Sure, some of the most popular U.S. game show formats have come from elsewhere (Millionaire, Sale), and we've certainly exported our share of hits to the rest of the world (Wheel, TPIR). But in watching British TV for the past year or so, I'm sensing that we've lost our edge in developing new formats with global appeal -- and, worse yet, it seems like we're not even really trying anymore.
Just in the past few months, we've had the series of short-run shows on ITV -- The Chase, Divided, The Fuse -- and now there's Pointless on the BBC, none of which have any real parallel in the U.S. Of course, there was also Golden Balls, which I'm still amazed wasn't exported. And in prime time, The Cube is the darling of the moment, a show that's picture-perfect for a prime-time American audience. There's also Only Connect, which is innovative and unique -- and also way too smart even for cable.
What's been our biggest new game show export of recent years? 5th Grader?! And on the daytime side, only GSN is even making an attempt at new formats, but even there, Catch-21 is basically a remake of a 35-year-old title.
Way back in our golden age, new shows came and went in as little as 13 weeks, never to be seen again. Now, shows get committed for an entire season, and we're stuck with 28 repeats of Crosswords (remember all the hoopla about how this would be the next Wheel?). We used to have lots of mediocre product from which a few gems emerged; now we just have a little bit of mostly mediocre product that gets shown over and over and over again.
Thirty years from now, when whatever game show network is out there in whatever medium, will we really be looking back with fond nostalgia at reruns of Trivial Pursuit: America Plays?
