12Dec2011
“Fear Factor” Returns to NBC Tonight at 8:00PM ET
It’s time to bring some intensity back to game shows. After a five year hiatus, NBC’s Fear Factor returns to the network tonight at 8:00PM ET. Joe Rogan returns as host. This time five couples compete in various stunts testing people’s fears in hopes to win $50,000. The show has upped the ante given how far technology and stunts have come in a short period of time, and it’s evident while watching. If you’re a fan be sure to check it out tonight or during Monday Night Football commercials or on Hulu tomorrow. Want to see what to expect? NBC supplied us with clips of the show to get you excited.
Check them out. Be sure to let us know what you think of the show tonight
Pretty excited to watch tonight’s 2-Hour Season Premiere of Fear Factor. No doubt the second hour of tonight’s Fear Factor will beat out ABC’s You Deserve It in ratings. =D
Yawn.
Betcha it’s gone in a few weeks.
NBC should just throw in the towel.
Betcha it will still be here in a few weeks. Fear Factor was red hot back then and will be white hot when it stays.
Watched “Fear Factor” last night, and found myself disturbed by one aspect of the show.
One of the stunts on the second program involved some degree of swimming. IT turned out that one of the females on the show could not swim, and had to be rescued by the show’s “safety divers”.
Of course, her team (her and her “ex”) was disqualified.
This I find disturbing on two counts.
Firstly, you wold think that the Producers would be more careful in vetting their contestants. A simple question of “can you swim?” on the form(s) that a contestant would have to fill out would lessen the need for “safety divers”, and lessen the chances such incidents occurring in the future. After all, this is–or should be–”Game Show Production 101″ (and not “101 Ways To Leave A Game Show”!).
The other disturbing factor was that the team that failed was the third of the four teams that started out the show. Now, their failure meant that the fourth team was already assured a spot in the next round (the “Eww, Yuck!” round). It could be argued that they should not have had to perform that stunt. (Turned out that they did, and did quite well, setting the best time for the stunt of the three teams that completed it.)
Imagine what might have happened if the fourth team had failed the stunt. There would have been only two teams for the next round. This is not what the formatters had in mind. and it would have left some degree of padding necessary to fill out the allotted time.
All in all, I cannot say if this will produce good ratings for the Peacock. They need good ratings, and it sometimes seems that they wold do better running infomercials than some of the programming that have this season.
If the Peacock hopes to compete with CBS’s Monday night sitcoms, or with “The Bachelorette” (once that starts up again after the first of the year), one wonders if they will have to do better than this!
Honestly, they can’t plan out all the stunts for the season while trying to avoid every contestant’s weaknesses without bending over backwards to cater to everyone, because then there would be no fear. There have been contestants in the past who can’t swim or are hydrophobic excel in water stunts, so that’s really not a factor. They have had episodes before where every contestant failed a stunt, and the show went on, just with a reduced top prize.
They easily handled this situation in the past, they wouldn’t eliminate a contestant (team) in the 2nd round, but play for a prize instead to the team completing it the fastest. They did it in the original FF, no reason why that would change here.
Also, the last team must complete cause failure = off the show, no free passes :)
Wow. Just checked the ratings. 3.3 18-49 rating for the first hour, 3.5 for the second. I’m genuinely happy for NBC and hope the show’s success continues.
That’s great to hear! Looks like Game Show Monday continues for NBC every Monday night with Who’s Still Standing? at 8 pm ET and Fear Factor at 9 pm ET.
Yes, the ratings were good. We’ll have to see if the public buys “Who’s Still Standing” next week and in subsequent weeks. I would’t be surprised either way.
Trailers for WSS seemed to point to a certain degree of ‘tude, which may or may not work. We’ll see. . .
Congrats to the Peacock on the ratings. Those are probably the best non-football numbers they’ve had in some time!