One thing I really miss is the spontaneity
I'm 90% sure this is a key reason why, out of everything out of the GSN factory of originals, People Puzzler is the show I cherish most. The show is still leaving a decent bit in edit from what I've seen and heard, but even under the modern era constraints of just 20 minutes of content time, the game is light enough that you still get a significant amount of ad lib time, Leah playfully mocking the contestants or going off on a tangent, etc. With the increasingly antiquated fixation on stuffing as many ads as possible into a half hour, that's been countered by a lot of producers with a desire to stuff either the most game or the most show into the remaining time, usually sacrificing one for the other (either a lightning-focus on the game at the expense of the "show" elements, or an utter lack of game in order to focus on the ~drama~)
With the sole exception of Press Your Luck, People Puzzler walks that line the best of any new or revived show I've seen produced in at least the last decade.
what are the "little things" you miss from shows that don't exist as much, either due to changes in technology or because TV shows just aren't done that way anymore?
Silence makes sound more meaningful and most modern shows have no idea (nor have the time) to know when to shut the hell up. On myriad older shows, you'd have the dramatic pause of a contestant thinking over a clue. The little note of stillness before a trilon goes {thunk}. That beat before the laughter on older Family Feud when you're trying to accept that they just said whatever they just said. The little still pause after a dubious clue or before that last answer before a big win. Everything from Millionaire on - and especially from Weakest Link on, which producers proudly noted in interviews was
never silent, there's always *something*. Steve Harvey and the audience
immediately react. There's think music beds underneath everything. Some chime or sting. Some fake audience laughing once more from the dead because there's no time to take your time. The lack of physical set pieces and the end of human operators means someone in the back pushes a button and you never hear it and you never wait for it.
Going back
again to People Puzzler, there are moments that the show almost
revels in it's moments of silence. The one shot of Leah staring at the contestant trying to decide whether to mock them or console them. The contestant's nervous laughter that goes on a moment too long so it feels JUST a little awkward and so makes it human. A comparatively rare GSN original that doesn't even pretend to have an audience in it's production design, so everything you don't hear makes everything you do feel just that 10% more interesting.
