OK, Look...

The first thing you should know: I am a day late. I like to think it is not my fault this time - Blogger hasn't been working perfectly for me lately.

The second thing you should know: American Bible Challenge is far from the first bible trivia game show. I can think of several others, including some that, like American Bible Challenge, were not on dedicated religious channels.

The third thing you should know: Judged as a game show, American Bible Challenge is the most sickeningly sweet thing this side of You Deserve It.

Three teams with names like "Suburban Saints" and "Gospel Geezers" compete in each episode, with the winning team receiving $20,000 for their charity (which is described in quite a bit of detail) and advancing in a tournament in the hopes of winning the grand prize of $100,000 for said charity.

As with Oh Sit, I'm not going to bother giving a lengthy explanation of the show's rules and scoring system. It's a quiz show with questions about the Bible. If you're able to get past the fact that all the questions are about the Bible, the game is actually pretty well put together - but as with You Deserve It, the well-put-together game isn't enough to put the show past its overall feeling, at least in my mind, of "Aren't we great and charitable?" The theme song is sung by a gospel choir, for pete's sake. Jeff Foxworthy still isn't the next Bob Barker or something, but I liked him a lot on Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader and I like him a lot on American Bible Challenge. Of course, I liked Chris Harrison a lot on You Deserve It too.

Of course this isn't really a bad show or an early contender for the 2013 Patrick Wayne Award (at least in my mind), and I'm not its target audience either way. Apparently, its target audience found it, as the premiere got three times Game Show Network's usual ratings and is their highest rated broadcast ever. Whether this will hold up remains to be seen, but I'm guessing we'll soon have to accept the fact that Game Show Network's first genuine hit is American Bible Challenge.

I don't know how they're going to follow that, and I'm not sure I want to.

This will be my last post in August, barring incredibly massive news. I'll resume posting once a week - or at least attempt to resume posting once a week - in September.