I have to say I am totally blown away by 1 vs. 100's performance in the ratings last night. I was expecting a slight drop from Deal's ratings, but a 20% increase? Congrats to them.

I went in wanting to like this show and came out really liking it. The set is amazing, the pacing was far more tolerable than Deal, and Bob is doing a good job. I thought the "Helps" were a good addition to the game, and I like the fact that, in the "one right, one wrong" help, the mob is encouraged to try to deceive the contestant, even if they can't lie about their original response.

Only two things irked me about the premiere, both of which are (hopefully) likely to go away as the show goes on. One is the dreaded "overdubs", where Bob injected comments into the taping that were clearly done after the taping. I can understand if it is occasionally required because something important was left out, but most of them served to add nothing to show and in fact ran the risk of making it too "chatty".

The other is the material. With two helps available, there's no harm in throwing at least one tough question at the contestant. With both contestants we saw last night there was not one question that I considered remotely challenging, given the amount of money at play.

Other than that, this show is definitely one I'll be coming back to. Much like Deal, I'm sure that later episodes will be more smooth. I'm impressed with the rating they were able to garner, although I hope they don't decide to start running it to death.

We definitely seem to be entering the second golden age of games in primetime, only 6 years or so after the last one ended. I guess TV really is cyclical like that; let's hope this cycle lasts a little longer than the last one.

 

posted by Brad @ 12:37 PM   1 comment(s)