When I first heard the GSN Pyramid's idea with each 7-out-of-7 adding $5,000 to the next Winner's Circle, I thought it was a nice evolution. But watching day after day, it made the individual rounds feel like a series of failures during which they were keeping score. i.e. - well, you didn't add $15,000 to your Winner's Circle, but you did manage 17 points along the way. (Oh, and you won the game.)

The three fastest successful runs seemed like the best way to go for qualification; I understand that they wanted an easy way to cull the field and skirt continuity for syndication, but to penalize players after they already have to overcome bad writing and nitpick-y judging seemed like bad form to me.

(Did Donny ever mention "If you win the $15,000 here, that's a total of $25,000 and then we'll see you back her to try for another $100,000"? I don't recall.

It’s amusing when you recall that Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro have just been out on tour together with their “Considered Cabaret” show that they’re now hosting similar shows.

Donny was a good host stuck in a decent but watered-down revival. I get that modern game shows don’t allow for a big money tournament that could potentially run for several weeks (J! is an anomaly, due to last year’s strike), but I’d rather you just do straight Pyramid instead of half-assing a tourney.

The other rule changes like six words in :20 and the writing/judging never sat well with me either.