How Much Is Enough?

[clemon79]

A half-hour, from the looks of it. That game could be played on index cards with no loss of strategy, or fun.

Did anyone here actually like it? I'd be interested in hearing why.

[tvwxman]

Absolutely awful. I miss "Friend or Foe", which was the same concept, with trivia. At least there you could learn something!

Watching 4 players press buttons for a half hour? Who the hell green-lit this?

And Corbin, while at least able to ad-lib better than most GSN hosts (see Lane, Dylan), he wasn't adding anything to this. Every time he turned to a player in the lead and said "well played", I asked myself, just what in the hell did they do to play this well?

Crap. Pure Crap.

[Clay Zambo]

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'174236\' date=\'Jan 8 2008, 09:54 PM\']
Watching 4 players press buttons for a half hour? Who the hell green-lit this?
Crap. Pure Crap.
[/quote]

All of a sudden I don't feel so bad about forgetting to set the DVR.

[beatlefreak84]

I don't know why, but I feel truly let down by this show.  I guess I went into it with lofty expectations, but, yeah; while I think the game is an interesting concept, it was truly painful for me to watch, with the exception of Corbin Bernsen, who I thought did a great job with interacting with the contestants.

IMO, the game is too slow (hell, they could easily do 10 "money clocks" at $1,000 each in that time!) and just isn't that exciting to watch.  You watch people push buttons for a half-hour...wow...and I think Matt makes a great point:  at least with FOF, there was a quiz game underneath...here, there's nothing...except button-pushing...

I like the psychology aspect of it, but I just didn't like watching it.  That's why I eventually stopped after 20 minutes and listened to ACP on Shokus Radio (shameless plug:  I'm one of the contestants this week... )

In summary:

Good:  Corbin Bernsen, underlying psychology aspect, I don't ever have to see it again...
Bad:  Everything else not under good...

I'd say chalk this one up to another game that looks great on paper but terrible on the air.  But I do hope Bernsen gets another crack at a game show at some point; he looks like he'd be great.

Anthony

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'beatlefreak84\' post=\'174242\' date=\'Jan 8 2008, 08:26 PM\']
I'd say chalk this one up to another game that looks great on paper but terrible on the air.[/quote]
But that's the thing; it doesn't look good on paper, either. Here's the pitch:

"Players hit a button when a rising dollar amount hits a point they can live with. Whoever tries to win the most money in a round gets nothing."

Everything else was chrome.

If a mute can play your game, and nobody notices they're a mute: it's lousy television.

[Kniwt]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'174235\' date=\'Jan 8 2008, 06:44 PM\']
Did anyone here actually like it? I'd be interested in hearing why.
[/quote]

I'll say at least that I didn't hate it.  Then again, it's not anything even remotely approaching appointment (or even TiVo) television.

For the modern GSN budget, it's reasonably generous.  The set is somewhat brighter than the standard 21st-century dark, and the visual elements are reasonably well done.  (Then again, I'm a sucker for all those numbers.)  If Corbin makes the show more about the people (he tried with Mettal) and less about the game, it could even be slightly entertaining.

But low five-figure jackpots aren't going to change any lives, and the Great Moral Questions the show poses just don't work that well.  I feel slightly unclean for even thinking this, but the show could indeed work better in a Mo' Money world.  Multiply the values by 20 or 30, drop it on a strike-bound network in prime time, turn down the lights, and Mettal might start taking his swagger a little more seriously.

I'm not saying that I'd personally like such a show, but I suspect it could appeal to those who think picking numbered suitcases is too intellectually challenging.

[Jay Temple]

My summary of the problem with the concept: In theory, it's exactly the same game every time.

I also thought, since exactly one player doesn't get his money in a given round (except the last one with four people), that the reveal should work this way:

Round one: Choose any two people. The one who locked in for less gets his money. Now compare the other person to one of the other two people. Same process, then do it with the last person.

Rounds 2-5: Start with the two people who have the least money and proceed as described above.

I agree, Corbin should get a chance to host a better show.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' post=\'174257\' date=\'Jan 8 2008, 11:06 PM\']
My summary of the problem with the concept: In theory, it's exactly the same game every time.[/quote]
Well, it's *slightly* different in a count-down round: if you can catch another player pushing their button, you know it's okay to push yours. But that's it. And it's still awful television.

[Scrabbleship]

[quote name=\'Kniwt\' post=\'174244\' date=\'Jan 8 2008, 11:47 PM\']
But low five-figure jackpots aren't going to change any lives, and the Great Moral Questions the show poses just don't work that well.  I feel slightly unclean for even thinking this, but the show could indeed work better in a Mo' Money world.  Multiply the values by 20 or 30, drop it on a strike-bound network in prime time, turn down the lights, and Mettal might start taking his swagger a little more seriously.
[/quote]

I thought of the exact same thing while watching this last night. I don't hate it either, but the game is so mind numbingly slow and has nothing going on that I think it's going to have the same fate as Camouflage or StarFace: 40 episodes aired to death for a few months then a gradual but swift downgrade to history. At least the show has a host with promise unlike many of the other GSN originals that have come and gone.

If it wasn't for the fact that I had nothing going on last night, I'd ask for a half-hour of my life back.

[tpirfan28]

Sounds like "Duel" and "Set for Life" mated and had a kid.

[lobster]

[quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'174268\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 08:26 AM\']
Sounds like "Duel" and "Set for Life" mated and had a kid.
[/quote]

"You're watching 'How Much is Enough' on GSN!"

In the final round, I'm surprised they went so high, as anything over $5000 is a pretty good haul for a GSN show

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'Kniwt\' post=\'174244\' date=\'Jan 8 2008, 11:47 PM\'] but I suspect it could appeal to those who think picking numbered suitcases is too intellectually challenging.[/quote]That's not quite fair to say, IMO.  Perhaps those who are sick of watching a three-ring circus would enjoy it.  Deal or No Deal offers very, very little "intellectual" effect.

[BillCullen1]

[quote name=\'lobster\' post=\'174271\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 10:15 AM\']
[quote name=\'tpirfan28\' post=\'174268\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 08:26 AM\']
Sounds like "Duel" and "Set for Life" mated and had a kid.
[/quote]
In the final round, I'm surprised they went so high, as anything over $5000 is a pretty good haul for a GSN show
[/quote]

I have to agree with the last statement.  HMIE (for short) is not intellectual, edge-of-your-seat
TV by any means, but it's a harmless half-hour of TV.  Let's face it, if GSN had come up with
another word game with a $5,000 bonus round, everyone would be complaining about that.

The Good:

Corbin Bernsen - he's able to interract with contestants and can ad-lib without really trying.  In
other words, it comes across naturally.  He obviously has acting skills from L.A. Law, movies
and whatever else he's done, so he can be dramatic and create suspense. Since I believe this
is his first hosting job and there's not really much of a game here, that's pretty good.

To quote Bob Saget of 1 vs. 100 - "This game is simple." In this case, that's an understatement.
But there is a psychological aspect to the game, and some contestants may have personalities nice
enough for you to want to root for them.

The set is not dark and foreboding, like most post 2000 game shows and there's an AUDIENCE
and an ANNOUNCER.  I imagine this isn't the most exciting show to sit through a taping of,
and maybe down the road, we'll find out the announcer's name.  It's obviously not Don Pardo,
unless he's taking hormone pills - JUST KIDDING!!

Now the bad:

Take away the glitz and bling, and you've got four people on stage waiting to hit a button at
an appropriate time for them.  Not too exciting.  Basically, it's going to be up to Corbin to
carry the show, but from the one episode I saw, he's capable of doing that.

If the contestants come across as boring or obnoxious, it will probably make people go for
the remote and flip channels.

There's a possibility that contestants could get "in each other's face" which means we'll
get "verbal smackdows" like what happened occasionally on The Weakest Link.  But
that show had a Q&A aspect to it, which HMIE doesn't.  That would make me flip channels.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'174286\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 12:12 PM\']
[quote name=\'Kniwt\' post=\'174244\' date=\'Jan 8 2008, 11:47 PM\'] but I suspect it could appeal to those who think picking numbered suitcases is too intellectually challenging.[/quote]That's not quite fair to say, IMO.  Perhaps those who are sick of watching a three-ring circus would enjoy it.  Deal or No Deal offers very, very little "intellectual" effect.[/quote]
With Deal, at least you have a little bit of math in play.  The odds are right there in front of you (and often literally superimposed on the bottom of the screen right there in front of you).  How Much Is Enough is a simple, boring and redundant sociology experiment.  Honestly, I could see somebody taking data from the results of all the Enough shows and analyzing them for a masters thesis in human behavior.

/I just wouldn't televise it.

[tvwxman]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' post=\'174290\' date=\'Jan 9 2008, 12:24 PM\']
With Deal, at least you have a little bit of math in play.  The odds are right there in front of you (and often literally superimposed on the bottom of the screen right there in front of you).  How Much Is Enough is a simple, boring and redundant sociology experiment.  Honestly, I could see somebody taking data from the results of all the Enough shows and analyzing them for a masters thesis in human behavior.

/I just wouldn't televise it.
[/quote]
We''ll have the results after this you're watching a masters thesis in human behavior on GSN!

Nope. Not exciting enough. Unless there are scantilly clad women. Will there be scantilly clad women?