Are you going to be watching the Series Premiere of ABC's newest game show Million Dollar Mind Game?
Hosted by Vernon Kay, it all starts Next Sunday, October 23rd at 4/3c. I'm interested to see if anyone can actually win the million, or if it's as impossible to win as it was on Downfall.
For those of you who don't know what Million Dollar Mind Game is about, check out the official ABC program page for this epic game show:
http://abc.go.com/shows/million-dollar-mind-game
ABC has a commitment to air this show, so they're burning it off in the dead zone that other dead zones live in fear of. That, plus the fact the six-episode run has been in the can for close to a full year now, shows ABC has no confidence in this show getting anything resembling a good rating.
Of course I'll be watching, but it's not like I have any illusions whatsoever.
Absolutely not! I don't like 21st century originals. I'm more a die-hard fan of classic game shows or shows I grew up with that are still airing to this day.Originally Posted by DialgaChampion
As for how the show will pan out, it probably won't suffer like Winning Lines did, but may end up suffering like Power of 10 or Million Dollar Password did. I have a hunch it won't last as long as Deal or No Deal or even WWTBAM did.
^Dude. I'm a fan of those oldies just as much, but I'll always give the newer shows a shot before I say I hate 'em. I'll give you that my faith in modern entertainment dwindles drastically nearly every time I watch a new American game show, but I really think this one will be different. Unlike very many recent offerings, this one actually puts the mind to the test instead of letting the contestants, as Howie Mandel put it, "be a rock and move up to a new tax bracket." I love games like this one because the biggest winners are the ones who play the game best. For once, random chance has no bearing on what prize is won. It'll really be refreshing.
I take what ABC has done with this show as a slap in the face. They're basically saying that since I'm American that I'm too stupid to be entertained by such a show. It's really a shame too, because if they'd give it a chance in a better timeslot and it were to do well, it really could revolutionize the face of modern game shows. But we all know how it'll go. We'll have a refreshing hour of intelligence every week for six weeks, then we'll return to the Idiocratic wasteland that is modern-day television.
I have never understood, nor do I honestly wish to understand, the mindset that you can be either a fan of the "classics" or a fan of the modern shows, with no crossover. Real life is rarely so black and white, and especially in this case. And honestly, isn't this society of ours divisive enough as it is without adding yet one more level of "us vs. them" to the proceedings? At some point it just becomes sheer lunacy.
How such a relatively innocuous form of entertainment can spawn such devotion to one specific era over another, to the point it almost becomes blind allegiance, is beyond me in just about every sense of the expression... I'm not only incapable of such thinking myself, I'm incapable of understanding it. At the end of the day, a game show is a game show, and if it's good, it doesn't matter if it was made over thirty years ago or just yesterday. It is long past time we as a fandom got over this hang-up that anything "new" is by definition bad, or at the very least, inferior to what's come before.
The saying "Age is just a number" is never more true than when applied to this genre.
Sadly, this show's fate has already been decided; this is a burn-off of episodes that've been in the can for nearly a year, to fulfill a broadcast commitment. The best we can hope for is that this show draws enough attention from a significant enough cult following, that a GSN or a relatively highbrow niche network (do such things even still exist?) takes notice and gives it a shot on their channel... and even that is less a hope than it is a pipe dream.As for how the show will pan out, it probably won't suffer like Winning Lines did, but may end up suffering like Power of 10 or Million Dollar Password did. I have a hunch it won't last as long as Deal or No Deal or even WWTBAM did.
If I remember to watch I will. If not, I hope ABC will have it on their website.
It does really look like ABC has (had) no hope for this show and just wants to burn the episodes off, and yeah, that no one wants to see a game show that requires one to use their greymatter anymore. (Unless it's Jeopardy, obviously.)
IMO, it's also a big reason (apart from copyright issues) why QI will never make it across the pond legitimately. (FYI: I mean importing the already-made episodes, of course.) And a reason a show like Only Connect (probably the brainiest game show I've seen to date) would never fly over here, either.
Could you imagine a show like The Krypton Factor trying to work out here? I know, Dick Clark did it for like 7 episodes in 1981, but I'll tell you right now... it would never fly here.
Well, I have another game show host to throw into my next installment of UGSHS -- Victoria Coren.
Upcoming Shows: Iron Maiden, Devore, September 13
Kamelot, Anaheim, September 21
▲ Five episodes, actually -- and to be fair, the series was designed from the get-go to be a limited-run special event, so its short life was intentional. It could've been picked up for additional series, though, I'll cop to that much. And actually, around 1988 or so, The Krypton Factor did in fact return Stateside, as a syndicated kids' game of all things, so you never know.
The Krypton Factor might not be the best example, honestly; it's not especially highbrow in content, at least not noticeably more so than Jeopardy! It's a multidisciplinary gauntlet that challenges its contestants on multiple levels both physically and mentally, and a lot of its mini-games aren't that much different from what some of the competitive reality shows have done in past years. I could easily see K Factor returning to the US and doing well for itself, provided it was packaged and marketed correctly (and "correctly" does not necessarily mean playing up the always-corny "search for the ultimate human" milieu)... certainly long before other brainy UK staples such as QI, Only Connect, or even my own personal favorite, Countdown.
^ I'd love so much to see Countdown here. I'm quite sure no major network would do it, but it could be profitable in syndication since it can't cost more than $2.64 to produce an episode, or if nothing else, PBS would be a perfect fit for it. I certainly wouldn't mind my tax dollars bringing the world's most intelligent game show stateside.
But still...why not put in primetime on Friday, where it's main competition would be dying shows like CBS's A Gifted Man and CW's Nikita, reruns of NBC sitcoms, FOX's Kitchen Nightmares and WWE Smackdown on Syfy. Is it really going to do so much worse than Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that you have to throw it against the NFL late games on CBS and FOX, thus ensuring it gets smashed?
You are always coming on here and talking about that I'm not going to give any new game shows a try. I'm going to DVR this show because I'll probably miss it if I didn't have one and go from there...
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