BuzzerBlog

Slow news day, so here’s a few news flashes for you today.

*GSN’s newest hidden camera show, since the last one did so well, Instant Recall finally debuts tonight at 8:30PM ET.  It’s hosted by Wink Martindale and they’ve definitely been promoting him in this thing far more than the actual show which is probably for the best.  No idea what anything in this show will involve since apparently screener copies of shows are things of the past, but it looks to be decent and Wink is always a delight.  Then again Hidden Agenda looked decent also, and it tanked hard.  Our schedule (and everyone else’s schedule) says that Hidden Agenda moves to Fridays at 8:30PM ET, but the GSN online schedule says it doesn’t.  Next week Family Feud airs at 8:30PM ET on Fridays for sure.  GSN probably just didn’t send the new ones out, sorry.

*NBC’s promoting the hell out of Minute to Win It.  As if the comments from someone connected to the show in some loose way weren’t enough, we’ve got a behind the scenes look at the show.  That set looks remarkably like Who Wants to be a Millionaire mixed with Russian Roulette, so take that as you will.  I still don’t have high hopes for this thing in the long run, but it definitely could be far worse.

*ABC has two ice dancing shows coming for some reason.  One is quite literally a figure skating competition called Thin Ice, hosted by Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Kurt Browning.  Can’t you just sense the excitement?  You can’t either?  OK.  Then it was just announced that they are working on importing the UK series that’s essentially Dancing With the Stars on ice.  Is ice dancing really that incredibly popular?  But then again I really think Dancing With the Stars is up there on the stupid-scale, so I know nothing about these reality competitions.  By the way, didn’t Fox do a show very similar to this before also?  I seem to remember it coming and going quickly.

*ITV in London shot a pilot some episodes for the quiz and stunt show The Whole 19 Yards yesterday.  If you recall CBS shot a pilot a while ago but it didn’t sell.  It’s a shame, because the format described by one of our favorites, Bother’s Bar, looks to be incredibly fun and entertaining.  And CBS seems to be the most trusted network for game shows these days, so I think it would have ended up fine. Read about it here, and there are some links to pictures in there.

*As we said in the MiniBuzz, the fantastic Wipeout will return on ABC Thursday, June 22nd.  People constantly want to think this is the old Peter Tomarken quiz show Wipeout (which is frankly vastly overrated), but it’s not.  Whenever I mention Wipeout it’ll solely be for the ABC series, and any odd reference to the other one will be labeled.  All the cast returns.  They are redoing a lot of the challenges, and you can see pictures visiting the show’s Twitter page.

It’s time for a ratings report for the week ending February 21st.  It’s still sweeps period at this time, so all the shows are needing a boost.  The Olympics definitely hurt most, though.  By the way, as always, be sure to visit our often updated ratings page. We’ve got all the syndicated shows in there with ratings backed up, as well as percentages they gained or lost.  We’ll add more game shows once results get in.  But for now, in terms of syndicated game shows, Who Wants to be a Millionaire was, comparatively, the king this report.

Millionaire was the only show to not lose any viewers at all, which is nice.  It stuck at a 2.7 rating, where it’s been sitting comfortably for the better part of five weeks now.  With how people’s viewing habits are just keeping your viewers is good enough.  But, again, Millionaire is the only game show to gain viewers year-to-date.  These past few weeks where Millionaire has been at the 2.7 rating have been pretty uneventful, with most people struggling to get close to the $25,000 prize level let alone huge money.  These past two weeks, with the Real Housewives week plus this week’s Million Dollar Movie Week, have picked up the money some so we’ll see how that goes.  Not to mention next Monday we have a returning contestant who may be my favorite Millionaire player in years: Susan Filer.  We’ll have more on her later this week.

Like I said before, the rest of the shows were down.  Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! only lost 3% each, to a 7.2 and a 6.3, respectively.  Is it just me or are these two shows suddenly a lot closer than ever before?  Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? had its first pretty large down week that I can remember on record.  It sank 12% to a still decent 1.5.  Family Feud lost 13% and hit 1.3.  Deal or No Deal had some decent news this time.  They didn’t even bother tracking the ratings during that week so there’s no record of it going down!  How fortunate.

In network shows, The Marriage Ref, a very loose pseudo-game show, (which is remarkably unfunny, given that it’s Jerry Seinfeld’s show), debuted to an impressive 8.7/15.  But note it followed the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics so we’ll see how it does in week two.  The Amazing Race continues to do well, getting over ten million viewers with a 5.2/9 rating.  I’m going to start adding ratings for some shows I consider to basically be game shows, like Amazing Race and Survivor and that stuff, so check out the ratings page constantly for updates.

So if you read the site which I assume you do since you’re reading this, you’ve read what I’ve had to say about NBC’s new game show Minute to Win It.  I want to clear something up.  I’ve criticized the direction the show has taken.  Other news organizations know how identical it is to The Cube.  The host, Guy Fieri, even mentioned it today in a conference call.  But I didn’t know how the show would end up.  NBC amazingly wanted to send me a press kit for it.  First off for all the bad stuff I’ve said about how it’s royally ripped off ITV, I expected it to be spiders in the box or something.  It’s actually a “home game”, with a bunch of food, drink, and other objects to play with.  Good touch, and I’ll explain why soon.  They also sent a screener copy.  And I swear this is not me selling out but it’s been my mentality from the start: Minute to Win It is not that bad, it’s just nothing great, original, or tense.  In other words put Beat the Clock on the Deal or No Deal set, and this is what you have.

I’ve gone over the game a lot.  Play ten different games, not stunts as covert commenters connected to the show have pointed out repeatedly, and complete each in 60 seconds to win $1,000,000.  Once you finish the $50,000 game you can’t leave with less than that.  You get three “Lives” to fall back on if you fail, and once you run out, you lose.  You cannot leave once you fail a game.  If you commit to playing, you’re in for the win or leaving whatever your fall-back point in.  We’ve pointed out every single part that is similar to the UK version, so no point in rehashing those format points.  There’s really nothing to give opinion on about this.  If you know Who Wants to be a Millionaire’s format and enjoy it, you’ll like this.  It’s the safest format in the world and the type that tends to do well, so no issues.  The bad thing is I did end up playing along with the show with what they gave me, so damn you, NBC.  You win this round.

The problem comes from everything else but the game.  It’s utterly bland and stereotypical.  The A.V. Club, as I said yesterday, brought this up better than I could have, so I’ll just go over it again.  There’s no telling this show apart from Deal or No Deal or Millionaire on face value.  It’s obvious that both this and The Cube take stuff directly from the classic game Beat the Clock.  The difference is Minute to Win It plays it so safe with the production that you don’t get wrapped up into it.  The Cube oozes with atmosphere, and the presentation and feel of it is the only thing that keeps it from turning up, well, like Minute to Win It.  Minute is just so bland and stereotypical.  It does nothing to stand apart from other game shows, and if you’ve noticed shows that fit in with the crowd disappear quickly.

The other issue comes from Guy Fieri.  He seems to do fine when he’s interacting with the contestant, helping them out, or explaining stuff.  He does fine with the general hosting.  When he talks to the viewer via the handi-cam during some games, I had to fast forward.  He got just a bit irritating.  I’ve never seen him before this, but I heard it from others and I didn’t know what to expect.  Now I do.  To bring it back to the stereotypical point, when he’s hosting you cannot tell him apart from your Howie Mandels or your Bob Sagets.  Finally, I want to mention the audience.  I can take the loud, involved audiences.  I adore the loud, involved audiences.  This one went a bit far, though if you pay people $10 to sit in one I’d jump like a maniac also.  They were giving people standing, jumping ovations for a $2,500 win or $5,000 win.  Come on, really?  People booed $100,000 on Deal or No Deal and now you expect me to believe people are naturally in tears over someone else winning $2,500?  Not a chance.

So in review, Minute to Win It is not a bad show and I do encourage you to watch it.  The game is fine.  Everything else isn’t so fine.  By sticking to the mold and not attempting to be remotely original, they’ve become another face in the crowd that’s going to go away quickly.  When you give people no memorable references, people forget you.  Millionaire was hugely different when it came out.  Deal or No Deal was really different.  The Cube is incredibly different.  Minute to Win It is too bland for its own good, and no decent game play can help that.

Here are some quick updates for our world of unscripted television this morning.

*Last winter’s shocking it, The Sing-Off, will be coming back for a second season.  The Nick Lachey hosted a cappella singing competition did surprisingly well for NBC in December.  No return date is set just yet, but I wouldn’t doubt they’d try to place it at the same time.  It was easy, light-hearted fare for the Christmas season.  They played it perfectly.  I may have not been the biggest fan but at least this show, unlike many others, tested people with actual unbelievable singing skills.  No negativity in this at all, just pure singing, and that attracted a lot.

*NBC has renewed another reality show.  Out of no where, they will be bringing back Last Comic Standing.  It’s the show that will never die.  The show, which has been on and off the air since 2003, puts stand up comics against each other to find the freshest talent in the country.  It’s a reality show for comedy junkies like myself, so I’m excited to hear about it.  The hilarious Craig Robinson from The Office, Zach and Miri Make a Porno, and the new comedy Hot Tub Time Machine.  The eventual winner receives $250,000 and an NBC talent contract.  It’ll be back this summer, so definitely don’t miss that one.  It’s the anti-reality show for people who really don’t care for reality shows like myself.

*People are always wanting new game show apps for their iPhones.  Ludia released a great new one.  They’ve released the all new The Price is Right 2010 Edition.  First off, they’ve updated the graphics to mix with the current look and feel of the show, so good on them.  New games like Clock Game, Golden Road, and Safe Crackers have been added.  You can make new 3D avatars for the game, (but you can’t search for unobtainium, sorry).  It’s just a really nice update to an already nice game.  It’s regular price is $4.99, but right now it’s on an introductory sale of 40% off, for a $2.99 price tag.  If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch I’d definitely recommend getting it as soon as possible before the price jacks back up.

NBC supplied yet another preview of Minute to Win It.  It’s nothing that you haven’t seen before.  It’s just a newer set of clips thrown together to generate some excitement.  I don’t know how much more they’ll need since the commercials were plastered all over the Olympics, but we’ll see.

The A.V. Club put a review of the show up, and they more gracefully put up what I’ve been thinking about this show from the start.  There’s absolutely nothing unique to it.  I’m not dumb.   I’m well aware that The Cube, which I’ve been ranting about for months now, took just as much from the classic game show Beat the Clock as Minute to Win It.  The difference is Minute looks incredibly stereotypical and generic.  There’s nothing going on that sets it apart from the crowd.  The one thing The Cube has going for it is its futuristic presentation.  If you take the entire presentation and The Cube away from The Cube, you end up watching people bouncing balls off of tables for big money, and that’s a bit dumb.  And that’s what we’re getting here.  It’s too generic for its own good.  So thank you, A.V. Club, for saying what I haven’t been able to articulate.  The entire review for this show can be easily summed up in this quote:

For one thing, even though I can tell right away that I’m watching a game show, I can’t tell which game show. Is Guy Fieri guest-hosting Deal Or No Deal? Is that Password remake still on the air? What fresh hell is this?

One more thing.  I’ve been reading around, and people have asked me, if The Cube can survive post-Minute to Win It since they are essentially identical, and I do believe they can.  People will watch a show if they think it’s good.  Look at the singing shows The Singing Bee and Don’t Forget the Lyrics.  Both have the exact same premise, just different presentation.  Both were big primetime hits (that got screwed due to some weird programming decisions frankly), and both are still on the air in different ways today.  Look at all the Millionaire clones like 1 VS 100.  If it’s a good show, people will watch.  The Cube is a good show.  People will watch.

NBC recently released some clips of various games that will be played on their new game show Minute to Win It, debuting March 14th at 7:00PM ET.  Four of the games are below.  I really don’t know what to completely say, but I’m sure some of you will fill in the blanks.  The presentation of the games is so overblown in a bad way that it’s groan-worthy.  The bad thing is Guy Fieri does a really nice job.  He’s just stuck here.  Take a look at the clips below.  Again, despite the complaints, I still think the show will do fine for the first episode or two because of massive promotion.

We’re getting pretty close to the debut of the newest primetime game show.  NBC’s Minute to Win It will be starting March 14th from 7:00PM ET to 9:00PM ET.  It’s been promoted pretty well during the Olympics, so I can see it getting a pretty decent turnout on the first episode at least.  NBC released pictures of game play and the set today.  The gallery is below.  How do you make an audience seem larger?  Get a giant video monitor at the top of the set, behind the audience, and put a picture of the audience section up there.  At least it’s better than The Moment of Truth using blow up dolls for audience members sometimes.  Also, some of these games are direct copies of The Cube, just using a timer instead of a number of tries, which basically makes the game boil down to luck.  We’ll have video in the next few days.  Despite some objections, though, it does look interesting and I’d be sure to check out the debut episode if for no other reason than to keep networks putting primetime games in.

Can you feel the excitement?!  Minute to Win It has extended its debut show on Sunday, March 14th.  Instead of the original hour long show, it’ll be expanded to a full two hours, from 7:00PM ET to 9:00PM ET.  Why?  I wish I had some idea.  Last time something like this happened was with Duel on ABC, and they added 30 minutes of filler.  This means NBC has an hour of extra material filler to throw in, dragging this out even more.  And it’s been historically proven, over and over, that if you put this much filler in a show audiences will instantly be turned off.  The time slot isn’t the greatest thing on earth to begin with either.  I don’t think handicapping it anymore will help.  Is this anticipation that big for this?  Despite my claims of cheap rip off I have heard from a few people that said this looks fun and “different”, and I do wish the best for it since more game shows would be great.  And if nothing else maybe it’ll help bring The Cube to CBS?  Here’s a small list of some of the games that will be played.

HANKY PANKY – Using only one hand, the competitor must pull tissues out of a tissue box one-at-a-time until the box is empty.

JUNK IN THE TRUNK – A belt with an empty tissue box is attached around the competitor’s waist and positioned against the contestant’s back with the hole facing outwards. Ping-pong balls are placed inside the tissue box and the competitor must jump and wiggle to shake the balls out of the box without letting his hands touch the ground. All balls must be out of the box within the minute time limit to successfully complete the challenge.

EGG ROLL – Contestant must move three eggs across the floor and into a target area only by “fanning” the eggs with an empty pizza box.

BOBBLE HEAD – A pedometer is attached to the competitor’s head and he must move his head to rack up a total number of steps to complete the game.

MOVIN’ ON UP – Contestant is given a stack of 49 blue plastic cups with a red cup on the bottom. He must race to move the one red cup to the top by holding the stack and continuously moving the cups, one-by-one, from the top to the bottom through the entire stack.

I know I’ve been pretty rough on NBC about the fact that Minute to Win It, the network’s new game show debuting March 14th at 8:00PM ET, because it resembles a UK series which CBS shot a pilot for.  But we never fully know until it airs.  It could be entertaining.  To help you make up your mind a little bit, I’ve got a few things.  The first is a pair of trailers NBC has been showing off for the show.  Feels awfully familiar, eh?  The second, coming right now, is from the New York Magazine.  I don’t think we’re the only ones who notice this very close similarity to said hit British game show.  They got just about every detail about The Cube and Minute to Win It as crossed as possible.

Neil Patrick Harris has found his calling — hosting a game show. CBS will premiere Minute to Win It on March 14 with NPH handling hosting duties. The show is based on a successful British show called The Cube, which places contestants in a chamber designed to induce stress where they’re challenged to complete tasks for money. When they leave the chamber, NPH will promptly make fun of them.

Just a bit confused there, eh?

Please, Les Moonves.  Greenlight the good version and make us all proud.

We’ve finally got some concrete information in on NBC’s new stunt game show Minute to Win It, debuting March 14th at 8:00PM ET.  Previously we were just saying that it was a ripoff of the great British show The Cube because it sounded identical, but we had no concrete proof.  The presentation is what may have changed everything.  We’ve finally got some concrete information courtesy of our friends at HollywoodJunket.  Calling Minute to Win It a ripoff of The Cube is being nice to ripoffs.  It’s a blatant reproduction of it under a new name that makes me wonder how much of a case ITV, the network airing The Cube, would have in suing for this.  Furthermore it goes to prove they learned absolutely nothing from the Our Little Genius fiasco.  Let’s go point by point by how this is a blatant copy that Mark Burnett may want to call to and tell them a little story..

1: Minute to Win It just asks you to do various tasks in 60 seconds.  Tasks can include stacking things, knocking things over, throwing things into other things.  I can’t fault this as a copy since it’s been the goal and target of a ton of shows, but a lot of the challenges are direct copies of The Cube and it’s a bit too convenient that this show was greenlit as a piss-in-the-face move to Fox, to beat them to the punch.

2: Contestants are given “Lives” for games.  They have two to use each stunt, in case they fail a game.  They can retry.  The Cube has nine “Lives” for the full show.  Even the name is the same.  Could they not try to at least have been a bit more inventive?  It’s like if Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? came outright and said the helpers are now called “Lifelines”.

3:  The challenges are presented to the contestants by a female British voice instructing the contestant about the game.  Two models are there to assist and make sure everything is fine with the game as well.  The game is shown as an “electric diagram on the digital screen” on Minute to Win It.  On The Cube a male British voice instructs the contestant about the game as an assistant called “The Body” (done in post) shows the game.

4: In terms of “rigging” the game to be more exciting, HollywoodJunket reports that a contestant failed the first stunt.  They let her try again and said it was because of “nerves”.  She failed again.  They restarted the show from the top with the same contestant and another game which she won.  Again, this is exactly what happened on Our Little Genius and while it wasn’t the cause of the show going under, it didn’t help.  Contestants are also told the games ahead of time to practice at home, but we’re still looking into this.  Reports are saying that the games are posted online for anyone to do so there may have been a verbal mix-up on set, but HJ was very specific in saying contestants were told ahead of time which games were going to be played and that they could practice.

But beyond this, it’s just 10 games to win a million bucks.  Once a contestant beats five games and wins $50,000, he or she can’t leave with less than that.

I’ll look into it more, but I do have to wonder if ITV would have any legal case against someone here.  It’s a direct clone.  The only difference really is The Cube has seven games to win, and this has ten.  They use the same terminology, a lot of the same games, and some of the same presentation/example styles.  We’ll look up which format came first, since this idea, from Friday TV, was apparently produced by NBC into what we see today.  I can’t fault the production company at all.  This seems like a knee jerk reaction to beat Fox to the punch.  But again, it looks to be nothing intentional on the part of the original creators.

I could even get over it if it was just a clone of The Cube, but the constant contestant forgiveness, and then giving contestants the games before the show so they can win, is a mixture of lame, pathetic, and wrong.  It’s amazing that we never have any of these problems when companies who know what they are doing, like Embassy Row and Fremantle, are in charge.  NBC can do great game shows.  They gave us some of the decade’s greatest. Deal or No Deal, 1 VS 100, Weakest Link; the list goes on.  I have no idea what happened here, though.  I feel like this was rushed into production because of several poor situations and they borrowed what they had to.

I wish it the best because I want to see more primetime shows.  The show does have potential and I’ll still be watching at least the first episode, but it’s got a uphill battle to win.  The scheduling sucks for it, I haven’t heard a lot of good from audience reports, and now we’ve got all of this.

Edit: Took out a paragraph; we got more information.

Here’s a quick Twitter picture Guy Fieri took on the set of his new NBC primetime game show Minute to Win It.  I’ve got some early audience reports in my inbox and from what I’m reading thus far the “household chore” element has been completely removed and it is a total copy of the great British game The Cube.  Be on the lookout for audience reports coming in shortly.  Here’s a picture.  You can click here for Guy’s Twitter page, and I’m sure you can guess where we are.

EDIT: For some reason the image works fine on Safari but doesn’t work on any other browser, linking from Twitpic.  So sucks for you Windows people.  Just click this link and a picture will be shown.

NBC has just become an overwhelming Costco army supply of suck these days, hasn’t it?  I’ve got to make a comment on the late-night stuff so I can support my inner desire to be an all-around entertainment reporter and not just game show stuff.  I’m pretty sure you can tell by the banner we put up that I’m on Conan’s side for the whole Tonight Show debacle, and next week looks to be his last.  Conan played this entire thing brilliantly.  He’s coming out the hero and underdog and a few certain people at NBC looks like a bunch of pricks, no matter what the behind-the-scenes goings-on are.  Conan will get a huge sum of money and get to get a new show somewhere else.  Furthermore this has brought up Conan’s ratings by around 30% to 40% in the past week and it’s a sure gamble at this point for what will happen when Jay comes on, since I doubt he’ll get the numbers he used to.  I wish Conan the best and Jay the worst at this point.  Regardless, Craig Ferguson is without a shadow of a doubt the most talented, hysterical, witty, and interesting late night comedian, or personality in general, and has been for a very long time.  He deserves far more praise than anyone out there.

But onto game shows.  Our friends at TheWrap have the post-Leno (boo) schedule.  The one most of us probably care about is Minute to Win It.  Minute to Win It debuts March 14th at 8:00PM ET on NBC.  It used to be called Perfect 10 but NBC probably got sick of being asked why they started to show porn in primetime.  The stunt show sees contestants trying to perform a number of stunts, each with a 60 second time limit, for up to $1,000,000.  It’s as close as we’re going to get to UK’s brilliant The Cube which amazingly even Saudi Arabia gets and we can’t.  We’ve really heard nothing about it so it’s hard to pass massive judgement, but it looks to be remotely interesting at least so it’s worth a peak.

There’s an interesting mix of rushed productions getting onto the air in order to fill the situation Leno (boo) left them in.  Another is Jerry Seinfeld’s The Marriage Ref.  Jerry describes it as a reality/game/comedy, and I think he’s on crack.  Plus he’s on Team Leno so boo to him.  But regardless The Marriage Ref will debut Thursdays at 10:00PM ET starting March 4th with a sneak peek on February 28th.  It should be good for a laugh so you may want to check it out.  My personal favorite, Law and Order: SVU will air Wednesdays at 10:00PM Et.  I await Olivia Benson.

No major news right now unless I’m missing something, but there are lots of small stories out there.  It’s the Television Critics Association press tour this week so we’ll have lots of small developments.  NBC just had theirs today.  I wish I could say I’m really interested in game show news right now but the whole NBC late night debacle is far more interesting.  It’s incredibly fascinating to see what happens.  The latest thing I heard is Conan O’Brien staying on NBC is about a 50/50 chance so you never know.  Check out the great website TheWrap.com for the latest.

*NBC did drop a few other things in which no one really cared about since it didn’t involve the late night situation.  If you enjoy America’s Got Talent like I do for some reason, this will interest you.  As some may know David Hasselhoff left the show.  Last we heard he wanted to do a new version of What’s My Line, and he said he wanted to do other TV projects, so who knows.  Taking David’s place is Deal or No Deal host Howie Mandel.  He will join the panel alongside Sharon Osbourne and Piers Morgan.  Howie will continue hosting Deal or No Deal in syndication (while it lasts at least; I’m expecting this to be the end of the road).  NBC did say they have no plans to bring the show back in primetime, though.  It’s a bit shocking since they are losing five hours of programming in February and could use a quick cheap show like Deal, but there we go.  I’d expect to see Perfect Ten, now called Minute to Win It, a lot sooner.

*Jerry Seinfeld is returning to NBC, kind of.  He’s the executive producer of the new reality comedy show The Marriage Ref debuting February 28th.  It’s hosted by incredibly funny comedian and actor Tom Papa.  Seinfeld said the show is a mix of a reality show, a comedy show, and a game show, just without prizes.  Is marriage a good prize?  I’m a huge Seinfeld nerd and his stint on Curb Your Enthusiasm this season was priceless, and he’s got one of the best comedic eyes out there so I’d expect this to be really funny.

*The drop zone will live on.  Sadly not with Russian Roulette, pound for pound one of the best game shows this decade.  Oxygen Network has in development a new show called Fashion Drop.  The show basically sees contestants having to prove their fashion sense or they are dropped off the set.  The whole drop technique has been used by Ellen Degeneres on her talk show for a while, and it’s pretty popular.  This may have had something to do with it.  She also did Hole in the Wall before Fox decided to pick it up.  Any chance Ellen can do a 100 person audience quiz show?

It’s apparently still going to be a bit of a slow news week so I’ll dig up what I can.  Today I could find small things on what the title says: models and politics.  No, it doesn’t involve Bill Clinton.  Also got some stuff on what appears to be two new GSN reality-game shows as they are calling them now.  Those are the previously discussed Instant Recall and the new Come Dine With Me.

*Some new NBC game show is looking for some models.  On the off chance you’re a model reading a game show news website for fun you can click here and then find my phone number in the contact page to get ahold of me. But I’m not completely sure what this is for.  At first I figure this has to be for Perfect Ten, NBC’s new stunt show.  But in the casting page it says this is from the executive producer of Deal or No Deal, who is Scott St. John, and he’s not involved in Perfect Ten.  So either this is some new show or they just got the information wrong.  I’d guess the latter.  It starts taping on January 15th through the 18th, and they are doing eight episodes at first.

*If you live in the Los Angeles area a new game show is now casting.  This one is more politically minded so you really need to be up on current events.  The call says literally anyone can apply as long as you’re willing to discuss this stuff in an open forum type of situation.  If it sounds like you click here for it.  They are also looking for fact-checkers who live in Los Angeles. The email address has the title “Going on 2K” in it, and if that has any significance it’s beyond me.

* A few weeks back we said we saw some casting information for the GSN show in development Instant Recall (which according to public records GSN has trademarked recently and you can find these public records by just googling “Instant Recall GSN”), which was leaked out with early upfront information a long time ago.  They are still casting for what appears to be that.  The casting notice fits the stuff I saw about it and it says it’s for a cable network with a top prize of $3,000 plus prizes, and that fits their budget.  They are also now casting for Come Dine With Me, first publicly stated on a former GSN personality’s blog.  Basically you just throw a dinner party for other people for cash.  How exciting.  It’s a relative hit in England so we’ll see how it does here.  If that’s up your alley click here. I love how they aren’t saying the network name anymore in casting information and are trying to be really secretive about it.  They’re going to have to try a bit harder if they want to sneak information past us.

What do you get when you take England’s hit semi-revolutionary game show The Cube and dumb it down for general American standards?  You get NBC’s new game show Perfect Ten.  Before we get to this, we would like to say that Josef Adalian from TVMoJoe has confirmed what we announced a few weeks ago, that Fox has dropped The Cube.  The field is wide open for someone to go after it now.  American networks would frankly be stupid to not go after it.  But that’s old news.  Onto Perfect Ten.  We’ve got a host for the show.  It’s Food Network personality Guy Fieri.  Hey, it’s not the generic standup comic for a change.

NBC has a description of the show.  Adalian’s post states: “Fieri will serve as master of ceremonies and will be the competitors biggest cheerleader. In each episode, Fieri will lead competitors through a series of simple, yet nerve wracking games that can reward them a $1 million prize. Over eight one-hour episodes, competitors will face 10 challenges that escalate in level of difficulty. Created using everyday household items, each game has a 60-second time limit and failure to finish the task on time will eliminate the contestant. One slip of the hand and you’re out.”  So, again, it’s a ripoff of The Cube.  USA!  USA!

Guy will actually be involved in the casting a bit.  They’ll be casting contestants during some of Fieri’s “Road Shows”, so if you can endure spiky bleached hair for a bit you may be on your way to a million dollars.  I know it’s a ripoff of The Cube, but I’m still looking forward to it.  It may be as close as we can get and if they can get it remotely right I’ll be happy.  When NBC actually tries hard to make a challenging, entertaining game show they do well.  When they half-ass it, it tends to bomb spectacularly.  We’ll see how it goes, but I’m looking forward to it.

We previously had a rumor from sources saying the show may debut in January.  That has been pushed back to either later in the season or in the summer.  The excuse we were given from the start was they didn’t have a host yet or it would have been out sooner, and this definitely syncs up.