[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'158563\' date=\'Jul 25 2007, 10:08 AM\']The problem is that American producers feel the need to cater to the widest possible audience. That's the biggest reason why British and other international programs are "dumbed down" here, and a big reason that purely intellectual exercises like Countdown, Mastermind or 15-to-1 aren't even tried.[/quote]This comes from a Mastermind fan, by the by, but my big problem with Mastermind is the first round. If the subjects are uninteresting, then I either fast-forward, or I would channel flip. 15-to-1 falls in the same lather-rinse-repeat category as Camouflage and Countdown.
If Mastermind was done with accessible material, it could work. Countdown's problem (for me anyhow) is two-fold:
1) You're watching the same thing over and over again.
2) And it gets all the less interesting when I realize that I'm completely crap at both letters and number
On Jeopardy!, I have a chance to get the giggity! effect that comes with a right answer roughly every 12 seconds. Even if I don't know one clue, another one is coming right up. That giggity per show ratio falls drastically when you have the specialist subjects of Mastermind, or the entire Countdown show.
So I'm watching the same thing over and over, and left with the feeling that I'm never going to do very well at all.
(Personally, I think Camouflage would be a fine addition to Now You See It. But clearly GSN isn't interested in game development...)
[quote name=\'WhammyPower\' post=\'158598\' date=\'Jul 25 2007, 01:23 PM\']3) In the Dome, gold tokens = $600 ($100/player), silver = -$300 (-$50/player)
4) 100 more gold than silver = double the bucks[/quote]To continue the absurdity of this idea, why not $10 per token? Or $100? Or $49.95? There's a reason that they go with the trophy paperweight and adventure holiday.
[quote name=\'Brig Bother\' post=\'158623\' date=\'Jul 25 2007, 03:44 PM\'] and it's a show everyone associated with Richard O'Brien (of Rocky Horror Show fame). Unfortunately he left, and whilst Ed Tudor Pole who replaced him did an OK job everyone complained that it wasn't the same and stopped watching.
[/quote]When I watch Richard, I get the idea that he's basing his performance on that of Willy Wonka, typically as the four naughty kids got their oh-so-timely comeuppance. He was still in charge, but you could tell that he was OK with poking fun at the contestants, yelling at them when they weren't paying attention to their surroundings and so on. All of the things that viewers at home would do.
[quote name=\'Speedy G\' post=\'158636\' date=\'Jul 25 2007, 05:04 PM\']The prizes are completely irrelevant to Countdown. You scale to match what you can afford in your prize budget.[/quote]Praise be. Someone finally gets it. As much as there are people here who want to soil themselves over whether a big win should involve the dropping of 595 or 573 pieces of confetti, or how much a runner-up should take home, at least there are still people who realize that without a good game, you have nothing.
