The Next Next Big Thing
Jason Deans's MediaGuardian article is all about the next big game show format. Only, we already have the next blockbuster format - Deal or No Deal - and now everyone is going to copy it and go for the high-money random chance show that pushes people's buttons the way DOND does, with its silky, manipulative Dutch fingers. (I bet makes Channel 4 wish they had it put it on in primetime from the very beginning so it could crush all the BBC and ITV in the ratings. Though you also get the feeling that they would never have given it to Noel, the once forgotten, pitiful dethroned king of Saturday night reborn as some game show messiah, if they had done so. But such are the myriad mysterious ways of television.)
Yet I hold no hope out for a big general knowledge-heavy show format arising during this Scramble for Formats. The highbrow heyday came and went with Mastermind in the 70s and early 80s. I accept that. All quizzers must feel a kind of sweet, melancholic pain when they watch DOND because they know that we can never truly go back to the old Millionaire model of rewarding the people with the most knowledge. Millionaire's time is slowly, but surely passing.
It has handed out money to many people, but the ultimate prize is reserved for the greatest (or absolutely goddamn luckiest) GK exponents. It, therefore, reeks of elitism. Like bingo, DOND's top prize can be won by absolutely anyone with enough guts and luck to stick it through to the very end (okay there is a 1/20 chance, but that's better than nothing). Millionaire, as the modest performance of the Super Millionaire edition with its $10 million jackpot proved Stateside, the prizes don't really matter; it's the way you get there, the progress, the contestant and host interaction, the will they go for it or won't they, the whooping audience and the high emotion that comes to the boil. The constant, determing and most important factor on Millionaire is the contestant's general knowledge; it is always in them to win it if they have the right stuff filling their brains.
So Millionaire can never truly aspire to rewarding "any person on the street" the most glorious and pecuniary enhancing way DOND can. Noel's rating monster preaches equality. There is no real competitiveness either. No one loses out at the expense of the other or beats someone else to the chair. Luck dictates the extent of the prize, but a prize will always be won, and be substantial enough to make people happy. Plus viewers always want to know what's in the box. That's why we keep on watching.
Coming soon is another potential newie Ant and Dec's The Con.Test (do you see what they did there? It has a DOUBLE MEANING. I never knew height-deficient Geordies could be so clever. The pint-sized twosome never cease to amaze me with their cunning. For they are surely Gods among men).
They are apparently giving it a poker-style twist with bluffing. The salient point is that you don't have to know anything. Anyone can do it. Anyone can pretend to know something, while the audience will wonder if contestants will actually believe something. Enough with the displays of awe-inspiring knowledge and in with people getting wondrously lucky. Quizzers like myself are at a basic disadvantage because we have a good idea of each other's general knowledge, as well as what constitutes a tough or easy questiom. This is because we have spent years grappling with these ideas for more years than we would care to admit. Ultimately, nothing can surprise those who compete in every format and against all standards of people.
But I say disadvantage because if we are infamous enough, it will affect other contestant's ways of perceiving our bluffs to an abnormal degree and, therefore, contestant researchers will select people who will only make decisions on first impressions and their own prejudices. Quiz nobodies will have such an advantage. Because people will just assume Mastermind champions know everything anyway, they will be discarded at the application stage for the sake of normality.
If the format will truly work, then it will succeed the same way that DOND has by giving the viewer the vital interactivity they crave with such pertinent and constant questions as what would you do? Stick or hit? Trust or rebuke?
Then again it could be as bad as Kilroy-Silk's Shafted or Springer's Greed. Two games which were too complicated for their own good.
I may apply however. Apparently, you have to have a 20-second monologue explaining why you make a great Con.Test contestant. I have been jotting down a few ideas. What do you think of this?
"I worship Satan and his minions in all their nefarious forms, and even the ones they made up on Buffy and Angel. My favourite activities include inflicting torture, my favourite methods include all those advocated by the Inquisition, inserting sharp implements under fingernails and rubbing chilli powder into people's eyeballs. DNA sequencing has revealed that I possess the evil gene. Of course, I have a sparkling personality and many hilarious anecdotes involving farm animals and minor celebrities like Frank Carson and Tom O'Connor, and I'm sure I will make a compelling TV presence. May yellowish-green warts sprout on your genitals and your future offspring have hooves instead of feet if you reject me. Love, kisses and smoochums..."
What do you think? You have to give them what they want, don't you?
Alternatively, I could always find out what Chantelle said in her Big Brother audition tape and repeat it word for word, with male and female emphases changed where necessary, whilst putting on my best sarf accent, copied from my divinely spoken sisters.
Unfortunately, it also seems that my and Ollie's Bullseye dreams have been swept into Application Oblivion. Ollie said to me: "They don't want us. I think it's your fault". He's right. It may be time to start giving fraudulent details in a bid to get me on quiz shows.
I have a modest wish, however. I just want a regular, hard general knowledge show in a not too inconvenient time slot. Oh, where are you now William G Stewart. You are its champion. Please come back to us. I'd watch it even if it was on Channel 5. Good grief, just thinking about it, I'd even watch 100% if it came back on. You see what we have been reduced to?
Yet I hold no hope out for a big general knowledge-heavy show format arising during this Scramble for Formats. The highbrow heyday came and went with Mastermind in the 70s and early 80s. I accept that. All quizzers must feel a kind of sweet, melancholic pain when they watch DOND because they know that we can never truly go back to the old Millionaire model of rewarding the people with the most knowledge. Millionaire's time is slowly, but surely passing.
It has handed out money to many people, but the ultimate prize is reserved for the greatest (or absolutely goddamn luckiest) GK exponents. It, therefore, reeks of elitism. Like bingo, DOND's top prize can be won by absolutely anyone with enough guts and luck to stick it through to the very end (okay there is a 1/20 chance, but that's better than nothing). Millionaire, as the modest performance of the Super Millionaire edition with its $10 million jackpot proved Stateside, the prizes don't really matter; it's the way you get there, the progress, the contestant and host interaction, the will they go for it or won't they, the whooping audience and the high emotion that comes to the boil. The constant, determing and most important factor on Millionaire is the contestant's general knowledge; it is always in them to win it if they have the right stuff filling their brains.
So Millionaire can never truly aspire to rewarding "any person on the street" the most glorious and pecuniary enhancing way DOND can. Noel's rating monster preaches equality. There is no real competitiveness either. No one loses out at the expense of the other or beats someone else to the chair. Luck dictates the extent of the prize, but a prize will always be won, and be substantial enough to make people happy. Plus viewers always want to know what's in the box. That's why we keep on watching.
Coming soon is another potential newie Ant and Dec's The Con.Test (do you see what they did there? It has a DOUBLE MEANING. I never knew height-deficient Geordies could be so clever. The pint-sized twosome never cease to amaze me with their cunning. For they are surely Gods among men).
They are apparently giving it a poker-style twist with bluffing. The salient point is that you don't have to know anything. Anyone can do it. Anyone can pretend to know something, while the audience will wonder if contestants will actually believe something. Enough with the displays of awe-inspiring knowledge and in with people getting wondrously lucky. Quizzers like myself are at a basic disadvantage because we have a good idea of each other's general knowledge, as well as what constitutes a tough or easy questiom. This is because we have spent years grappling with these ideas for more years than we would care to admit. Ultimately, nothing can surprise those who compete in every format and against all standards of people.
But I say disadvantage because if we are infamous enough, it will affect other contestant's ways of perceiving our bluffs to an abnormal degree and, therefore, contestant researchers will select people who will only make decisions on first impressions and their own prejudices. Quiz nobodies will have such an advantage. Because people will just assume Mastermind champions know everything anyway, they will be discarded at the application stage for the sake of normality.
If the format will truly work, then it will succeed the same way that DOND has by giving the viewer the vital interactivity they crave with such pertinent and constant questions as what would you do? Stick or hit? Trust or rebuke?
Then again it could be as bad as Kilroy-Silk's Shafted or Springer's Greed. Two games which were too complicated for their own good.
I may apply however. Apparently, you have to have a 20-second monologue explaining why you make a great Con.Test contestant. I have been jotting down a few ideas. What do you think of this?
"I worship Satan and his minions in all their nefarious forms, and even the ones they made up on Buffy and Angel. My favourite activities include inflicting torture, my favourite methods include all those advocated by the Inquisition, inserting sharp implements under fingernails and rubbing chilli powder into people's eyeballs. DNA sequencing has revealed that I possess the evil gene. Of course, I have a sparkling personality and many hilarious anecdotes involving farm animals and minor celebrities like Frank Carson and Tom O'Connor, and I'm sure I will make a compelling TV presence. May yellowish-green warts sprout on your genitals and your future offspring have hooves instead of feet if you reject me. Love, kisses and smoochums..."
What do you think? You have to give them what they want, don't you?
Alternatively, I could always find out what Chantelle said in her Big Brother audition tape and repeat it word for word, with male and female emphases changed where necessary, whilst putting on my best sarf accent, copied from my divinely spoken sisters.
Unfortunately, it also seems that my and Ollie's Bullseye dreams have been swept into Application Oblivion. Ollie said to me: "They don't want us. I think it's your fault". He's right. It may be time to start giving fraudulent details in a bid to get me on quiz shows.
I have a modest wish, however. I just want a regular, hard general knowledge show in a not too inconvenient time slot. Oh, where are you now William G Stewart. You are its champion. Please come back to us. I'd watch it even if it was on Channel 5. Good grief, just thinking about it, I'd even watch 100% if it came back on. You see what we have been reduced to?
posted by That Quiz Guy at 2:14 PM
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