Super Millionaire Question Difficulty

[dscungio]

I found an article about Super Millionaire from the Houston Chronicle here.  I know we've all been wondering about the difficulty of the questions for SM, but maybe this can give us a clue.

From the article...

So with the stakes going up, will the questions get harder? Giving questions a monetary value "is something we struggle with all the time," Davies said. "Frankly, I don't know how much harder you can get than a $1 million question."

The first five questions will be tougher, he said, while the toughness level for questions six through nine will be the same as in the old version.

"Questions 10 to 12 might ratchet up, but 13 to 15 -- I don't know how we can make those questions a lot harder," he said. "We don't ask questions that are completely remote and impenetrable and feel like nobody stands a chance. With five lifelines and this huge amount of money on the table, we still want people to feel like they've got a shot."

Does this mean the first tier's difficulty is the same as the second tier's?  Will Lifelines be used much earlier?  And what about those last three questions?  Do you think they would all be Q15-type questions or would that just be insane?




Dean

[JasonA1]

Do you think they would all be Q15-type questions or would that just be insane?

That's not too far-fetched. I don't feel they should inflate the stakes and keep the questions the same. For television's sake, the first five shouldn't be any harder than Meredith's first five. It would be really lame to watch people struggle in the first 1/3 of the game, anyhow.

-Jason

[inturnaround]

Yeah, but do you really want a show where no one could possibly win the top prize? Davies and company probably would love to see someone during the next week get a look at the $10 million question and I'm sure they want to eventually see a winner either this go around or, more ideally, during another new week down the line.

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'inturnaround\' date=\'Feb 22 2004, 06:24 AM\'] Yeah, but do you really want a show where no one could possibly win the top prize? Davies and company probably would love to see someone during the next week get a look at the $10 million question and I'm sure they want to eventually see a winner either this go around or, more ideally, during another new week down the line. [/quote]
 I think Davies and Co. know in the back of their mind that if someone makes it past question 13, they'll be the all time winner in game show history. They might seriously aim for that.

[inturnaround]

Well, in a perfect world, they'd probably want to give audiences a taste of it, while leaving them wanting more.  Keep 'em coming back and all.

[JasonA1]

Yeah, but do you really want a show where no one could possibly win the top prize?

Davies also mentioned that he doesn't want to have obscure questions and ones that people couldn't figure out. I'm saying you can have the final questions be as difficult as the big one - these questions a fair amount of time in the past were able to be reasoned out to a degree by eliminating choices. It's difficult, but I think their writers could pull it off.

-Jason

[litpdwi16]

[quote name=\'inturnaround\' date=\'Feb 22 2004, 06:24 AM\'] Yeah, but do you really want a show where no one could possibly win the top prize? [/quote]
 Look at the Weakest Link.

It's possible, but very, very, very improbable.

[CarShark]

I was really that surprised by the difficulty of the questions. The first five were pretty easy pop culture questions. The middle five were like syndie Millionaire questions. When they went into the new dimension, though, sheesh. The condom question could be figured out, and Nancy Christy helped out a bunch. The $1 Million question, however.... A question about the frontal medial prefrontal cortex? Yeah, that just screams "We don't want you to win!"

[starcade]

I think all five of the top tier are going to be Q15 difficulty if the condom commercial question and the prefrontal lobe question are any indication...

[weaklink75]

[quote name=\'starcade\' date=\'Feb 23 2004, 06:44 PM\'] I think all five of the top tier are going to be Q15 difficulty if the condom commercial question and the prefrontal lobe question are any indication... [/quote]
 Well while the frontal lobe question was a stumper, the condom commercial question was reasonable. If you knew what networks the four shows were on, you'd have a chance at it.  Fox was the first network to accept the ads, and two of the four shows were Fox shows (Herman's Head and Get a Life). Nurses was an NBC show (which accepts the ads now), and Anything but Love was an ABC show (which still doesn't). What was tricky was that both Fox series were on in 1991, so you'd probably have to use Double Dip at that point.

[HYHYBT]

You could eliminate Nurses because it was on with Golden Girls and Empty nest, and just how likely is it that the first condom ads were for old people?