Brad Barks
10/3/00
Smarts is smart, Wars a bore
I stand corrected.
I completely dissed Street Smarts after my less-than-successful audition as a contestant. However, after watching the show, I really think it has promise. The street segments are hilarious and the game format is sound. The contestants, as I said before, are schmucks. The guy who won last night was a complete loser at my audition. But the contestants are really a secondary element of this game. The real "stars", if you can call them that, are the dolts on the street. They are the people that bring the true comedy to this game. Host Frank Nicotero's amusing interactions with them are an added plus as well. I think this one has a shot at bringing in some fans.
Then there's Sex Wars. Uh...it has a great set. And...that's about it. Host J.D. Roth looks like he got shoved in the washing machine with six bottles of hair gel for a two-hour cycle. The game is boring and hardly innovating (the "lets ask the guys a question only women should know" thing is a bit old) and the contestants seem overly pumped considering the paltry prizes they are playing for. I really can't see anything appealing about this game whatsoever.
In other rants...Don't forget to check out my Triple Play on my Salute to Pricing Games site. It's a great new addition to Price, even though it may be hard to win, it could inspire Golden Road-esque excitement.
9/25/00
$10,000 of Gold
I hope you watched the $10,000 Pyramid marathon on GSN on Saturday. It was priceless! For anyone who ever doubted their ability to play the game, take solace in MacLean Stevenson's 27-second description of the word 'legs'. We saw a ton of priceless moments, including a contestant who got all *8* words in the category, as well as one brainless woman who managed only six points in *3* rounds (her shining moment may have been her description of the word "injection," to which Ed Asner said, "shot", and she said, "that's right!"). It was great timing for me to have these episodes air on my birthday, and I invited all my game show cronies (and even a few not-so-big fans) who loved every minute of the four hour marathon. Once again, congrats to GSN!
In other rants...Did anyone catch the hilarious moment on Price is Right on Sept. 18 where the check in Blank Check wouldn't come off? Hearing Janice say to Bob, "What the hell is this?!?" was hilarious!...Sex Wars is getting an amazing publicity blitz here in Los Angeles. Billboards all over the city are donning the face of JD Roth and advertising the show's promising 5:30pm time slot, albeit on KCAL-9, home of three hours of news in primetime. The show has also had full page ads in Entertainment Weekly, but does have a dismal 1:35am slot in NYC...My Savegreed.com website still deposits 20 or so emails in my inbox daily from irate fans. I know that hundreds of them have sent angry emails to Fox, but to no avail...instead, we'll have to take solace in watching the lousy ratings that Freakylinks will garner in Greed's old time slot. What's a man to do?
9/20/00
Survivor Meltdown? Hardly.
As a die-hard Survivor fan, I, along with many of other fans, was initially worried by the lackluster (to say the least) ratings for the repeat airing of the original 13-episode run. Survivor: Back to the Island has been consistently scoring 1 to 1.5 points less than Big Brother, the perpetual ratings albatross. So should we be worried that Survivor fever has broken?
Heck no.
Folks, if you spent 13 weeks putting together a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle of what you thought would be a beautiful rabbit, and then on the last day of the 13 weeks found out instead that the picture was of a vulture devouring roadkill, would you immediately break up the puzzle and start again? No. People need a break. We know that Richard won. Most of us aren't too thrilled about the outcome, but we loved watching it. The first time. Most of us either taped it for posterity or we're waiting for a new challenge. As cute as the new clips of Survivor contestant interviews are, we really don't need to see something again that is still quite fresh in our minds.
I'm no expert, but I am quite confident that Survivor II will fare just as well as its predecessor. A good hint to CBS would be to maybe air a 30-minute preview show before the series starts so that we can get to know the contestants and begin the most fun part of watching Survivor--the never-ending predictions of who will win and who will get booted out next. I know that at my office, during the first run it became almost a ritual for every employee within earshot of me to put his or her prediction on my white board and then reminisce the next day over who was right and who was wrong. America hasn't seen this sort of audience "participation" in a long time, so the fever over Survivor should return when we have a fresh batch of castaways and a new locale.
In other rants...Kudos to the oft-maligned Game Show Network for a great upcoming batch of Game Show Saturday Nights. This Saturday, to coincide with my birthday no less, four hours of The $10,000 Pyramid. And in October, classic Newlywed Game episodes from 1969 in the ABC run, and at the end of October, more unsold pilots. Yes they have overloaded their weekly schedule with a lot of stuff we don't want to see, but there are some gems in their lineup. It looks like they are trying their hardest to meet the needs of die-hard fans like myself as well as casual fans who might tune in occassionally for fun...Hollywood Squares is off and running on its third season and Whoopi and Tom seem more comfortable than ever. The new blooper reels during the credits this season are a great extra...Watching Richard Dawson's last weeks on Match Game '78 has proven to be an uncomfortable experience. As much as I loved the show, I have to say I'm a bit put off by the arrogance he displayed in those last weeks. But hey, that was 22 years ago and I probably should get over it.
9/15/00
Spartacus Reborn?
Has anyone noticed that George on Big Brother seems to think his appearance on the show is part of a higher calling? Who could forget his anti-melodramatic attempt to create an uprising: "We have a chance to do something historical here!" Please George. When he rejected the $50,000 buyout a few weeks ago, his overacted offering to the camera, "Theresa, I hope I did the right thing!" And what about Wednesday's plane message, "Live Long and Prosper"? George mused, "It just a really important message to me." George, it's a quote from a character on Star Trek. Coupled with his wife's obnoxious campaign to knock people out of the house, George is really becoming the most unbearable character on the show.
Speaking of BB, although everyone seems to think the ratings are laughable and that the show is desperate to do anything to get viewers, Entertainment Weekly reports that the show is more than outperforming the shows that CBS aired at the same time last summer. And the Wednesday banishment/nomination episodes, despite a lack of Survivor leads, are still landing in the Top 10 weekly. Go figure.
Drill Me!
Two-Minute Drill may indeed have lived up to its hype. The sports quiz's premiere, IMHO, showed that Michael Davies can work his magic beyond Millionaire. Host Kenny Mayne's deadpan style fits in well, and one couldn't help but laugh when he roasted the eventual champ in the first round, "Good, you missed one." Sports quizzes have an immediate handicap with the potential of only reaching a limited audience, but this one seems to offer something for everyone. The only problem I saw was that the sports stars, and even Robert Wuhl, seemed to have trouble racing through five questions in a row. But that didn't really detract from the game. Along with Sports Geniuses and Ultimate Fan League, Drill has continued a recent tradition of well-produced sports games.
In other rants...As predicted, the under-hyped and under-interesting Since You've Been Gone scored an embarassing 2.5 rating in the overnight ratings, losing by two whole points to UPN's Monday night comedy lineup...Rumor has it from the GS-L that Michael Larsen, Press Your Luck's master contestant and all-around urban legend, passed away last year. I stress that this is just second hand knowledge right now and I'll try to confirm it for you in a later post...The People Versus is off and running in the UK and having seen it, I can say that it has potential, although the version as it is in the UK seems a bit too easy, compared to Millionaire.
9/11/00
Since You've Been Gone...
...Tom Bergeron's credibility has dropped a notch. Seriously, Tom is one of the greatest hosts of the last decade, but I'm sure he's hoping that this LMNO monstrosity is forgotten quickly. The format itself was novel, but we were stuck with four Survivor rejects that seemed more content about making an apperance on television than playing the game. I guess I have a small bone to pick with people who try out for game shows for the mere reason of being "seen." This phenomenon became plainly obvious to me when I tried out two weeks ago for Street Smarts, another game show that, like SYBG, has a creative format that will be ruined by shoving a crop of contestants on America that is no more than a group of would-be actors trying to get their face on television. When the Smarts contestant coordinator had to remind the group multiple times that they would have to come up with alternative career titles than "actor" or "waitress" if they appeared on the program, I knew I was in a bit over my head. Not that I'm bitter or anything that the Playgirl model with only a loose grip of the English language who interviewed after me got picked and I didn't...
But seriously, I think game shows work, no matter if it is Who Wants to be a Millionaire? or Survivor, when you can really pull for one of the contestants on the show. On SYBG, the pre-edited spots at the house seemed so fake that you felt like you were watching a really bad sitcom on UPN. And even while playing the game, the contestants seemed so smug, especially the ultra-disposable Seth, that the mute button looked more and more attractive as the hour dragged on.
I don't think this phenomenon is a feature of the push towards "reality tv." In fact, SYBG is more game show than Survivor ever was or will be. But on Survivor you had an entire country, of all different ages, hanging on the edge of its seat because Survivor had so many diverse people to pull for. It seems like so many new game shows today are trying desperately to "pull incredibly young demos," as the Street Smarts press release so laughingly boasted its show would, that the contestants they choose force the game to suffer in the process. Producers today seem to think that American 20- and 30-year olds are so apathetic and smug, that they can't WAIT to see even more apathetic and smug versions of themselves on TV. We'll just wait for the Nielsens to prove them wrong.
In other rants...If the people at Pearson don't bring back Press Your Luck in the next two years I might have a heart attack. Seriously, if there's one game show that game show fans and non-fans alike seem to remember fondly from the 1980's, it's "that show with the Whammy," as people often describe it to me. The fact that they don't remember the name is telling--in a few years, so few people will remember this show that it won't be worth bringing back. But as it stands now, this is one game show that could return successfully, offering a big top prize, taking advantage of superior computer animation (can you imagine a 21st Century Whammy??), and which could, yes, "pull incredibly young demos." While I love Beat the Clock just as much as any classic game show fan, it has had a turn or three on the tube. But a show like PYL, that lasted three times as long in reruns as it did in its original run, has got to be worth another try.
SOUND OFF! Do you think I'm off my rocker? Or do you agree with me? Let me know!
Email me at brad@gscentral.net!