I Don't Want To Say This...

...but in many cases, the British are better than us. As much as I love Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, I must concede that the British are better than us at radio game shows. BBC Radio 4 has two new game shows on right now: It's Your Round (premiered February 17) and The Third Degree (premiered February 21)...and well, they're both pretty darn good.

It's Your Round is a comedy panel game show built around a...um...unique premise: Angus Deayton plays host to four panelists, who have each invented a round that will be played as part of the show, coming up with everything from the questions to the scoring system (and if the premiere is anything to go by, said scoring systems are heavily skewed in favor of the round's inventor). After all four rounds have been played, a final round is played featuring questions drawn from the panelists lives; you have to sit out if the question is about you, and the other three panelists can buzz in. While Angus makes a big deal at the beginning about how having the panelists make up the game is saving the BBC a fortune in format fees, the announcer clearly states during the credits that the show was created by Benjamin Partridge.

The panelists on the premiere were Rufus Hound, Miles Jupp, Sara Pascoe and Adam Hills, and their rounds ranged from brilliant (Sara had them creating travelogues for their hometowns in a game called Come To Romford) to stupid (Adam had the self-explanatory Newspaper Headline Or Cryptic Crossword Clue). The quickfire round really breaks up the flow too, but Angus does a great job, and the show does have one thing going for it - it made me laugh. This is a funny show, and that's more than I can say about So Wrong It's Right or Late Night Liars.

So we come to The Third Degree, hosted by Steve Punt and built around a "generation versus generation" motif: each episode is taped at a different college and pits three of that college's students against three of its professors. The premiere, for example, was taped at the University Of Southampton and pitted an English student, a biology student, and a math student against an English professor, a biology professor and a math professor.

The show manages to pull that concept off. The rounds are a good mix: we get rounds in which each student plays against the professor of their subject, we get rounds in which the professors are asked pop culture questions and the students academic questions, we get general knowledge. Steve, too, turns in a good performance, being allowed to add just enough silliness to keep this from becoming an ultra-staid affair in the vein of, say, Brain Of Britain or Round Britain Quiz. As with It's Your Round, I can't think of much to complain about here. Do I like jumping on the "The British Are Better Than Us" bandwagon? No...but in this case, yes they are.

Aaron

Spoiler Alert...

....Oh, who am I kidding. Everyone knows it by now: Watson won. Frankly, it seemed like Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter weren't even trying.

The event was taped in New York - I can only assume IBM didn't want to ship a room-sized supercomputer to Los Angeles. So how did they play two games over three days? The first game was split over the first two episodes, and the rest of the time was filled by IBM commercials - excuse me, little films on how Watson works, and how it was created, and all the test games it played. In other words...filler. Lots and lots of filler. Yes, we live in a world where the average big money primetime quiz show asks maybe five questions an hour, but Jeopardy's supposed to be the antithesis of that!

Now, to be fair to Sony and IBM, this event got the highest ratings Jeopardy has gotten in a long time. It also got the most hype Jeopardy has gotten in a long time. The sheer amount of coverage of this event approached that of the Super Bowl. Frankly, I don't think there's anything I can say about Watson that hasn't been said. Maybe Sony should just give it a spinoff series (hey, it wouldn't be the first Jeopardy spinoff).

Moving on...yes, there are other things going on right now, but really, could the Discovery Channel have possibly picked a worse time to debut Cash Cab Chicago? I thought Beth Melewski did an excellent job, so if you like Cash Cab, by all means, check this out.

Finally, Game Show Network has pushed the premiere of Improv-A-Ganza back two weeks - the show now premieres April 11.

I'll have my reviews of the new BBC Radio 4 game shows It's Your Round and The Third Degree next week.

Aaron

Assuming You Count It As A Game Show...

...then the first game show to be broadcast in 3D is...drumroll please...Game Show Network's High Stakes Poker, which will be added to the lineup of DIRECTV's N3D channel on February 26. Yes, a Game Show Network show beat out Wheel Of Fortune.

Moving on...

The hype for the Jeopardy Watson Challenge (which begins Monday) is enormous - PBS's Nova did a special on the computer. My thought would have been to hold the special after the tournament airs so we can analyze the result, but of course that would mean less promotion for Jeopardy. Frankly, this whole thing just sounds creepy to me...but at the same time, I am going to watch...

BBC Radio 4 will premiere the new game show The Third Degree on February 21, with host Steve Punt. The premise: college students are pitted against their professors.

Finally, if you're wondering how I did on the Jeopardy test...I think I got some of them, but they don't tell you.

Worth a try...

Aaron

There's News!

...which means I can't write about that CBBC show. Oh well, maybe some other time...

Three pieces of news right now...

• The Chicago-taped version of Cash Cab, with host Beth Melewski, will premiere February 14 (yes, the same day as the start of the Watson Challenge on Jeopardy).
• The winner of the "Vanna For A Day" contest will be announced on Wheel Of Fortune on February 24. When the episode featuring the winner will air is anybody's guess.
• Nickelodeon's Brain Surge is coming back for a third season - only now it will feature family teams. Beats me how that will work.

That might be it for now. I should also let you know that I've signed up to take the Jeopardy audition test online on February 8. I'll let you know how it goes. My prediction - I'll pass the test, but be rejected as soon the casting people actually see me.

Worth a try...

Aaron

Late To The Party?

Both of these are far from news by now, but here goes. First, Game Show Network is planning a new season of Lingo, its longest running original series...with new host Bill Engvall. Well, Jeff Foxworthy worked...

Second, he's not hosting a game show right now, but I can't possibly not mention it - Regis Philbin is retiring. The man whose performance on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? redefined the role of the game show host will apparently do his final Live With Regis And Kelly show in the summer.

There's not much else to say at the moment. I will also note that I've found another CBBC show that might be even more "out there" than The Slammer, and am waiting for a week with no news to review it. We'll see...

Aaron

If You'll Allow Me To Go On A Tangent...

I must have been nine years old when I first tuned in to a new kids game show called Click. One of the last creations of Wheel Of Fortune creator Merv Griffin, it was essentially a kids Jeopardy with a "Rise Of The Internet" theme that must have seemed a lot cooler in 1998. I turned the show on, heard the announcer introduce "the master of the mouse...Ryan...Seacrest!" and immediately said "Wait, the guy from Gladiators 2000?"

Yeah. If only I had known.

American Idol, hosted by the aforementioned Ryan Seacrest (and while I may make fun of Ryan a little, I actually think he's excellent) is back, with the judges now consisting of Jennifer Lopez (wasn't she in movies once?), Steven Tyler (wasn't he in some band once?) and Randy Jackson (wasn't...oh forget it, I don't know what else Randy's done and neither do you). Of course, this means we have to start with weeks of drawn out auditions.

You know how this works by now. Thousands - heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the number approached a million - of people will audition and go through to the next round if two out of three judges say so. At some point, we'll end up with a dozen or so who will perform live, week after week, so that viewers can vote. Gee, this sounds just like my review of Live To Dance. Also like Live To Dance, the "new" American Idol seems to be missing the stereotype of the "nasty judge" - Steven and Jennifer seem mostly like Paula Abdul split in two. Jennifer is the "I have a hard time saying no to anybody" side, and Steven is the "I go bizarrely off-script" side. Combine those two and we get Paula, and of course Randy's still Randy...yeah, I guess we'll have to wait for The X Factor to get our fill of Simon Cowell.

You may have noticed that I'm talking about the judges, not the contestants...well, duh. The judges are the real stars. Was there any real news or speculation about who would win last year's American Idol? Of course not. Was there enormous amounts of news and speculation about who would be a judge on last year's American Idol? Oh yes. If this show ever meant anything, it doesn't now. American Idol means about as much as another talent show: The Slammer.

The Slammer, broadcast mostly on CBBC (the BBC's kids cable channel), is a spoof talent show that, at least in my book, gives new meaning to the often-repeated game show fan phrase "The British Are Better Than Us". The premise, which I should make clear is completely ficticious and staged, is summed up perfectly by the Expository Theme Tune. The first verse:

"You've beeeeeen found guilty of a howling showbiz crime
So welcome to The Slammer, where you're gonna serve your time
With every type of minstrel, entertainer and artiste,
Performing TO THE LIMIT...to try and get released!"

What more needs to be said? The Governor (played by Ted Robbins) is in charge of a showbiz prison where a bunch of bizarre acts are locked up for "crimes against entertainment." Each week, four of them will perform in front of an audience of kids, and the winner of the "Freedom Show" gets parole. Despite having a premise you will never find on American kids TV, this is without question a kids show, with all the fart jokes and such that that implies.

Each show begins with a few minutes of storyline involving the acts and a few regular characters, usually trying to escape; said story is occasionally cut back to during the show. After each act performs, a few prison officers wander around the audience asking kids what they thought. At the end of the show, a giant clap-o-meter is wheeled out, the Governor signs off "If you can't sing, dance, or rhyme...DON'T DO THE CRIME!" and the act the kids made the most noise for is shown walking out the prison gate over the credits. Most of the acts seem like they wouldn't last more than a few seconds on The Gong Show, let alone a "serious" talent show, but that's not the point.

This show is not for everyone. I'm sure a lot of people would find it horrific that that is the premise of a televison show, let alone a kids show - but I thought it was great and an eight-year-old me would have too. There you have it. Two equally silly and meaningless talent shows - the difference is, one of them is meant to be.

Aaron

All The Game Show News That Isn't

Where to begin?

• Cash Cab reruns are now finally running on local stations, and they may soon be joined by Game Show Network's Baggage, which is getting a test syndication run in ten markets from January 10 to March 4.
• Improv-A-Ganza will premiere on Game Show Network on March 28, and ousted The Price Is Right announcer Rich Fields will be reunited with Drew Carey as announcer.
• BBC Radio 4 will premiere the new game show It's Your Round on February 17, with host Angus Deayton.
• Wheel Of Fortune is holding a "Vanna For A Day" contest. The cynic in me says that this is part of some master plan by Sony to phase out Pat Sajak and Vanna White, but I'll tell the cynic in me to be quiet.
• Add another show to the list of long-running shows looking for new announcers - Jim Packard is retiring as announcer of Public Radio International's Whad'ya Know?, which Michael Feldman has hosted since 1985. This happens to be the only game show I've ever been a contestant on...OK, a phone-in contestant, but that's the closest I'll probably ever come. Among the guest announcers will be an eight-year-old girl named Isabella Dippel who won a "Being Jim Packard" contest. Seriously.

That might do it at the moment. I should also let you know that I have finally tracked down an episode of CBBC's The Slammer, and will write about it next week...along with a certain other talent show...

Aaron