I attended the taping of GSN’s Chain Reaction pilot (or should I say ‘pilots’) this afternoon at Sony Studios in New York City. I also got to meet a few fellow board members (you know who you are!). Please remember that the following are (a) impressions from a TV show still in development that could substantially change in its final form, and that (b) there’s still no guarantee the show will make it to air. If properly handled and promoted though, this could be the GSN equivalent of the second coming of Lingo.
-LONG HOURS[/u]: Taping started at 2:30PM and wrapped around 7:45PM. The reason for the lengthy taping schedule (besides the usual stoppage of tape for technical or other reasons) was that three[/u] pilots were taped on the same day. The first two pilots were taped with two three-player teams, and the last pilot featured the winning teams from the first two shows going at it. This last pilot was by far the best of the three shows taped since contestants, technical staff and host had gotten over their initial jitters/kinks and delivered a nail-bitter competition. Too bad there were only a handful of audience members left (including relatives from some of the contestants) but that only left more pizza and sodas for the audience members that stayed ‘till the end.
-HOST[/u]: The host of the ‘Chain Reaction’ pilots was Tim Vincent from Access Hollywood. Imagine Distraction host Jimmy Carr a few inches taller, a few pounds lighter and with his naughty comments toned down to a minimum (but not completely absent). That’s Tim in a nutshell, and even though he lacks gameshow hosting experience these ‘Chain Reaction’ pilots showed the man has camera presence and potential when (or if?) he detaches himself from the teleprompter. There were lots of tape stoppages (normal for a gameshow pilot) but Tim got a couple of solid adlibs involving the new blindfold end game (‘Basic Instinct 2’) and consolation of the losing team (group hug!). After the tapings were over I asked Tim if he saw old 'Chain Reaction' shows for research and he said yes, he had seen a couple. He didn't know who the host was though, but a production assistant told me it was the Cullen version.
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-SET[/u]: considering it was thrown together at the last minute and shoved into a tiny corner of Sony’s gigantic (and coooooold!) studio the set’s minimalism actually worked to the game’s advantage. Imagine two gigantic ice blocks the size of a Family Feud podium for the three-member teams to stand behind, each with a single horizontal neon tube in the middle that looks like a frozen Star Wars lightsaber. Now, in-between these two, add a similar-looking podium with a vertical purple (!) neon light/lightsaber for the host to stand behind. Throw in lights on a blue canvas that bathes the camera-left side of the set in red and the camera-right side in blue, and voala! Like Lingo the real action is on the TV screen via computer-generated graphics though, not the set. Through most of the length of all three games I watched the screen was split three ways: half of the screen (the right side) was filled with the ongoing Chain Reaction, while the left side was split between two shots of the red and blue teams or a medium/CU shot of the contestant whose turn it is to guess the correct word. Occasionally the director cut to a jib overhead shot of the set or a CU of Tim Vincent, but for most of the game the CG letters from the Chain Reaction share equal billing with the teams of contestants trying to solve them.
-GAMEPLAY[/u]: The core of ‘Chain Reaction’s’ gameplay remains virtually unchanged. Two teams (team red and team blue) of three contestants (all civilians) take turns guessing words (seven in this version) that are related to one another. Both teams start with a $1,000 Bank. Players from each team (in their respective turns) can choose to go above or below a word on the board and see the next letter. If the player fails to give the correct word control passes to the other team. If they guess the right word they win the amount of money assigned to that round. Completing the seven-letter chain reaction allows the team to go for the Speed Round where they have ten seconds to guess the two words in the middle of a four-word chain reaction. During this Speed Round the top and bottom words are revealed and the first letters of the middle words are revealed. If the team doesn’t guess the Speed Round correctly the opposing teams gets one chance to steal it and its pre-assigned total. The monetary amounts for the first three ‘Chain Reaction’ games are:
1st CR: $100 for every word guessed correctly. Speed Round prize: $150
2nd CR: $200 for every word guessed correctly. Speed Round prize: $250
3rd CR: $300 for every word guessed correctly. Speed Round prize: $350
NOW HERE COMES THE BIG (BUT NOT NECESSARILY BAD) GAMEPLAY TWISTS:[/u]
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On the 4th round of Chain Reactions players are allowed to wager up to $500 on each word guess (minimum wager is $100), but the team will lose the amount wagered if they can’t give the correct answer. Since the guessing turns rotate between the three members of each team all three contestants have to keep track of both team’s bank and their opponents’ bank to ponder whether to wager high or low. The Speed Round for the 4th CR is $750. The 5th and final CR has no Speed Round but the wager limit is raised to $1,000 per correct word (again, minimum wager of $100). One of the games I saw came down to the last word on the 5th and final Chain Reaction. The red team was ahead with $3,350 to the blue team’s $2,800. The contestant on the blue team whose turn was it to guess wagered $600 and guessed the correct and final word to complete the chain. Blue team won the game $3,450 to the red team’s $3,350, and got a chance at…
-THE END GAME[/u]: a new podium (that also looks like a block of ice with a neon light/lightsaber frozen vertically) is brought on stage and placed in the center front of the other three podiums. All neon lights flash the color of the winning team (red or blue) as one member of the team (not sure if it’s pre-determined, if it’s the team member that earned the most money or the last team member to guess the winning word) is blindfolded[/u] and placed at the center of the stage with his/her hand directly over a reception bell (the type you see in hotels and reception desks). The other two team members are facing each other on the side of the center podium but are looking over-the-shoulders of their partner over into monitors positioned for them to see. Imagine the Friend or Foe setting at the podium but with a blindfolded contestant where Kennedy used to stand (host Tim Vincent is slightly off to the right of the stage). The team members that aren’t blindfolded see have to describe a word puzzle to their blind partner one word at a time (like the broken sentences in the Alphabetics portion of Super Password). Any team member can pass, or the blindfolded team member (the only one that can guess the words) can click on the bell buzzer (or be forced to hit the buzzer by the other two team members) so they can guess incorrectly so the team can move on to another word.
There are 90 seconds to guess as many words as possible and the End Game prizes are:
Less than 7 words guessed correctly[/u]: the team keeps whatever money it earned during the Chain Reaction rounds.
Exactly 7 words guessed correctly[/u]: the team doubles whatever money it earned during the Chain Reaction rounds.
10 words guessed correctly[/u]: the team triples whatever money it earned during the Chain Reaction rounds.
During the opening of the show Tim Vincent says that the most money that a team could win in this ‘Chain Reaction’ format would be $25,000. This can only happen if the teams were to wager $500 and $1,000 on every word during the 4th and 5th Chain Reaction rounds though, and then went on to get 10 words in the End Game.
-CONTESTANTS[/u]: even though they didn’t get to keep their winnings (most of the teams split $1,000 between them) the contestants of the three ‘Chain Reaction’ pilots were fun and energetic. Some contestants were a little too pumped-up and excited (which is what they’re asked to do by the producers to sell the show). Most of the contestants were either actors or contestants from previous gameshows (particularly the ABC and syndicated versions of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire) that were called by the ‘Chain Reaction’ producers and asked to participate. One of them, John Castellano, stood out from the bunch of good-looking twenty/thirty-something participants with his winning attitude and rotund, older figure. John won $250,000 on ‘Millionaire’ during the Regis Philbin era, appeared with his family (which was present at the taping) in 1990 on the Ray Combs version of Family Feud and is a veteran of The Price Is Right & The $10,000 Pyramid from the 1970’s.
Why do I mention John here? Because the inclusion of somebody that breaks the casting mold established by the last couple of seasons of ‘Lingo’ (18-40; older people need not apply) gives hope to those of us that wish to appear on a GSN gameshow but aren’t good-looking model types. There were other great contestants on the three ‘Chain Reaction’ pilots I saw today (particularly Christ McQuee, a $16,000 winner on the syndicated version of ‘Millionaire’ late last year that single handedly brought her team to victory at the last possible moment of the last puzzle on the last Chain Reaction of the last pilot taped today), but good ol’ John Castellano had more personality in his pinky finger than all other team members on all three pilot shows combined.
To the best of my knowledge the answers and puzzles weren’t fixed or recreated on any of the pilots. What we saw were genuine reactions to genuine gameplay happening, including a blowout of one team over the other on the second pilot show (the 1st and 3rd shows went down to the wire). I’ve taken notes of some of the puzzles and banks that were recorded during these three pilots, but I’m tired and need to go to bed early. I’ll post this information in a follow-up post if somebody here is interested. If nobody cares then I’ll forget about it. Hope my incomplete and lame eyewitness account of the ‘Chain Reaction’ pilots was of interest to you.
