My let-downs:
*
Game Show Marathon: it worked elsewhere in the world, so how could they...oh. Bad editing, mediocre hosting, and relegating the six good, funny, and very recognizable celebrities to being the
Match Game panel (come on, you had Betty White
right there!).
*
Chain Reaction (2006): it's
Chain Reaction, complete with Instant Reaction bonus game. How could they possibly screw this up? Well, they did...mainly with the contestants (really, you couldn't get the connecting word of TEN PIN DROP?!). And Instant Reaction changed about as many times it did in 1980.
*
Temptation: "The New
Sale of the Century", which made me think "Oh, it's
Sale, it's going to be good." Aside from the use of Instant Bargains, Instant Cash, and the shopping endgame...pick something, it was "off" at the very least: Instant Cash capping at $5,000, the vast majority of the contestants being female (and the prizes almost always for them), the five-day limit, "Temptation Dollars", no ability to buy all the shopping prizes, etc. When you air out-of-order despite using returning champs, you're doing that wrong as well.
*
Merv Griffin's Crosswords: it was Merv's last game, damn right I was going to watch on Day 1. Jeez...Treadway was just robotic, the "Spoiler" mechanism was broken (among other things, you shouldn't have to
deliberately get a question wrong to have any chance of winning!), and sometimes it was damn near impossible to win the bonus round. And the cheapness. And the lack of returning champs. And an audience. And any sense of order to the airing schedule.
*
Duel (Season 1): great idea, but then I saw the clear use of caricatures ("The Fireman", "The Alligator Wrestler", etc.) and the fact the contestants acted like tools when greeting each other. Plus the fact all the buildup to the big final duel for more than Two Million Damn Dollars was rendered anticlimactic on the first question.
*
Million-Dollar Password: see JMFabiano's thoughts on it, because I agree wholeheartedly. Add to that the generic music and sounds, the obvious dubbing, the rule against giving two guesses in a row, and the fact that
Password really doesn't need a million-dollar prize. Jimmy Fallon since proved you don't need glitz or even prizes to make
Password work -- just five people having a good time with a variant of the late-60s format and set.
*
Family Feud (Harvey): see JMFabino's comments, again. I had high hopes from seeing the YouTube clips, but then the show began clearly seeking out those kinds of moments by getting vulgar questions and answers, throwing out questions for "not enough points", making a solo Fast Money win impossible, and...well, just what
is Fatone doing anyway that he can't actually be present in the studio?
*
Million-Dollar Money Drop: it's solid elsewhere, why not in the Sta.......oh, right -- FOX.
*
Million-Dollar Mind Game: not so much the show itself (which was great) but how ABC treated an actual hard quiz based around logical thinking -- sitting on it for a long time, then shoving it to Sunday afternoons against football.
*
Who's Still Standing?: an actual rapid-fire quiz on NBC! Oh, wait, it has caricatures and inconsistent rules that favor the "Hero", commercial breaks during questions (that should be illegal), and thinks viewers are goldfish. And it's by the geniuses behind
Minute To Win It. The "after the Hero leaves" rapid-fire last-man-standing game among the remaining Strangers was better than everything else about the show, and really should've been the format -- winner stays on, faces a new group of challengers, games can straddle if need be (but only after someone falls out of the game or a full game is completed); possibly have a stipulation that losing means forfeiting half of what you've accumulated (and hence have the option to quit upon seeing the next group of challengers).
*
Match Game (Canada): I was hoping it'd be in the "goofy" vein of the 1973-82 era, but instead the show opted to use the 1990-91 format that IMO had too much "game" because the Match-Up doesn't really fit and basically gives less room to goof off. And then there's the cheapness, the crappy announcer ("Get ready to make a match!"? Really?), and the inconsistent panel.
Yep. I don't remember contestants being as overcaffinated and obnoxious as they got there. And the trend has leaked into other shows indeed. Plus it got old when everyone tried to imitate the "I will do so-and-so...after these messages" tagline.
And the "suspenseful" aka "abrupt" commercial outros (
The Moment of Truth and especially
Who's Still Standing?), the trend of dark sets, generic music, and million-dollar prizes, the apparent necessity to edit the show within an inch of its life...and gimmicks. Holy crap the gimmicks.
