“Downfall” is Pretty Good, But Should Have Learned from “Russian Roulette”
Downfall debuted tonight on ABC. The game is pretty simple. Choose a category. Each category has 10 questions in it. Answer questions against the clock, which is a moving conveyer belt with prizes on it. You can answer as often as you want and pass, but when you pass the belt speeds up. Level one requires four right answers, level two requires five right, and so on to level seven. If you make it through a round you can stop or gamble your winnings. $25,000 is a milestone. If you lose at any point you go off the edge. The top prize, as we said, is $1,000,000. I’ll just get this out of the way now: I’d give it a 7/10. I liked it a lot and I just had a few small issues with it, and most of those are probably just personal preferences.
Let’s get the positives out of the way. The game works very well. It’s fun to play along with and very tense and dramatic. The lifeline aspect works. The game’s just a challenge. The idea of speeding up the belt for each pass is nice, too. The game’s simple but works and that’s the best kind of game. The show looks nice. Chris Jericho is actually a pretty good host. I mean, really, there are very few complaints I have with the actual game or anything like that. There are a few tonal issues, though, which hurt the show a bit. Incidentally each of these issues could have been seen by watching the other drop show Russian Roulette. There are some cardinal rules that would have been wise to look over when comparing them. Most of these rules come from the fact that they really just could not seem to figure out how to play the show…as a comedy or a tense, scary show.
Image courtesy of AmericanProfile.com
1: Do Not Puss Out. We get it. The prizes aren’t real. The contestants are being safely lowered. We know you aren’t literally dropping anyone off the edge of a roof. Much like we knew no one was being sucked into a black hole below them on Russian Roulette. But the latter kept this impending sense of doom the entire show. Downfall made it extremely clear, to a point of negating the actual idea of the drop, that nothing close to dangerous was going on. This show was billed on a sense of danger. They pussed out.
2: The Drop is the Point of the Show. The entire basis of the show is seeing people fall off the edge of a building. Seeing fake money fall off isn’t really that tense. Some of the fake prizes dropped off worked, like the fake car and fake TVs and all of that. Showing essentially a cardboard cutout of a pizza oven falling off the edge isn’t really that tense. The contestant should have been on that belt sweating and screaming as they get closer to the edge. Just showing them lift suddenly, while it’s still scary, doesn’t give the full effect.
3: Do Not Show the Contestant at the Bottom of the Drop: So we finally see someone drop off the edge. It’s what should be the moment everyone talks about. The contestant is dangling over the edge. My heart was literally pounding, since it’s a scary moment. The contestant drops and we hear screams. But then we flash to the contestant at the bottom? Again, we really know no one is being killed. Not a single viewer is that stupid. And it’s not even seeing them being slowly lowered near the bottom and let go, but then we have to see them frolicking on the ground. This show would have kept a massive level of dread and suspense if they dropped and we moved on. A Mark Walberg-like tone of indifference would have worked. Showing the contestant jumping around at the bottom negated all the drama.
The show would have been better off by switching between money rounds and prize rounds. Have fewer items on the belt. Have the contestant at the end of it for the sense of dread. The show had to keep switching between the drop and the questions. So much was going on at once it got hard to follow. Plus I had one small complaint about the marketing and this wasn’t the fault of the show. They couldn’t really settle on a tone. The game tried to be dramatic. The commercials tried to be funny. It didn’t match up.
Again, I want to state that the show was fun, had a good game, and I’ll be watching again. It just had some issues and it basically all had to do with drop, which is the reason the show exists. I have no idea at all how the show will do in the ratings. If it gets picked up it’s really not that far from being one of the better quiz shows to come in modern times. Just decide if we’re playing this for laughs and to say, “Look at the paper fall of a roof,” or if we’re going to go for suspense and dread and say, “Keep watching because this contestant is only seconds away from falling off a skyscraper.” If we can decide how we’re going to play the show, we’ve got a show here.
Like I said, I give it a 7 out of 10. I’m close to loving the show. I just had a few issues, and it’s more due to personal preference more than anything.
I agree. Russian Roulette was great because it wasn’t “we dropped them but just reminding you all that they’re completely safe”. It was…you dropped. And you’re out. All you knew was that they dropped, and that was tense and dramatic.
Also, it seems that the contestant is only ON the conveyor belt for the final round, where they are with the million dollars in cash. At least, this is according to Wikipedia – I don’t know for sure. That’s not how they should be doing it – put them on the edge for every round! It’s cruel to the acrophobiacs, and it’s a lot of pressure – but hey, it’s great television!
Downfall was great. But it can be better.
Totally agree. This game is good, but a few tweaks could make it awesome. It quickly became apparent to me that after round one it’s IMPOSSIBLE to win the first prize on the belt – just not enough time.
My suggestion: Keep the money ladder, replace the cash on the belt with the contestant, and only have one prize on the belt in front of the player. It’s a bonus for finishing a round quickly, and imagine what it would feel like seeing a prize fall off the edge, knowing you’re only seconds away from going yourself.
I like the points that you bring up Curtis, but there are 2 things I disagree with:
Actually 1.5 things:
.5: Standing on the converyor belt I guess is fine, but what about the panic button? I suppose they could hold a wireless Jeopardy-like device in their hands. That might work.
1: It’s absolutely possible to win the first prize on the belt after round 1. Take, for example, the state nicknames category on the 2nd episode. If You know them cold (although I personally missed the badger state of Wisconsin and the Gem state of Idaho), You could go through them all and knock them out in 10 seconds, which should be enough time to keep the prize on the belt.
I’d actually like to see them go with the “playing for laughs” direction with this. For one thing, Chris Jericho is quite skilled at light-hearted banter with the contestant, and to make it completely serious would require either taking that out or risk having the banter cause mood whiplash. Secondly, I’ve cackled simultaneously with Adam Savage after a particularly good explosion on MythBusters on multiple occasions, and I’d like to see another show which can get that reaction out of me.
From what I saw tonight, I like it. I think, if this show is, in fact, successful, it should be either a summertime only show (which I’m all for), or have it air between cycles of Dancing With the Stars.
To be perfectly honest, Alex, I disagree with you on all three of your sticking points.
1. I don’t need to be lied to in order for television to be sensational and entertaining. The contestants on Russian Roulette were every bit as safe as the contestants on Downfall, and anyone with common sense knows that the contestants on either show aren’t going to be killed because they didn’t win. Because let’s face it, whether you dropped 100 feet off a skyscraper or however far the contestants on Russian Roulette fell without a safety harness or something very, very cushy to land on, you would either be dead or have such massive injuries that you’d wish you were. Who wants to see that?
2. Actually, seeing the fake money fall off the edge was one of the greatest thrills of the night for me. I figured it would lame because I imagined the “fake” money would be blocks or bundled at least, but it was all loose and watching it flutter away was like televised poetry. Simply awesome. The different visuals created by a variety of prizes, cash and people going overboard is an excellent visual hook. I personally could do without the instant replays, but that’s a pretty minor thing in my book.
3. This is one I disagree with you most on. Showing the contestant at the bottom of the drop gives a sense of closure. Russian Roulette lacked that, and for me, once I saw one contestant drop I’d seen them all. Every contestant who dropped went down that same black void, almost virtually instantaneously upon their failure, and you didn’t really get a feel for what the contestant experienced. Once I’d seen two or three episodes, I never needed to tune in to Russian Roulette again, because every episode was the same, plus the bonus round was an insane gamble. You talk about pussing out, well, most contestants on Russian Roulette did the smart thing and “pussed out” on a nigh-unwinnable proposition. Boring! Downfall was so much more interesting because we knew the contestant (I can’t remember her name) was going to drop, we got to see her lifted and positioned as she mentally prepared herself; we got to see her reaction before, during and after the drop. Picture perfect.
Quite frankly, Russian Roulette does not begin compare to Downfall, for which I’m glad. I’ll be watching Downfall regularly, something I didn’t do for Russian Roulette. And Chris Jericho was an excellent choice as host, because he is the best he is at what he does. It’s axiomatic.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Too many shows take themselves far too seriously, depending on melodrama, trumped up “danger” and predictable conflict. It’s nice that one took the road less traveled, focusing on the inherent, undeniable silliness of dropping a piano off a skyscraper, rather than some poor contestant’s sweaty brow. That makes their choice of host, which was a HUGE question mark for me, into an exclamation point. Chris Jericho GETS that he’s a wrestler dropping pianos off a skyscraper, and refuses to run away from it.
Some of my criticisms have been mentioned previously. The first prize is almost always a goner. We don’t know how much time passes, so we have no sense of how well they have to do at the outset. They don’t tell us how much each item is, or give us a running total. Maybe it’s just the more traditional game show fan in me, but if you’re going to display the prizes being won, why not plug them? Ohhhhh, is it because you don’t have a proper announcer, like many modern game shows? Hunh. Come on, it’s not like Pyramid, where the announcer of the day told you what show you were watching, then remained silent until reading the plugs at the end of the show. This is (or was) a chance to have another personality in there.
My second biggest complaint has to do with the drops themselves. They had so many different options. Super slo-mo. Landing on the camera. Multiple replays smashed together. They could have hidden one inside a prize. I’m expecting more in the future.
The biggest problem I have with the show is the risk/reward balance. I don’t think that a 7-step chain needs a safety milestone, but with that ship having sailed, I think they got it exactly backward. I think the milestone should protect the prizes, not the money. With the most expensive prizes usually going down early and contestants already cutting it close (and panicking) early on, I think it would be a more meaningful decision if they were only assured the prizes they bank early on.
I also agree with the previous two posters who disagreed with Alex (does that make sense?)
I think the tone of the show is just right! They needed to show Nicole happily trotting away after she was dropped off the building because you know, you KNOW that some poor slob is gonna freak out somewhere and possibly drop dead of a heart attack if they think they just saw some poor person plummet to their death on national TV! I don’t think I could watch this show if I didn’t see losing contestants walk away from being dropped (even if I knew in the back of my mind that it was done with the utmost attention to safety) In fact maybe the announcer (if they decide to hire one) could do post game interviews from the bottom of the building after the drop.
Chris Jericho did a great job and was a perfect choice to host! I know the creators of this show and I know that one of them is a big wrestling fan so I can see why they picked him!
I’ve already set TiVo to record the next show!
Again, I just want to note that I’ve gone on record, repeatedly, saying I really like the show.
I really think it’s nearly impossible to have a show where the focal point is dropping someone off the edge of a skyscraper be played for only laughs instead of some drama. You can do it as both, and they did. However, I feel the drama and tenseness is completely invalidated when you show everything, removing the idea of, “Wow, what just happened?” and the mystery of that.
I’d love to see just a post-game interview. Drop them. Have Chris read the answers. Then do a post game interview that the shows love to do so much. I think that would be the best way to do this I just think you completely devalue the entire point of the show when you remove any drama from it.
And again this is just a personal preference. I like the dark, scary, foreboding shows. That’s what made me like the genre. I get what other people are saying. It’s just a personal preference. But again I really dig the show and it’s on my TiVo with no sign of going away, either.
I actually really enjoyed this show, especially considering I’m mostly a trivia game show fan (love Jeopardy! and Millionaire). The question writing was really nice and had me stumped on some of them (no multiple choice!). I couldn’t imagine having to answer trivia under the stress of losing prizes and cash! And yeah if the show plays up the “mysteriously falling contestant” aspect akin to Russian Roulette this show WILL be a hit. Also, in being a WWE fan, Chris is great as host—great interactions with the contestants and the audience. He is soooo unlike his acerbic WWE personality. I’ll make sure to check out the next episode!
I just want to make sure it’s known that I do like this show, I just had a few small issues with it and it mainly dealt with the drop. However, that’s just a personal preference of mine. I thought Chris did well, I liked the game, it looked nice, and all that other stuff.
So again, I did like the show. Just had a few issues.
I agree with the aftermath of the fall, but to have them at the edge of the building won’t give them the option to press the panic button.
Which let’s face it – is better without it. No need for liability for someone else to be potentially injured, or the risk of a prized possession.
If we have the contestant at the end, have them hold onto the fake money at all times, so they keep the eye on the prize at all times.
Have a “Bonus Prize” midway on the belt, instead of three each round, so it acts as an incentive.
Finally, get rid of the “stay or go on” dilemma – that way they MUST keep playing in order to avoid falling off the building. Much like a “I am NOT smarter than a 5th Grader” routine, where only the $1,000,000 winner gets away scot free.
I totally agree with you. I like the concept, but the execution was a little sloppy.
First of all, I think this is the perfect vehicle for Chris Jericho. He can be friendly while still maintaing an edge, and he can pump up the drama suitably.
I like the format, though I think if my math is right, you have to answer 10 for 10 in the final round to win a million? I think this goes under the same problem with “Minute to Win It’ where nobody’s going to go for it.
And YES, there is no need to explain that its all dramatized and recreations of the actual prizes. We get it. No one’s really in danger here, and we don’t expect the same car they probably dinged getting up on the roof is the same car they’re going to drive off in. This should have been a one paragraph blurb that appears on the screen after the sign off, not the big welcome to the show. We can lose the “harness girls” too while were at it.
I’ll watch. I hope tweak it a little. And is it me, or did they borrow some of the old Duel graphics?
NOW THATS A SHOW THAT WOULD BE GREAT IN SYNDICATION….. but I digress.
I genreally agree with most of what you’re saying, but the last sentence I’m a little iffy about. I do feel as if speeding up the gameplay would be a good idea (not speeding up the belt but cutting a few minutes of exchange between question rounds), but we saw what happened when DOND got sped up to the point that all of its primetime drama, when it went to syndication, took a tremendous “downfall”. In other words, the drama is too excessive for it to work well in syndication, in my opinion.
This show reminds me of the auto-race event variously called “destruction derby” and “demolition derby”–one where beat-up stock cars run into each other until only one is left. Lots of folks liked to watch it to see just how cars would get mangled.
Similarly, one of the appeals of this show will be seeing “stuff” go over the edge of a ten-story building. (Understand they wanted a taller structure, but a ten-story job is all they could get at short notice.) The years’ supply of coffee went in a satisfying brown cloud, while the money fluttered away quite nicely.
Chris Jericho fits this show like a glove. He does himself well, which is saying something for a graduate of the WWE School of Ham Acting. He is a little “cooler” (emotionally speaking) than Guy Fieri of “Minute To Win It”.
The proof of this show will come with the ratings next week. Will “Downfall” be able to hold onto the good ratings gotten by “Wipeout”, or will this go alongside “I Survived A Japanese Game Show” as a show that couldn’t hold “Wipeout”‘s audience? Time alone will tell.
I really liked the show. I did not like the fact that they didn’t show the questions on the screen and only when they cut to Chris and the contestant. So I sometimes didn’t hear or realize that they were still asking questions since I could only hear the gasping audience and crashing props.
Also, some of the contestants were a little. . .of kilter. While some categories are easy, some were hard. And during the easy rounds they seemed stupid.
I will watch next week.
So I watched the first episode of Downfall.
Liked the promos, was looking forward to the show. Thought the premise was great, but the execution was lacking and the pacing was … off.
Then, about 3/4ths of the way through the hour, a male contestant (a fireman from Boston) was struggling and he chose the topic of “Sexiest Men Alive.” Chris Jericho became incredulous and surprised. He questioned the contestant’s masculinity and physically backed away from him,
So, the mere concept of the possibility that a man could know anything about the topic of “Sexiest Men Alive” elicits a major response from Chris Jericho. There’s a word for this: HOMOPHOBIA.
This is the kind of juvenile, childish nonsense that every gay person had to endure while growing up. So nice and refreshing to see this awful attitude reinforced on network television.
Once again, gays are the butt of the joke.
not funny. not acceptable. not necessary.
Hey Brion…
I think you’re reading a little too much into it. As a gay man I thought the bit was fine. Chris was just playing up the juxtaposition of a masculine figure playing a more feminine category. It’s a funny concept. It has been for centuries.
He didn’t taunt him. He didn’t belittle him. He certainly didn’t bash him. He just played up the machismo card. So lets just settle down a little.
And if you’re so offended by “childish nonsense” then why are you watching a show that’s entire premise is throwing stuff off a building? The whole concept is damned silly. And that’s okay. You just have to lighten up and just have fun with it.
Besides, you and I both know it’s only a matter of time before an actual gay man or woman comes on the show. Why not hold your fire until we see how they get treated.
So lets put away our homophobia accusations. Lets save our political fury for more important battles. Lets just agree that it’s a cute show, and leave whatever we had to endure out of the analysis.
I see what you did there–gays, butt joke. Well done.
You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. I saw the incident you’re talking about right now on my DVR. Nothing happened. NOTHING.
The show’s pretty good for what it aimed to do. I do think they didn’t need to assure us about the prizes being fake, as soon as you say the THREE FOOT CUP OF COFFEE the audience would get it. Perhaps they thought families in a recession would rather not see thousands of dollars be poured into an experiment in gravity :)
What impressed me the most were the questions! Here I thought like many that they would be a cake walk, but certainly not! I fared about one or two better than the person on-screen, but still to gamble on 10-out-of-10 does seem like an impossible situation. However the wacky money tree, 250k to a mill in one step, does nudge the contestants towards an attempt. I think the 25k works as a fine safety net, honestly I don’t think game shows need as much risk as they do already, if you did alright you should get a medium reward not nothing.
I am conflicted on the early-prize situation. While it does seem impossible to save the first prize in nearly every round, the stress of seeing something go teetering off a building right in front of you is sure to distract, adding to the difficulty of the show. One idea: don’t start the treadmill until your first pass? Maybe not for each round, but just in the show in general, nothing falls until your FIRST pass, then from each question on it’ll start up when the round starts (otherwise the million dollar round makes no sense). That or a MUCH longer pause before prize number one.
Also, I do think we should see the player on the belt every single round, all they need is a hand-held buzzer for the panic button. I think the safety issue isn’t a moving player, but a person “dropping” while prize carnage is around, hence why they use no prizes in the “put my buddy on the belt” round, just the cash. Only a guess.
As far as I could tell, I think the penalty for any panic, not just the buddy on the belt panic, is a loss of all remaining prizes left on the belt…this prevents someone from picking a category, seeing a couple questions they don’t know, and simply using the panic to pick a new category they know so the prizes don’t drop.
The two reasons don’t have to be mutually exclusive :) Those yours is much more important from a fairness viewpoint.
I think I agree with most of Alex’s comments, although Chris sorta felt… what’s the word… clunky. Not that he did a bad job, but he seemed generally sluggish and mechanical. It doesn’t take long for the audience to realize that the contestant is risking $X and Prize Y, we don’t need reminded every round. Hopefully this is a first-few-shows thing and he can work off-script a bit more as the show goes on, but he just got a bit grating for me after a bit.
Overall though, I’m surprised to say that this isn’t a bad show at all. Again, I agree with Alex’s production commentary above, but it’s nothing that can’t be tweaked. Still, ratings aside, I wonder how long this show will stay interesting to me. I have a hunch the novelty of prizes and people going off the edge of a building will run out quickly, but I still hope the show does well for now.
Bonus game show geek points: Has anyone else made the comparison that it’s the end game from “Every Second Counts” with the theme music from “La Cible”?
Wow what can i say I actually enjoyed Downfall. I think Chris Jericho did very good. He wasn’t overloud like Guy Fieri on Minute It To Win It. Trivia Questions without mulitple choice nice something a bit different. I agree with whoever said the belt should start when the first time a contestant passes. I actually think this would be fun to see as a video game or DVD game.
When I think of a game show where the contestant drops out of the picture at a wrong answer, I don’t think of “Russian Roulette” as much as I do of “Showdown”, a three-month wonder from 1966, which Heater-Quigley produced for NBC. Two teams of three contestant, each team having a common denominator (three plumbers, three Smiths, whatever) were given multiple-choice questions with three possible answers. Those who got it right stayed in view. Those who got it wrong had their “breakaway” seats drop from under them, and they went clean out of sight. When one team lost all three members, the other team won. I don’t remember if there was a bonus game.
Joe Pyne, a right-wing talk show host, hosted this affair, heaping scorn on all concerned, but especially on The Bantams, a sub-teenage rock group that provided the music for this show. (They did one album for Warner Bros. records: try and find it!)
After all these years, I can even remember one of the questions, as follows. “What is the name for Japanese ritual suicide? A) Hara-Kiri? B) Hari-Kari? or C) Harry Carey.? (Never mind that the actual answer would be “Seppuku”!)
Perhaps most notable about this show was that, when it was cancelled, it was replaced by a new show, “The Hollywood Squares”–which laster longer than three months!
How’s this for an idea?
Remember the Comedy Central show distraction? They had a similar end game where they’d ask you five questions, and for each incorrect answer, one of your prizes was demolished at random. To soften the blow, one of the prizes was usually really lame, like a can of beans or something like that.
What if the first prize for each round was a gag prize? That way the contestant has a chance at winning all the real prizes, and the producers can come up with some great ideas to drop that aren’t necessarily great prizes.
Letterman has long had a bit where he would throw stuff off the roof of his theatre, and they were all designed for interesting visuals.
Some ideas could be…
- 100 watermelons
- A brand new kitchen sink
-A year’s supply of florescent tubes
-10,000 rubber bouncy balls
-water balloons filled with guacamole
- 500 lbs of confetti.
Again, none of these are great prizes to win, but they all would look awesome falling off the building. I can vouch for these items in particular because Letterman’s thrown all of em off the roof on his own show and it was cool to watch.
The constant should have been on the belt for every question. (This is what I expected from watching the ABC promos). No prizes should have been used at all. The building should have been 300 feet high.
Also:
The panic button is only for players who are too frightened to drop over the edge. Hit the panic button and you win nothing, but you save yourself from the terror of dropping 300 feet. The top prize is $10,000. Ten correct answers in two minutes wins the money. The belt moves slowly. At the two minute mark you drop off the edge. No visible clock for the contestant. Only the terror of getting closer to the edge.
The drop/scream is shown in real time for all 300 feet of the fall, and edited before the contestant “hits the ground”. That player is gone and the next player immediately emerges on the belt. It’s a fast-paced and terrifying game where players can win $10,000 if they are brave enough and can answer the questions quickly enough.
Most players drop and win nothing. Answer ten questions before going over the edge wins you the $10,000. Many players on each show.
ABC’s game shows are underrated. They do a pretty good job with them. Not brilliant but definitely better than NBC. They already had a smash hit with Millionaire and something tells me that this just might be next. Now if only they picked up Deal or No Deal in 2005 like they planned. I wonder if they could pick up Deal from NBC considering they don’t want it and airing that with Downfall. I’d be awfully curious to see what kind of ratings that brings.
No show has ever exceeded my expectations more than Downfall has. I pictured a dark city skyscraper in somewhat of a fear factor like athmosphere. I didn’t think it would do too well, but this show is more of a thrill than other shows I’ve seen! I’ll explain why after I go over the few corrections it needs.
1: Post the questions at the bottom of the screen similar to Millionaire. For those of us playing along at home, we couldn’t see or hear some of the questions.
2: Chris doesn’t need to reread the categories at the beginning of each round. The start of the game is fine. After that, we’re good.
3: The contestants don’t have to pass any Jeopardy! test to be on this show, but a greater emphasis on general knowledge during contestant selection would likely result in the higher levels being reached on the money ladder.
4: There doesn’t seem to be any strategic benefit of choosing buddy on the belt before your prize possession. Make it a rule that the first help is the prized possession, then after that help is buddy on the belt.
Before I explain what I would do as a contestant, something just hit me at the moment I’m typing this (no, not a golf ball, but good guess!). With all this talk about the rules on the million dollar round, more than what we’ve seen on other game shows, is it possible that someone might actually win the million during these first 6 episodes?
Okay now here’s what I would do:
Look at the categories, find the ones I know I know, then try to get a good feel for how much money I’m willing to go for. 10/10 on any category is undoubtedly difficult, but if I were to see something on a list that I know cold (state nicknames, i.e., although I only got 8), then I might have a possibility of going for the million. I know that I’ll have to plan ahead, so I’ll need to choose the categories in order of the most difficult one that I can handle, then onward to the easier ones at the end. If one category is, for example, Popes (I’m Catholic and I highly doubt I would get all 10, I’d hope I’d get 4), mark it off the list, don’t play it, and shoot for $250K. Then again, seeing as how the show’s questions aren’t quite up to J!, I doubt Popes would ever come up. During questioning, keep my hands on the panic button at all times. Speaking of the panic button, does anyone see a parallel to Winning Lines with the Bailout Button? At any rate, watch the prizes, don’t go too gaga over them (unless of course it’s a date with Lady Gaga, then put that at the end and I’ll let the money fall), and shout out the answer like wildfire. As a quiz bowler, I remember making flashcards on the state nicknames, and going through them quickly and accurately was what counted. If I were to answer the questions on the skyscraper as I do when I’m quiz bowling, I know I’ll be just fine up there. Just keep the Eye of the Bulldog (similar in concept to Eye of the Tiger, but with Louisiana Tech’s Mascot), go for the win, play my heart out, and have fun!
P.S.: This has nothing to do with Downfall, but I really liked Janet Bradlow today on Jeopardy!.
Sorry you didn’t win Janet, but enjoy you $58K!