It’s upfront week and not a lot of game show news has been going around. We’ve really been over-saturated in primetime and it’s time for a short break, which is good because if we keep getting shows like Set For Life, I give up. Anyway, FOX announced their schedule and all three of their game shows survive into the Fall 2008 schedule. They’ve really benefited from using safe formats with relatively interesting concepts that generates a lot of water cooler talk.
First off, if you’re used to watching Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? and Don’t Forget the Lyrics! on Thursdays, get ready to make a change. The night of punctuation moves to Fridays, with Fifth Grader? at 8:00PM ET and Lyrics! at 9:00PM ET. I still can’t stand Fifth Grader; I just don’t think it’s a good million dollar format. When the cheaper daytime version comes in 2009, then we’ll talk. However, I watched Lyrics! a few weeks ago and I have to admit it’s not really that bad. Sure the format is unoriginal and I really don’t like any of the music (I’m a 80s and early 90s alt/grunge person), but it’s a relatively enjoyable fun hour.
My personal favorite of the group, The Moment of Truth will be placed in the Thursday at 8:00PM ET slot. This show generates the most talk and has the biggest chance of combating any of the networks. Look at the Laura Cleri episode to just realize the amount of talk the show generates. The show consistently gets ratings and is a pretty fun way to spend an hour. It’s far from a classy show, but it does something that Amne$ia never did and why shows like ABC’s Opportunity Knocks will fail: even if you can’t really play along it makes you show real human emotion. You want the contestants to win money because they’ve done good things. You want them to fail because they are asses. It makes you voice speak up.
As far as NBC goes, it’s still just Deal or No Deal with 1 VS 100 not looking good to come back. CBS has no traditional game shows but will always have its cash cow Survivor. A CBS representative told us that they have six episodes of Do You Trust Me?, a retooling of Friend or Foe? from GSN, but aren’t placing it on any upcoming schedule. ABC just has the aforementioned Opportunity Knocks which I can just sense the failure slowly creeping off of. On the cable front, like we said we have MTV’s The Phone upcoming, and GSN has three shows. One is Catch-21, which we’ve described in excruciating detail. They also have two more revivals coming out soon.
Do you remember when we talked about a 
CBS tried putting Drew Carey’s Power of 10 on Wednesdays at 8:00PM ET and it failed rather spectacularly. Drew’s getting a second chance as four new $1,000,000 episodes of The Price is Right have been ordered to start airing April 30th at 8:00PM ET. The show has been very consistent in winning its time slot Fridays at 8:00PM ET, albeit it has had literally no competition. Facing Deal or No Deal and Moment of Truth is a tiny bit different than the soon-to-be-glue (and rightfully so) racehorse named Amne$ia.
Sorry for no updates recently, there’s barely been anything and I’ve been exhausted the past few days. It’s been a long month.
One issue I had when The Price is Right always used to do their primetime specials was my lack of general care. I found myself tuning in to see the wheel if anyone would win the million, and turning it off when it didn’t happen. Thankfully they seem to have tweaked the format correctly to make sure this doesn’t help. The first of the Price is Right Million Dollar Spectaculars will air Friday, February 22nd, at 8PM ET. These are the first under new (and absolutely amazing) host Drew Carey.
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