Yes, the money. No question. But the other reason to go on a television game show is for the thrill ride of the experience. It's fun. It was just as much fun at the Play It! attraction at Walt Disney World. The crowd, the music, the drama, the tension-- that's juice, baby. As thrilled as I was to win big bucks, I couldn't help but be disappointed about not reaching the top prize. Not just for the money, but for the potential loss of future opportunities to play. The better I did, the greater the chance of being invited back for a tournament of champions or as a Wise Man. A chance to win more money would be great, but I'd do it even with no prize at stake. Playing a high-tension game in front of a live, cheering audience is exhilirating. For a game player like me, it doesn't get much better.
That tournament of champions may never happen, but Millionaire producer Michael Davies is behind a meta-tournament on Game Show Network called Grand Slam. Sixteen of the best players from game show history compete for $100,000 and bragging rights in a terrific high-pressure showdown. Sadly, despite winning more than some of the competitors, I wasn't invited. A shame, because I'd be really good at this format.
The game is played in four rounds-- trivia, numbers and logic, words and letters, and a final round combining all three. Players each get a minute on their chess clock, and time inexorably ticks away from one side or the other. A correct answer stops a player's clock and starts his opponent's. Incorrect answers, including "Pass!", incur no penalty beyond the time it takes quizmaster Pat Kiernan to read the correct answer and move on to another question. When one player's clock expires, the other carries his remaining time over to round four. Whoever wins that final decisive round advances in the tournament.
This is not a game for the faint of heart. It calls for extremely quick thinking, recall, and the ability to triage questions on the fly and recognize which are time sinks better passed than deliberated over. The numbers and logic round is particularly troublesome for many players, having earned their cash on the merits of their trivia or word skills. The roster reads like a Who's Who of modern game shows, and it's been fascinating to watch top players duke it out.
The broadcast could use some trimming. They seem to be going for the Iron Chef effect of comedically overwrought gravitas, but it doesn't really work. Dennis Miller seems out of his element calling the play by play, and his co-host Amanda Byram rarely has anything insightful to offer. Kiernan is stellar as always, but his banishment off-screen is baffling. In his recent stint on The World Series of Pop Culture he's demonstrated some great timing and charm, loosening up quite a bit since his run on the ill-fated Studio 7. If we can't trim out all the fluff and pack more game into the show-- expanding each player's clock by 30 seconds would make me very happy-- I'd love to see Kiernan in the booth as Miller's foil.
The rules could also use a little tweaking. Each player begins the match with three Switches which bounce a question to the other side. An opponent is allowed to Switch right back, however, and strategically that's going to be the right play virtually every time. They'd be far more interesting if a player couldn't Switch back, but rather had to give a correct answer before he could use a Switch of his own.
Game Show Network is running these every Saturday, and will run the whole shebang as a marathon before the final match on September 8, which should be a doozy. I hope GSN brings this back next year for another season, because it's got great drama and a high play-along factor. And hey-- Michael Davies-- put me in, coach-- I'm so ready to play!
Posted by Peter at August 20, 2007 04:34 PMDefinitely agreed. The format is based on a UK game show tournament where the players each put in 1000 pounds to play. The general feel of the game (lighting, sounds) was pretty similar. You may have seen the UK clip of the finals circulating on YouTube at http://youtube.com/watch?v=zzJI3RrGqyo. Kiernan is offscreen just like his UK questioner counterpart, actor Nicholas Rowe (of "Young Sherlock Holmes").
If the show comes back, aside from more game show winners, one option floated around (by Davies in a pre-show article) is to include champions from other fields (Scrabble, crosswords, spelling bees, etc.) Not sure if that would work, but it's an idea.
Posted by: Matt J. on August 20, 2007 09:33 PMNaturally, you're not the only one yearning to play this game. In spite of my #9 ranking on the $$ list, GSN chose to ignore me. My theory is they don't have the broadcast rights to either of my major winning shows, so I can't be of any cross-promotion use.
Guess I'll just have to try to kick some major arse when I tape "Merv Griffin's Crosswords" in late September, and hope for Grand Slam II.
Same problem here. AOL's Gold Rush put me in the top ten $ list, but since it was syndicated and web-broadcast, no dice. Bet you didn't know that you had so many gameshow millionaires reading your blog, eh Peter?
Posted by: M Kearney on August 22, 2007 02:45 PMI finally got to see some of this. Oh, my god - the guy from Millionaire is a complete idiot! Not only was he clueless about some pretty easy questions, he had no idea how to play the game. I was astounded. At the end of the last round where he was playing the woman who beat him, he had two switches left while her clock sat at about 12 seconds. Why the hell did he not use the switches and put the pressure on her?!?! All she had to do was not know one question and it was over. That was easily the most frustrating moment I've ever had watching a gameshow. If it wasn't for Ken Jennings' much better play I would have resolved never to watch the show again.