BuzzerBlog

As I recently said, I really mis-reviewed How Much is Enough? and I do apologize and hope you’ll still believe me for some of my reviews. Because of that last horrible judgement on my part, I was a tiny bit afraid of Bingo America. It had three check marks which made me afraid. One, again, my wrong opinion of How Much is Enough?. Two, it’s well documented that I truly think National Bingo Night is the worst game show in ages. Three, I really find bingo to be boring and stale to begin with. Luckily the producers of ABC’s primetime screw up retooled their show from the dreck that it was and created a fast paced fun little quiz show that is almost a full package.

The game is really really simple. $500 is put into the game’s jackpot at the start of the game. A ball is taken from the gigantic hopper that survived from ABC. At-home players mark it off their card ($50 goes to you if you get a bingo. Not bad if you ask me.). After the ball is placed on a glowing stand by co-host Crystal Wallasch, main host Patrick Duffy asks a question with no choices. A right answer adds the number of the ball into the game jackpot (in dollars obviously) and puts the letter on the ball on your board. If you miss, your opponent gets a free shot. All you have to do is spell BINGO to win a game. Two games gives you the jackpot and the right to play for $100,000. If a game takes a long time to complete, they switch to a two-choice question format after each ball is drawn to speed it up. For the bonus, there are 75 numbers. The champ picks numbers randomly off the board, and the first pair he or she matches (whether it be trips, prizes, or cash up to $100,000) is what he or she takes home in addition to the main game jackpot. At-home players have to bonus numbers on their downloaded card. If the studio player calls both of those numbers, the at-home player is a winner.

Let’s start with the set and music. Not much to say about the music, it’s stereotypical current game show music. Much better than the overly synthesized How Much is Enough? music but nothing to write home about like Lingo’s. The set is nice but again, the same as everything else today. It looks like a bruise; all black and blue. The huge hopper is there which is a nice touch. Also, it’s a GSN show with an audience! I know I gripe a lot about audiences, but you can’t fake the enthusiasm on a set with a canned audience. The graphics are also very nice too.

The hosts are good for the most part. Patrick Duffy keeps it going but has little time for any interaction or fun because of the constant throws to the at-home players. Truthfully, I got sick of it after a bit. I get the point and I think most of America gets the point of how to mark numbers off a card. A reminder in the beginning and middle of an act will suffice, not every five seconds. Co-host Crystal Wallasch is plays practically the same role the model on ABC’s version did, just taking the balls out of the chute and saying the number. They are sure to bill her on advertisements, press packs, and the website, but she does little beyond just stand there and shuts up. At least give her something to do. Talk to her for a few seconds, just something. Her job could have easily been done by Patrick the way they are doing it now.

The front game is actually pretty enjoyable. I think it’s worth noting that this is GSN’s first straight quiz show in a long long time. No word game here, it’s all quiz. The money is not bad at all. I’d expect to see game jackpots in the area of $1,250 to $2,000. It’s more than any other main game on GSN gives away to a person. The trivia questions are things you should know but often don’t which is nice as well. It’s a challenge, but not so much that it becomes frustrating like Camouflage. They move through it briskly as well so there’s little boredom.

One big step up from the ABC version is the fact that you don’t have to play the actual bingo game to participate. You can answer the questions and play along as well as marking off the cards if you choose. One small thing bugs me about the main game presentation, though. Every time they draw a ball they have to cue the dramatic lighting and music. At the start of the round is fine, but every 25 seconds for each ball, again, gets old very quickly.

Where the show drops the ball big time is in the end game. They go from a fast paced quiz show with a bingo aspect to complete luck of the draw “Pick numbers and you win what you match.” Not only that, it’s incredibly slow and lacks the tension it should have. It seems to me that they got really lazy in developing the show and just threw together anything they could. You’re telling me they couldn’t have made some bingo related end game instead of randomly picking numbers? In the game I watched, we got through three picks in four minutes. One thing I’d like to see is the layout of the board. I know there aren’t going to be tens of thousands of dollars floating around everywhere, but I’m sincerely hoping they don’t have a gap from like $10,000 to $100,000. I’d rather just have a lower top prize but more generous cash values. Regardless, the end game needs some serious tweaking to at least fit the theme of the show. It’s the only time I truly felt bored during the show.

All in all, it’s a nice little GSN quiz show. Nice money, nice presentation, nice game play, nice host. The truly disappointing thing is the end game. This review would be a bit more glowing if they had some substance there, but they took the easy way out which is rarely every a good way to go. However, there are a lot of positives to relatively make up for it. It’s nice to have a fast paced straight quiz show on the network again. Quick, fun, and fast: a perfect edition to GSN’s lineup.

A perfect addition would be a new season of Lingo to complement it, but oh well.