Aussie Weekend Replay: “Hot Seat” and the Heart Rate Meter

We’ll be doing a few Australian features this weekend.  Wanted to focus on Hot Seat today.  It’s a standard episode, really.  And given the big secrecy and excitement about what’s going on with the American version of Millionaire, it’s always fun to check around and see what other countries do for fun.  Big money is on the line for the contestant in the video.  We see a $100,000 question.  While that’s OK, the more interesting thing is the newest addition to the show.  They are now strapping contestants to a heart rate monitor to each contestant to see how they are doing stress wise.

It sounds like a relatively interesting idea, but it really doesn’t work out like I think they are wanting.  They want to show the stress contestants are under, but not that many seem to be freaking out during the questions.  Actually the contestants, on average, are more nervous talking to Eddie McGuire which may say something about him, but I digress.  The host just says, “Hey, look at your heart rate!” and moves on.  They even show it for the last question, and again the heart rate isn’t sky rocketing or anything.  Interesting idea on paper but it’s just done strangely and did nothing for the show.