I Forgot A Show Last Week

OK, season premieres:

Family Game Night
So here's the good news: Family Game Night got a third season. For a while, it looked like it wasn't going to, and given that Pictureka, Scrabble Showdown, and The Game Of Life all didn't work, it didn't likely that a new game show was in the pipeline for The Hub either. Still, Family Game Night is indeed back, and almost completely reformatted...

Rather then two families per episode playing five games against each other, the show now features six families per episode, called out of the studio audience before each of four games. Two games in each episode feature two families competing against each other, with the winning family getting a prize, while the other two games each feature one family, who get a prize if they win. Families can be of different sizes as well (anywhere from two to four people, as long as there is at least one adult and one kid).

After each game, all the families who played that game (regardless of if they won) draw a card containing a three-color combination (red-green-blue, for example). At the end of the show, each family enters their combination, and the family whose combination opens the Community Chest (I feel really, really silly typing that) gets to play a bonus round for a new car. The bonus round has four rows of four cards, with each row containing cards with money and Go To Jail cards; you win the car if you make it to the top of the board without hitting Go To Jail. There's no option to quit - you keep the money no matter what.

Good? Bad? I'll go with good. Sure, the concept is still really cheesy ("Families play mini-games based on various Hasbro board games" - gee, that sounds like fun) and I'm honestly guessing the budget has been cut, but the set and production values are still amazing and you try finding a show Todd Newton can't host.

As I said about The Hub in both 2010 and 2011 -  "I'm not delusional. These aren't the greatest game shows ever or even the greatest kids game shows ever, and I know they exist mostly to promote Hasbro board games. Still, I thought these shows were fun, and an eight-year-old me would have loved them. As I said, I'm going to try to be realistic. The Hub isn't going to do any of the shows I hoped it would do, but I hope the shows it does succeed." Yeah, that verdict is still about right.

Let's Make A Deal
Absolutely no change. Thank God.

The Price Is Right
Sigh...every year I dread this one...

Nothing has changed, including the fact that this show needs a rest. CBS, if you have a shred of decency left in you, you will cancel The Price Is Right. That will shut up the hardcores (you know, the people who go berserk when they think the wrong sound effect has been played) and only strengthen the show upon its inevitable return.

The Price Is Right Male Model Search
Honestly, it's about as dumb as you'd expect. George Gray provides voiceover narration as the one, the only, Mike Richards and four of The Price Is Right's models (Amber Lancaster, Manuela Arbelaez, Rachel Reynolds, and Gwendolyn Osborne-Smith) put a bunch of guys through modeling tests and vaguely related challenges (make up your own lyrics to The Price Is Right's theme music!) in online episodes lasting about ten minutes each. Supposedly, when all is said and done, three finalists will be announced on The Price Is Right by Drew Carey and viewers will vote online. I'll have more information as it comes.

I guess that's the Fall Rush. What a disappointment.

Aaron