The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => Game Show Channels & Networks => Topic started by: itiparanoid13 on July 31, 2006, 07:18:55 PM
-
I hate whoring my site now that we actually get more than 3 readers a day, but this is a good kind of whoring.
CHAIN REACTION PREVIEW (http://\"http://buzzerblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/buzzer-exclusive-sneak-preview-of.html\")
BuzzerBlog and FLASHGames² have teamed up with GSN: The Network for Games to offer game show fans a sneak preview of their two new shows "Chain Reaction" and "Starface", both premiering back to back in the 9PM time slot starting August 1st. Note: this is just a preview of the first act. Nothing that will spoil the entire game will be shown. Let us know what you think of the show(s)!
Edit: Link fixed
Edit 2: StarFace is now up at the same link.
-
404 not found?
-
Shit. Everything was running fine. Something had to happen
HERE WE GO (http://\"http://buzzerblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/buzzer-exclusive-sneak-preview-of.html\")
-
Chain Reaction: From what I saw, very, very....... meh. But then again, I was never a big fan of the other versions, so I won't be making this one appointemnt TV either.
Starface: Not my type of game, but save for his voice, Bonaduce seems promising and quick-witted.
Tyshaun
-
Great Preview!
Can't wait to watch. :)
-
I'm still getting a 404.
-
Try again. I'm done screwing with the post.
-
Do replies to this have to worry about spoilers? I'll be vague anyway.
Chain Reaction: No "form of the word"? Pfffft.
StarFace: I want to kill Dave. And yeah, except for his voice (when did that happen?), Bonaduce is pretty good, considering the show's format.
-
[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' post=\'125825\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 06:30 PM\']
And yeah, except for his voice (when did that happen?)
[/quote]
Soon as he got into radio, near as I could tell. My vibe was always that he heard Jay Thomas on the radio one day and said "Him. I want to sound like HIM."
-
Chain Reaction looked utterly unremarkable, and had absolutely none of the charm that made the Cullen show fun to watch. (Note that I'm not even mentioning the Edwards version. There's a reason.)
And Starface looked EVERY SINGLE BIT as bad as I thought it would. Plus they've discovered another Skyler in that dink on the end.
I have the Tivo set, but no Season Pass yet. And if this is their best foot they are putting forward, I doubt I will.
-
[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' post=\'125825\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 08:30 PM\']
StarFace: I want to kill Dave. And yeah, except for his voice (when did that happen?), Bonaduce is pretty good, considering the show's format.
[/quote]
Seconded. Dave goes down as one of the most annoying. contestants. ever.
But quick and fun entertainment Q/A for me and love the wraparound vidscreen.
-
My biggest problem with StarFace is the questions that nobody should be expected to know the answer to - a la the cold cut Jenny M. dressed up as early in their career.
The whole show kinda smells like "something we can do for a little while and then sell the reruns to TV Guide Channel".
Chain Reaction: Has promise, but much like Lingo, I feel that it'll be a "I'll watch it if it's on and I'm working out or otherwise unable to watch TiVo instead." It's fine, but far from must-see.
I will watch both tomorrow night, and will probably catch a few more of CR just to see if my opinion changes. It often does.
-
Wasn't Dave on another game show?
Danny needs menthol. Lots and lots of menthol.
I think my opinion of CR will be slightly tainted knowing that Dylan Lane is a stiff instead of just thinking he's a stiff. However, Lane doesn't take away the fact that they gave away the last letter of a word. That's a no-no in the Game Show world, as far as I'm concerned.
All in all, pretty okay stuff.
-
Chain Reaction is no longer the "Game where one word leads to another." The theme song, while completely unmemorable at least demonstrates how the game works. Somehow, I get the feeling that our intrepid host would mess up the rules rundown. "If you play this game really, really well, you could take home a whole lot of it." No mention of a potential grand prize.
The game play is...there. Actually, I take that back. No form of the word and giving the last letter to the teams equals strike two.
The speed chain lacks any sort of drama or action. "Here's seven seconds. Have at it." No calling for letters or filling in words. Yawn.
StarFace should not have seen the light of day in the format I saw in that clip. It is complete excrement.
-
[quote name=\'TLEberle\' post=\'125846\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 11:59 PM\']"If you play this game really, really well, you could take home a whole lot of it." No mention of a potential grand prize.[/quote]
Well, haven't some of the at-the-tapings posts established that they don't seem to KNOW what their potential grand prize is?
Bets: how long in the run before a contestant is given the last letter of a word, and still misses it?
-
[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' post=\'125860\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 10:50 PM\']
Bets: how long in the run before a contestant is given the last letter of a word, and still misses it?
[/quote]
Since they don't seem to be throwing out "form of the word" warnings, I totally see it happening, and depending on the circumstances, I'm not sure I would crucify a contestant who committed that sin.
-
With their screwy judging, the contestant might guess a plural when the word is exposed and be deemed wrong.
I'm hoping that Dylan Lane does a lot less reading on subsequent eps so I can make a better judgement. "StarFace" I was actually pleased with, 'cause I went in expecting nothing. The contestant on the end actually didn't bother me because he was treated just as he should've been. Newton had tons of people turning on the juice on W! and only sniped at a few of them. Danny won't mind.
-Jason
-
[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'125862\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 11:05 PM\']
"StarFace" I was actually pleased with, 'cause I went in expecting nothing.
[/quote]
And that's what you got. That was PAINFUL. Not "enh". PAINFUL.
Newton had tons of people turning on the juice on W!
...and Skyler Stone should have been beaten with a hammer there too.
-
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'125863\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 02:13 AM\'][quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'125862\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 11:05 PM\']"StarFace" I was actually pleased with, 'cause I went in expecting nothing.[/quote]
And that's what you got. That was PAINFUL. Not "enh". PAINFUL.[/quote]
Besides Bonaduce's voice, what was painful about it? I thought the clip was surprisingly entertaining. Is it high priority TV? Heck no. What I saw was a simple, fun game. If the other 17 minutes of the show are junk, I'll gladly take back my praise.
Chain Reaction, on the other hand...Michael Davies should've watched tapes from either previous version to see how the game is played. Giving the last letter and essentially free money to one team is horrible. Based on every ad and clip I've seen, the chains only go downward e.g. MONEY PIT -> PIT BULL -> BULL CRAP (hey, that describes Chain!) -> CRAP SHOOT. With all due respect to Chain's contestants, the show should be titled "Chain Reaction for Dummies".
-
I managed to sit through the StarFace clip. It was entertaining for what it was. I could not sit through the Chain Reaction clip.
-
I'm one of those contestants on Chain Reaction, and saying that it's for Dummies... well... Try the game out on the GSN site and see how "easy" it is! I know that sometimes words seem obvious, but when you're thrown in front of a ton of camers, a studio audience, and only have 5 seconds to answer, it's MUCH harder than you'd think!
I had a blast on the show, and my show will probably be aired this week. I'm Moe, Matt was to my left, and Ryan was to my right. Our episode will be MUCH higher energy than the preview on that site. (Yeah, I'm partly to blame for that...)
I'm excited to see the first batch of shows. I have a feeling that the preview was one of the first taped, so there wasn't as good as a flow as the show we taped. From what I've read on other forums, the first show took three hours to tape, and ours wasn't even an hour. The more time vested in the show, the better off it will be.
Give it a chance, it will be worth your time!
-
Starface was mildly engaging. I didn't have high hopes for Danny Bonaduce, but ya know, he seems to be pretty decent.
The original Chain Reaction remains in my top 15 favorites of all time. At the moment, I can really only describe this new charmless, non-compelling, dry, pretty-faced-cardboard-cutout-of-a-host-conducted version with a frequently used expression down here in San Antonio: a la jodida.
--Jamie
-
I still regret not sitting in front of the contestants at the first Chain Reaction taping. And wow, the show doesn't translate as well on the clip as it did during the taping. I wouldn't be shocked if Chain Reaction becomes one of GSN's shorter lived shows.
-
How come Chain doesn't have the secondary title of : 'The All-New Smush '06'? I watched the preview clip and I have to say that the excitement seems to be removed from the program. Entirely. Plus, all chains are now going to be 2 word phrases? Does that seem like an easy way out of writing creative chains?
I'm probably the only one, but does anyone sense that Michael Davies' best game show days are behind him? He caught lightning in a bottle with Millionaire, but then we get that pile of Chain Reaction? I'm beginning to think of game shows now as archaeology... we dig them up and people try to replicate what's found... only to not understand what made them fun in the first place.
Josh
-
[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'125862\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 02:05 AM\']
With their screwy judging, the contestant might guess a plural when the word is exposed and be deemed wrong.
-Jason
[/quote]
No, they would be correct.
Here's the rules on the judging from what we were told at our taping.
Plural will be accepted for singular and vice-versa, as long as the plural is made with a 's' or 'es', meaning "mice" would not be accepted for "mouse", but "streets" would be accepted for "street". In any other case, the exact word must be given, which kind of makes sense since it's all compound phrases and there is usually only one form of the word that will work with the word above and below it.
And while I understand we're not the target audience, I think we can step beck and say the average viewer is not going to care that it's only compound words and phrases (considering 99% of the viewers will never have seen the original), nor will they care that the last letter of the word is given. GSN is looking for interactivity in its new shows now, so that people can play along online, which I think this show has.
FS
-
[quote name=\'FlashStash\' post=\'125883\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 05:53 AM\']
In any other case, the exact word must be given, which kind of makes sense since it's all compound phrases and there is usually only one form of the word that will work with the word above and below it.
[/quote]
Except the way the chains are written, they're gonna go from top to bottom, which means the players are gonna play it top to bottom. And that leads to the uncomfortable situation where players are trying to blindly guess what form of "SMOKE" they're looking for.
Nutshell, if you have items in your chain that you need both the top and bottom clues to figure out the proper tense of, that's bad writing.
-
[quote name=\'MikeK\' post=\'125865\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 11:35 PM\']
Besides Bonaduce's voice, what was painful about it? I thought the clip was surprisingly entertaining.
[/quote]
Well, to each their own. I thought it was blindingly stupid. The game did nothing to enthrall me, the subject matter REALLY didn't do anything to interest me, and the set was horribly lame, even WITH the huge projection screens behind everyone. There was just nothing there whatsoever for me. Now, someone who regularly drools over ET or The Insider (featuring television legend Pat O'Brien) might get something out of it, but not me.
It reminded me of a game show tailor made for this news producer I used to work with who would bump real news stories in favor of whatever celebrity fluff crap she could find. She's a reporter in Denver now. I feel for the people of Denver.
-
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'125886\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 09:27 AM\']
[quote name=\'FlashStash\' post=\'125883\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 05:53 AM\']
In any other case, the exact word must be given, which kind of makes sense since it's all compound phrases and there is usually only one form of the word that will work with the word above and below it.
[/quote]
Except the way the chains are written, they're gonna go from top to bottom, which means the players are gonna play it top to bottom. And that leads to the uncomfortable situation where players are trying to blindly guess what form of "SMOKE" they're looking for.[/quote]
Not if they're thinking a bit...they really should be picking the above or below based on the number of available answers. For example, if I had to choose between RED _______ and ________ KONG, you'd be better off taking the letter above, since that word has less combinations. Maybe I was the only one, but *I* definitely didn't play just top to bottom.
Nutshell, if you have items in your chain that you need both the top and bottom clues to figure out the proper tense of, that's bad writing.
Bad rules? Maybe, but like I said the average viewer isn't going to care. Bad writing? I don't really see how making players guess the exact word has anything to do with the writing of the puzzle. "CHAIN SMOKE" is not a writing problem, it's a rules problem, if you're inclined to view it that way.
FS
-
Originally, I wasn't going to quote any of the previous posts, but I can't pass up this set-up line:
[quote name=\'FlashStash\' post=\'125890\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 09:49 AM\'][quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'125886\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 09:27 AM\']Except the way the chains are written, they're gonna go from top to bottom, which means the players are gonna play it top to bottom. ...[/quote]Not if they're thinking a bit...[/quote]If you think even a bit, you automatically fail the contestant screening.
Since American Idol's season ended, there's been nothing to watch on Tuesdays (to me, at any rate--Mom's just starting to get sucked in to House lately after watching the off-network repeats on USA, but that's getting off-topic). Yes, I know it's World Series of Poker season again, but again that's another topic. My point is, based on these reviews, Chain Reaction and Starface are just two more reasons to keep the set off tonight. If it seems like these shows are programming for the not-too-bright set, here's my (overly cynical) point of view:
Meet Joe Sixpack. He has more dollars than sense, no pun intended. He makes a lot of money even though he can't tell chain links from sausage links. And he's easily brainwashed into buying any old junk he sees on TV. (In fact, he's wearing a Victoria's Secret thong right now only because he's been exposed to the commercials, but I digress.) OTOH, I graduated from high school with a bronze cord and made the Dean's list in college three times, and I do about three sudoku puzzles a day. And I've seen the older versions of CR on USA. However, I'm the unemployed son of a dollar store owner who's very frugal with her money, and I've inheirited that trait.
So which one of us do today's advertisers want watching their ads, Joe Sixpack or me? That's right, Joe wins every time, and that's why TV today is cluttered with shows for dumb people (and thanks to our educational system, it's the third fastest-growing demo in the country, behind fat people and Hispanics). I never thought anyone, much less I, would be labelled as too smart to watch TV!
[color=\"#FF0000\"]Disclaimer:[/color] The story above was written with my tongue firmly in my cheek, especially that last paragraph. If you're actually taking this post seriously, Starface wants you as a contestant.
-
Sorta relieved I haven't set my DVR for either show, although I'll take Rice's word for it that things get better on "CR" once they get beyond those first shows. Meanwhile--that one decision to show the whole word penalizes it for me.
I'll wait on "Starface" until I've seen the whole thing--right now, I'm not impressed, although I think Bonaduce might just work. Who's the announcer? I didn't catch his name.
-
[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'125832\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 10:26 PM\']
[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' post=\'125825\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 06:30 PM\']
And yeah, except for his voice (when did that happen?)
[/quote]
Soon as he got into radio, near as I could tell. My vibe was always that he heard Jay Thomas on the radio one day and said "Him. I want to sound like HIM."
[/quote]
I used to do that with Johnny Magnus. Bud Light does strange things to a person.
As for The New New Chain Reaction, was Blake Emmons even offered an audition? Bet he'd have worn a tie.
-
I watched these previews, and I'll be brief: Chain Reaction's set doesn't work, the theme is too corny, the judging's a bit too lenient and the scoring is ehh. Speedchain I could pass on, personally it should be more like the "Missing Link" chains of the USA era with only one word. Would put a little more challenge on it.
Starface, I just saw a generic quizzer with celebrities and stealings of sounds from Shop 'til you Drop and Wheel of Fortune. And Danny Bonaduce ain't a bad host.
Neither of these are appointment television, but hell, it's better than Lingo.
-
[quote name=\'Moe Train\' post=\'125871\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 03:48 AM\']I'm one of those contestants on Chain Reaction, and saying that it's for Dummies...[/quote]
Lemme clarify my use of the phrase "Chain Reaction for Dummies".
Old school Chain Reaction, both the NBC and USA versions:
* The last letter was never given.
* Linked words connected either up or down.
* Words weren't linked as just phrases, but also through examples, characteristics, uses, etc.
* The option to play or pass.
* Rod Charlebois--always a plus!
Chain Reaction 2006 style:
* The last letter is given, meaning easy money for a lucky team.
* From what I've seen in ads and the clip, words link downward only. An example of this was in my previous post. (EDIT: I stand corrected.)
* Linking words are phrases only, none of the extra possibilities that existed in previous incarnations.
* Dylan Lane doesn't impress me as a host. Blake Emmons anybody? (Don, put your hand down now.)
I'll given the scoring system edge to the current version. The 'one point per letter' thing never sat well with me, especially when a team could come back from the jaws of defeat by getting two or three long words, especially if the points were doubled for that word.
Prior versions made you think about the direction the linked words go, how they're tied together, and there was strategy about passing or playing. Hopefully this clears everything up.
-
You can go above or below. It has happened and will happen tonight.
-
Yeah, I guess you found out that it's not just downward answering. When we were on the game, I think we worked upwards the majority of the time. Just happened to be the luck of the draw. When I was studying up to play the game, I noticed that past versions had more of a calculated chain, whereas these chains are more random.
Check out an interview with Dylan here about the show. (http://\"http://www.tvgameshows.net/coverstory.htm\")
I like the option to pass, but I have a feeling that we wouldn't have passed very much anyway (although in a few cases, we should have). No one's mentioned so far that it's men vs women in the new game. I like that concept. I know that we had previously met the team who we played, so it was great for establishing a bit of a rivalry through good chemistry. (They were pretty hot too..)
Giving an entire word won't be a very common occurrence, I think. Usually after a few letters, a team will guess it, though they do throw many curveballs in there to mess the teams up. That shouldn't be much of an issue. I know it's not a very "old school" approach, but it IS a newer version of the game which I've heard is faster paced until the final round...
Now the final round is a totally different story. Completing the other person's thoughts into an intelligible sentence is MUCH harder that you'd think. There's only one way to do well with that, and that's the chemistry between the two people who are forming the sentence. The person who was blindfolded has to really concentrate on what they are saying, and ring in as soon as they know the answer.
I'm really amped to see the shows, and to see how the others have done so far!
-
[quote name=\'itiparanoid13\' post=\'125811\' date=\'Jul 31 2006, 07:18 PM\']
BuzzerBlog and FLASHGames² have teamed up with GSN: The Network for Games to offer game show fans a sneak preview of their two new shows "Chain Reaction" and "Starface"
[/quote]
My initial thoughts...
Chain Reaction
Looks like a decent effort...I didn't see any huge problems but I was just as bored during that few minutes as I was with the last version of this show. I never found this game all that compelling to begin with. It was always slow and a bit dull for my taste. The only thing that made the original worth watching was Cullen. Understandable why GSN tried this format at least...no doubt attempting to cash in on Lingo's success.
StarFace:
HOW does a show like this make it to air? I just don't understand. Show a picture and answer questions...also a snoozer. This is basically "On the Cover" without a cool set. Twenty seconds into it and it was obvious to me that this was a "let's crank out a series with as little effort as possible" show. I will say that Bonaduce seemed like a good fit though...he didn't seem at all awkward.
In summary...Horribly done? No. Something to be excited about? No way! The best word I can use to describe both is "Eh".
-
I *hope* that the highlight of the new CR is the bonus round. I'll watch it tonight, but I'll mainly be waiting for the bonus round. And then maybe GSN will revive Go. Maybe.
-
Clarification request: I think that "chains work downwards" is meaning different things for different people in this thread. We all know, I think, that players have the option of working their way up or down the chain (or both). What I think MikeK was talking about was that all of the two-word phrases seemed to be in top-to-bottom order. CHAIN SMOKE, never SMOKE CHAIN. Is that also an incorrect assumption?
Also: am I really going to be the first to mention what other beloved game show (coughpilotcough) was strongly based on completing two-word phrases one word at a time? (grins evilly)
-
[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' post=\'125970\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 11:37 PM\']
Clarification request: I think that "chains work downwards" is meaning different things for different people in this thread. We all know, I think, that players have the option of working their way up or down the chain (or both). What I think MikeK was talking about was that all of the two-word phrases seemed to be in top-to-bottom order. CHAIN SMOKE, never SMOKE CHAIN. Is that also an incorrect assumption?
[/quote]
From what I saw tonight, that would be the case (but I didn't record it, so I can't review it). Although I did see "WHISTLE STOP CAFE" on the board at one point, so at least it's not 100% two-word links (which would just be another point on a long list of demerits). Scratch that, I misremembered it. Just saw a promo and realized that I was completely wrong, and that so far it does seem like two-word links. Still, my first impression is garbage, although I'll give it a few more eps before I write it off.
-
[quote name=\'Robert Hutchinson\' post=\'125970\' date=\'Aug 1 2006, 11:37 PM\']
Clarification request: I think that "chains work downwards" is meaning different things for different people in this thread. We all know, I think, that players have the option of working their way up or down the chain (or both). What I think MikeK was talking about was that all of the two-word phrases seemed to be in top-to-bottom order. CHAIN SMOKE, never SMOKE CHAIN.[/quote]
Someone understands the point I made 24+ hours ago. It's a miracle!
-
CR was OK. Given that you can go either up or down on each word in the chain is nice to have. The speed chains are a nice little wrinkle. I figured out a couple 7-second chains before they did. Scoring is not quite what I was expecting but it'll do. The bonus round was a neat throwback to the old days except adding a double $ after 7 & triple $ after all 10 sure was diffrent. It depends how confident the cluegivers can communicate questions to the receiver. The premiere gets a 6.5
As for Starface, I was slightly disappointed with the gameplay. See a picure, guess the celebrity, answer a few more questions based on that picture. Sure sounds like On The Cover to me. The only bright spot was Danny Bonnaduche. He was decent on his first crack as a game show host. The premiere gets a 6.
I'll periodically check in both shows from time to time but neither one stand out outside of the first week.