MTWI ratings...

[J.R.]

I've always wondered if all the "extra" elements (The melodrama, the sob-story subplots, etc) is out of network's fear that the general public still thinks all game shows are the Wink Martindale/Shag Carpet/Chintzy Production stereotype thus the need to show them as something more than just a game?

I've seen "modern" game shows listed on network sites as "reality" as well.

[TLEberle]

Jeopardy gives us a 30 second glimpse into the lives of the players. Millionaire gives you more, but stretched out, and there's just the one participant, so you can focus on that one person. Note that on the Ten to One episodes of Minute that there wasn't all that much in the way of the prime time game show-ness that you found elsewhere, and only when you got down to the last few did that sort of stuff emerge.

[Sodboy13]

Whenever I see all the unnecessary aww-shucks boo-hoo narrative padding that overruns so many American prime-time game shows, well, first, I change the channel.  But then I'm reminded of when I auditioned for Million Dollar Password.  A production assistant was giving us all a bit of intro before our initial round of testing, and it stuck in my brain that he danced around the word "contestant," preferring to refer to contestants as "the people we build into characters."

Obviusly, he was drinking the Kool-Aid, and so are plenty of others.

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'Sodboy13\' post=\'252308\' date=\'Dec 10 2010, 04:53 PM\']A production assistant was giving us all a bit of intro before our initial round of testing, and it stuck in my brain that he danced around the word "contestant," preferring to refer to contestants as "the people we build into characters."[/quote]Password seems like the one show that needed that sort of thing the least, and truly had the least amount of time for the sort of story building that replaces game play these days. (After all, if someone is going to play the money round three times and stop with $50,000; do I really need to know his deepest secrets? Not really.)

[trainman]

[quote name=\'Sodboy13\' post=\'252308\' date=\'Dec 10 2010, 04:53 PM\']A production assistant was giving us all a bit of intro before our initial round of testing, and it stuck in my brain that he danced around the word "contestant," preferring to refer to contestants as "the people we build into characters."[/quote]

I've done the live "Jeopardy!" auditions several times, and auditioned for a couple of other game shows.  At "Jeopardy!", the terminology they used was "picking contestants."  At the other shows, the terminology was "casting."