500 Questions

[gamed121683]

First of all, can we give some appreciation to the fact that they are actually seeking out smart, reasonable people to be on the show, as opposed to... whatever kind of pseudo-people as contestants the Endemol craze started?

Because it's not really a plus considering Endemol and the like gave the pseudo-people a chance at way, way more money on shows in the past?

Yeah, they're seeking out smart and reasonable people for this show and the questions are good, but I agree with Sodboy -- pretty much everything else is botched.

Botched? This sounds like a job for Dr. Dubrow.

[TLEberle]

- "Wrongs." You're trying too hard. Three red "X"s are strikes to every viewer you have across all demographics. Don't try to overhaul common parlance into an exclusively-branded concept.

This reminds me of the Australian version of 1 vs. 100. At the beginning Eddie would refer to the bits of assistance as lifelines, and why not? That was his most famous TV show. Apparently someone on production got a bug in his ear because he abruptly started calling them 'helps' and he looked annoyed every time the words crossed his lips.

- Why is this big-money big-bombast prime-time network TV game show EVENT dribbling out cash at $1000 per question (with rare exception)?

This I don't mind as much. Since it's supposed to be 500 questions there's not a great way to dole out money with each question (on the other hand it could have been another money tree paradigm.)

The problem I have is that the money is banked along the way and referred to rarely--similar to Jeopardy in fact but Jeopardy has a compelling game and there's always a winner at the end of every show. Here there's no real sense of tension at all because so much of the money is safe and the Genius is only risking what's in the current pot. Since the "risk" pot doesn't get very big, that doesn't give the tension a chance to rise all that much.

[parliboy]

I haven't added very much to this; but Mark Labbett favorited my tweet about the show, so I'll just drop that here instead.

[clemon79]

Someone is keeping count, right? I really want to see if they even *ask* 500 Questions over the run of the series. Near as I can tell they are well behind schedule at this point.

[WarioBarker]

BuzzerBlog is. (For the record, they're counting two-hour episodes as two one-hour shows.)

[clemon79]

BuzzerBlog is.

I'll pass, thanks.

[TLEberle]

Someone is keeping count, right? I really want to see if they even *ask* 500 Questions over the run of the series. Near as I can tell they are well behind schedule at this point.

I haven't watched yesterday's yet, but the current Genius is between 100 and 150, and the previous one got to 50 but not much more. Through the four hours up to Memorial Day I figure it's a little more than 200 questions asked.

[jjman920]

BuzzerBlog is.

I'll pass, thanks.

Here's a Twitter account called How Many Questions?

No idea who runs it though.

[WarioBarker]

Oh, funny thing about this show (depending on your definition of "funny"): one of the show's writers is on Twitter, and noted earlier today that not only did the show have a pretty low prize budget, but the producers complained that they were giving away too much money. The producers were expecting a much higher contestant turnover, resulting in smaller wins.

Source

[BrandonFG]

Oh, funny thing about this show (depending on your definition of "funny"): one of the show's writers is on Twitter, and noted earlier today that not only did the show have a pretty low prize budget, but the producers complained that they were giving away too much money. The producers were expecting a much higher contestant turnover, resulting in smaller wins.

Source

That's the conversation Gene referenced above.

[TLEberle]

How can it be that they're giving away too much money? The current genius was on $99,000 on Monday and the first winner took down less than fifty grand, and that's it. They are giving away per hour about as much as The Singing Bee.

[WarioBarker]

Evidently, that's too much money for the producers' liking.

That's the conversation Gene referenced above.

I...didn't notice that.

Still, I did want to point out that the cheapness was intentional and the winning was way more than the producers wanted.

[Toheckwiththis]

Did they honestly think the show would be a smash hit with stakes this low?

[MikeK]

Did they honestly think the show would be a smash hit with stakes this low?

If the amount of money being given away determines how long a show will last, we should be celebrating The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime's 30th year on television.

[WarioBarker]

Obviously, the money isn't everything -- the format and execution are. There's enough issues with the execution of this show to overshadow the fact not much is being offered, but the fact the producers were expecting a high contestant turnover to keep the winning minimal is a bit eyebrow-raising, especially since they were looking for legit-smart people to begin with.

[EDIT: Then again, 500 Questions beat the return of Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? by a million viewers, so what do I know? ]