Some info on upcoming Chain Reaction

[Matt Ottinger]

The story reads like a 12-year-old's book report.  The quality of the writing is really that bad.  Still, it's our first look at the new series.  Well, "look" may be strong.  The only image is a still that they say is from an earlier version of the show, but appears instead to be a computer game of some sort.

http://hollywoodjunket.com/gsns-updated-chain-reaction-sneak-peek/

[aaron sica]

From the article:

The most entertaining part about watching the show is watching people get stumped over incredibly easy words. It is also funny to see them guess words that clearly do not make any sense in that chain.

So in other words, they're still not looking for smarts when finding contestants. One reason I found the last GSN version of CR hard to watch.

[clemon79]

I wonder if Kevin T. Culpepper would be interested to know that his work is being misrepresented like that.

So in other words, they're still not looking for smarts when finding contestants.

They weren't looking for smarts when they found their host either.

[BrandonFG]

Only $5,000 for the bonus. I don't normally complain about cheapness, but damn that's cheap. But, I'm like Aaron -- the clueless contestants turned me away from the Dylan Lane version as well.

[tyshaun1]

But, I'm like Aaron -- the clueless contestants turned me away from the Dylan Lane version as well.

But that's what caused the mid-80's version (and likely, the 2007 repeats) to be successful. As I recall Geoff Edwards stating in an interview, many of the contestants in Canada spoke French as their first language, so there were several "chains" that us American folk could figure out well before the contestants, which is especially good for older viewers. IMO, the 2007 version partially suffered from forcing the teams to be 3 groups of men or women, likely limiting their contestant pool and forcing lower scoring teams to be put on the show anyway.
Based on what I've read though (it's the EXACT same show), I can't see this version pulling any better numbers that the repeats, so I can't see this running for more than 1 cycle.

Tyshaun

[clemon79]

But that's what caused the mid-80's version (and likely, the 2007 repeats) to be successful.

Poor play?

Seriously?

[TLEberle]

Yup, seriously. More pointedly, poor play by people I didn't want to shiv with a butter knife, in the case of Canadian Reaction.

[clemon79]

Yup, seriously. More pointedly, poor play by people I didn't want to shiv with a butter knife, in the case of Canadian Reaction.

I'm still confused. This is an actual argument, that the success of the show is attributed to people playing it poorly? That people actively want to watch people doing poorly at a word game?

[rebelwrest]

Yup, seriously. More pointedly, poor play by people I didn't want to shiv with a butter knife, in the case of Canadian Reaction.

I'm still confused. This is an actual argument, that the success of the show is attributed to people playing it poorly? That people actively want to watch people doing poorly at a word game?

I think what the original poster meant was on Canadian Reaction, American viewers got the chains FASTER than the contestants on the show mainly due to the language barrier.  It wasn't more poor game play as translating from English to French. 

A link to Adam Nedeff's page about Canadian Reaction puts a little more light on it (quote is near the bottom of the page): http://www.game-show-utopia.net/geoff/chain89/newchainreaction.htm

[Matt Ottinger]

I'm still confused. This is an actual argument, that the success of the show is attributed to people playing it poorly? That people actively want to watch people doing poorly at a word game?

Our rebellious one beat me to it by pointing to the exact quote from Geoff which makes a lot more sense.  People don't want to see poor play, they just want to do better at home than the contestants, and the built-in language barrier made that a bit more likely.

[jage]

Put another way, if every puzzle on Wheel of Fortune was solved after the first letter, you'd have some amazing contestants, but lose most of your play along value.

[TLEberle]

Put another way, if every puzzle on Wheel of Fortune was solved after the first letter, you'd have some amazing contestants, but lose most of your play along value.

That's part of the genius: the incentive is on the player to keep spinning to build up the bank even though the puzzle is obvious to everyone at home. The viewers get the ego boost of solving the puzzle most of the time.