Mind of a Man cancelled by GSN; The Chase renewed; Bible/Church on the bubble

[TLEberle]

I am assuming (you never know, it could be Jimmy being Jimmy, and that's always a safe bet) that his poorly worded question was "how much money was brought down the table by contestants who won their own round but the team lost the Final Chase?" because you could have a team that wins all of their table rounds but flakes it in the final round and so their $195,000 becomes vaporbucks.

[clemon79]

I am assuming (you never know, it could be Jimmy being Jimmy, and that's always a safe bet) that his poorly worded question was "how much money was brought down the table by contestants who won their own round but the team lost the Final Chase?"

I entertained that briefly, but gave Jimmy the benefit of the doubt because that would be a friggin' stupid question.

[Jimmy Owen]

I am assuming (you never know, it could be Jimmy being Jimmy, and that's always a safe bet) that his poorly worded question was "how much money was brought down the table by contestants who won their own round but the team lost the Final Chase?" because you could have a team that wins all of their table rounds but flakes it in the final round and so their $195,000 becomes vaporbucks.

Chris is correct.  I know the contestants get some money or accomodation/travel expenses just for appearing on the show.  As far as my question asking skillz, verbosity is not my strong suit. The question is how much $$$ have the contestants taken home this season.  Might as well offer a million if nobody's gonna win it, and if they do, GSN could make that ep an "unaired show."

[TLEberle]

Are you counting payment/setting up of travel expenses? What about the alternates who were picked but didn't make the big show? I think they also got a stipend for the day as well.

[Jimmy Owen]

Are you counting payment/setting up of travel expenses? What about the alternates who were picked but didn't make the big show? I think they also got a stipend for the day as well.

I'm only talking about what winnings are seen on screen and taken home at the end of the show.  It appears that one person won $80,000 and the rest went home with no "on-air" winnings.  Maybe the prize budget was met on the first show, so the contestant pool became made up of people who, as determined by pre-show testing, could not beat the beast.

[TLEberle]

I'm only talking about what winnings are seen on screen and taken home at the end of the show.  It appears that one person won $80,000 and the rest went home with no "on-air" winnings.  Maybe the prize budget was met on the first show, so the contestant pool became made up of people who, as determined by pre-show testing, could not beat the beast.

I refuse to entertain that notion; the show had wins of $125k and $180k earlier on; why would they shrink their budget for future series? If the budget shrinks, they should shrink the potential prize instead of casting dullards as contestants.

We're all in agreement that the show is only interesting if David actually fells Goliath sometimes; it is possible that the contestants tested and auditioned well and just flaked on the show, or that Mark was up to the task each time.

[clemon79]

Are you counting payment/setting up of travel expenses? What about the alternates who were picked but didn't make the big show? I think they also got a stipend for the day as well.

He's not counting any of that, which is why he said "on-screen" in the first place.

[clemon79]

If the budget shrinks, they should shrink the potential prize instead of casting dullards as contestants.

Very much this.

or that Mark was up to the task each time.

I'd buy into this if the Final Chase teams put up potential-win numbers. I posit that they haven't.

From my absolutely unscientific observation, to have a reasonable chance against Mark you need *at least* 18 steps (and then a buttload of pushbacks) and more likely 20+. Looking at Chad's somewhat-more-scientific numbers (and discounting the first season because six episodes simply isn't enough to provide a representative sample) the teams in the second season got there often enough to keep hope alive.

This batch flat isn't. As I said before I already had forgotten about the win; I *know* over the last six weeks or so, to a man, I've looked at the step count and said thought "okay, now Brooke asks Mark what he thinks; what's he gonna say this time to make that sound *remotely* competitive?" And honestly in the last couple of week's he's stopped trying.)

Chad, if you've got the numbers handy; could you quickly post the step count for each game this season? (No details necessary, just 12,13,16, etc. would be helpful.) I'd like to see what happens to that average once the 80K win is taken out of the equation. (And I further think with stats like this the median number (or even the two-thirds median, if that makes sense) is more interesting than the mean. Nobody gives a crap if the winning team put up a 22 if there is a string of 14's and 15's following it up. By the opposite token, if the average is 16 and there's four 19+'s and four 13's in there, that's tolerable.)

[chad1m]

The first batch: 13, 18, 10, 15, 15, 19

The second batch: 22, 16, 20, 18, 18, 19, 14, 10, 21, 16

The current batch: 17, 15, 22, 16, 13, 15, 17, 13

[clemon79]

The first batch: 13, 18, 10, 15, 15, 19

The second batch: 22, 16, 20, 18, 18, 19, 14, 10, 21, 16

The current batch: 17, 15, 22, 16, 13, 15, 17, 13

Thank you, sir.

And the 22 was the win, I gather? This is pretty damning evidence: one qualifier (that, again, I assume was the win), two almost-doable-but-not-quites and a fistful of no-way-in-hells. Compare to Season 2, where more than half of the games are 18+.

In fact, playing with the numbers a little more, let's line 'em up from smallest to largest:

Second batch: 10, 14, 16, 16, 18, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (Weren't there 11 games?) Avg: 17.4 Median: 18

Third batch: 13, 13, 15, 15, 16, 17, 17, 22    Avg: 16  Median: 15.5

Now let's throw out the extremes: Second season average rises to 17.75, third drops to 15.5. But I think the median numbers really tell the tale here.

[SuperSweeper]

It seems that the audition process has changed quite a bit since I tried out (way back in May of last year), but I felt that the initial test was pretty tough - tougher than Jeopardy's online test, in my opinion.  Anyone who passed that was, at the very least, a decent player.

Nerves probably play quite a bit into the contestants' performances.  I incorrectly answered six questions in my Final Chase, and I know that I probably could have gotten a few of them right sitting at home.  The very first question of my FC was one that I knew, but I didn't think fast enough, said something else, and got it wrong.   

The big day can last quite a long time, too.  I wasn't able to stick around for the second show on my day, but based on what I recall hearing from the other contestants, the sole contestant who played the Final Chase on that show had probably been at the studio for close to 10 hours by the time the FC was played.  I don't know if the tapings have gotten quicker since then.

[TLEberle]

NB: In the first two series, Mark won 12 times and lost five.

In series three, with the exception of the first episode Mark managed to catch the team with more than 20 seconds remaining.

[clemon79]

NB: In the first two series, Mark won 12 times and lost five.

And I can handle this. A win somewhere between every three and four shows? Reasonable, though for a weekly I'd prefer that number trend towards the three. That isn't the direction they are headed in though.

[PYLdude]

It seems that the audition process has changed quite a bit since I tried out (way back in May of last year), but I felt that the initial test was pretty tough - tougher than Jeopardy's online test, in my opinion.  Anyone who passed that was, at the very least, a decent player.

I can testify that the challenge level presented on the initial test remains on that level.

[Joe Mello]

From my absolutely unscientific observation, to have a reasonable chance against Mark you need *at least* 18 steps (and then a buttload of pushbacks) and more likely 20+

Every contestant win and one loss has come with a target of 18 or higher.

An interesting budget idea, if the Super Offer is going to continue to be a thing, perhaps they can knock down the regular high offer a bit and adjust accordingly.