GSN's New 'Chain Reaction' Pilot(s)

[ChuckNet]

Having also attended the pilots, while I know I'm a little late jumping in on this thread, I'd echo most of the sentiments my fellow attendees expressed: Tim's good, but needs to rely on the teleprompter a little less, set was a bare-bones setup that screamed "temporary", and the gameplay was probaby the best thing about it, combined w/the potential for teams to take home over $37K in one day (I did the math, LOL).

As for the bonus round, it's clear that the players really need to get back into the groove, since some of them had trouble forming coherent sentences. Sample clues:

"What-country-is-hockey?" (Canada)
"What-mammal-swims-blowhole?" (Dolphin)
"What-TV-accesory-improves-radio..." (Time ran out at this point; they were trying to convey Antenna)

There may also be returning champs...Tim mentioned @ the end of the 1st pilot that the winning team would be "coming back tomorrow", but knowing GSN, this may not be the case. We'll see, though.

In any event, hopefully these kinks will be worked out, should this make it to air...since the rest of the pilot was quite good, I'll hope so!

Chuck Donegan (The Optimistic "Chuckie Baby")

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' post=\'115215\' date=\'Apr 3 2006, 09:17 PM\']
"What-country-is-hockey?" (Canada)
"What-mammal-swims-blowhole?" (Dolphin)
"What-TV-accesory-improves-radio..." (Time ran out at this point; they were trying to convey Antenna)
[/quote]
Okay, so it IS the Instant Reaction we know and love? The original post implied that they were forming statements, not questions.

[mystery7]

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' post=\'115215\' date=\'Apr 4 2006, 12:17 AM\']
As for the bonus round, it's clear that the players really need to get back into the groove, since some of them had trouble forming coherent sentences.
[/quote]
Natural after 15 years...but syntax errors were always a problem with that format. Witness John Ritter saying that Holland had two lips on the get Rich Quick pilot. Or the team on Go that won $10,000 for knowing "What is around a loaf of pie?"

[tvwxman]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'115216\' date=\'Apr 4 2006, 12:21 AM\']
[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' post=\'115215\' date=\'Apr 3 2006, 09:17 PM\']
"What-country-is-hockey?" (Canada)
"What-mammal-swims-blowhole?" (Dolphin)
"What-TV-accesory-improves-radio..." (Time ran out at this point; they were trying to convey Antenna)
[/quote]
Okay, so it IS the Instant Reaction we know and love? The original post implied that they were forming statements, not questions.
[/quote]
The brain-dead contestants couldn't come up with questions, so you ended up with the above lines....this is going to be a hurdle for GSN, who LOVES to put them purty-people on tee-vee as contestants... works for Lingo (hey, I can spell 5 letter words), but this one's going to be a bigger challenge....

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'115252\' date=\'Apr 4 2006, 07:01 AM\']
The brain-dead contestants couldn't come up with questions, so you ended up with the above lines....
[/quote]
Yes, but my point was that reading the original post, it came off sounding like they were specifically required to make up general statements, like "This - is - the - capital - of - Missouri", as opposed to inquisitive statements like "What - is - the - capital..." etc.

What were the host's instructions?

[tvwxman]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'115254\' date=\'Apr 4 2006, 10:11 AM\']
[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'115252\' date=\'Apr 4 2006, 07:01 AM\']
The brain-dead contestants couldn't come up with questions, so you ended up with the above lines....
[/quote]
Yes, but my point was that reading the original post, it came off sounding like they were specifically required to make up general statements, like "This - is - the - capital - of - Missouri", as opposed to inquisitive statements like "What - is - the - capital..." etc.

What were the host's instructions?
[/quote]

There were none. He was too busy coming up with witty lines for tying on the blindfold.

The impression I got was they had to form questions, like the original. Of the two pilots i saw, ALL of the questions started with one of the 5 W's.  Getting all the parts of the question in there was the challenge for the pilot contestants. Sentence Tree, anyone?

The other issue (which i'm sure will be resolved for the show. At least it damn well better), was that the judges, and the host, were all slow in cuckoo'ing a bad question or mistake. Both pilot bonus rounds had stop-tapes. And that should be a major concern for Davies and company : this bonus is complicated and judging needs to be smart,strict, and most of all, quick..... both eps i saw, it wasn't.

Smart and quick ain't exactly GSN contestant material, is it?

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'115256\' date=\'Apr 4 2006, 09:37 AM\']
Smart and quick ain't exactly GSN contestant material, is it?
[/quote]
Nope.  Its "big" and "round".

[Clay Zambo]

-THE END GAME[/u]: ...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. ...

In prep for my "Chain Reaction" audition today, I was looking at a couple of episodes I've got from the Cullen run.  Something surprised me about the endgame: I always thought that the answer screens were built into the  game desk, but the celebs seem to be looking offscreen, not down.  Am I right about this?

[Jimmy Owen]

I think they were looking at a countdown clock, otherwise they would have to blindfold the person in the middle, as they are doing in the new pilot.

[Clay Zambo]

Not necessarily.  A couple of off-screen monitors with a little cardboard shield on the upstage edge would be all you'd need to block the middle player's view.