US "Million Dollar Money Drop"

[leimeisei]

We got our own Money Drop game that premiered last night.

Unfortunately, all the money was lost on both games that were played. Fox also managed to load the commercial times of the show (it seemed like I watched commercials more than the actual show).

In other words, it sucked. The concept for the game is cool but it was poorly executed by Fox and it is simply too hard (they should offer buyouts at different levels that are low but contestants might choose them after they've made a bad move and put all their money on a possibly incorrect answer). That's just my opinion. Anyone else watch it and have some input?

[andypuck]

There were times that it had me on edge, but then once I saw the question, more expletives left my mouth than guesses at the answer...

I'm cautiously optimistic for the rest of the week, but after that, if I ain't feelin' it, I won't go back.

[bl5965]

Well the $800,000 controversy has been curious, with Fox yet to comment on it. On a different note, the article about it on Australian news site www.ninemsn.com rocketed to #1 most viewed, which is generating lots of awareness and publicity for Australia's version in 2011. I guess it shows how Channel 9 (and other media/people) can use bad news for their own gain.

[leimeisei]

That's hilarious. I'm not even surprised, because when you compare it to Millionaire, the quality of the questions asked on "Million Dollar Money Drop" are much lower in quality in the way they were written and definitely introduce ambiguities. For example, the question "What type of seafood was consumed the most in 2009" or whatever it was, Shrimp and Salmon were both very good answers, but I was thinking "By weight, or by quantity?" Because if it was by weight, I would've probably gone all in on Salmon, but if it was by sheer quantity, I probably would've gone all in on Shrimp. So its the minute details that matter, and Millionaire always takes care of those but this show's questions are simply horrid.

[FrankT]

Ah! Even I could write questions better!

[RegisFan]

I definitely give them points for presentation. The set, music, graphics, and host are all quite good. Unfortunately, in addition to the ambiguous questions, this game suffers from two of the same problems that plagued the US version of "Deal or No Deal." First, the pacing can seem really slow, especially at the reveals. I know they want to build tension, but I can only listen to the contestants yell at the answers to drop so much before I want to reach for the mute button. Second, the contestants are clearly cast in such a way that only super-high energy risk takers are playing the game. That just gets tiresome. And that's not a problem exclusive to this show. It's a problem common to almost all primetime game shows now. I miss the days of primetime "Millionaire" when anyone from around the country, no matter what they looked like or how they acted, had a fair chance of getting on the show.

However, this show is not broken by any means. If they listen to what critics are saying and fix the show accordingly, I think this could be a hit, or at least hang around a while. There's no question that the game itself is clever and very fun to watch.

[leimeisei]

Agree, it needs to be a touch quicker on the pace of the game. The premiere night, they only went through 13 questions in the 2 hours of show. That just makes it borderline completely boring. Also, I wish they wouldn't always have all the flakes on just because they flip out and act stupid and "make good TV", I hope some really smart person gets on there and just rips right through the game with no problems.