with "rock and or roll." No, there's nothing really wrong with the shows; the problem is that there's not enough that's really right about them for me to generate any real enthusiasm for them. I can't recommend either show even though I don't really have anything against them. It's going to be telling to learn if either or both are able to maintain the ratings that they received in their debut episodes. They do seem to be ideal shows to plug holes in the Fall line up when (not if for either network) those holes develop. I probably won't be any happier about the prospect than I am now though.