Double unfortunate is that the high concept got in the way of what was a fun li'l game when you strip away the Thunderdome, Winner's Row and the various trappings that a game show is expected to have.
If you take all that away, you have two people taking a multiple-choice quiz. That's awfully li'l.
For me, I lost interest once I was told that only four people were going to win money. That blew the interesting concept of "Come to New York City and you could pick up an easy $500 playing a simple game."
Yes. The concept, high or not, was a 24-hour live game show where anyone--even you--could show up, play and win cash. The excitement is in the unexpected, an unlikely player getting on a run. Instead, the focus was the winner's defense and the four dorks in the hostel.
The hourglass wasn't the problem. The whole event should have been in there, and it should have been on the street, where people could look in even at 3 in the morning. If the unlikely run happened at that hour, it could be shown later. The show should have aired way more than the one stilted hour a day, with slots across the NBC family of networks, covered more like
Big Brother. The problem wasn't that it was marketed as a bold historic stunt, it's that it wasn't one.
Speaking of
Big Brother, that fell far short of expectations its first year, but got overhauled and has (for better or worse) been with us ever since. It's a shame MSQ won't be.