“Grand Slam” Commentary for 8/12

13 Aug

Posted by Alex Davis as GSN, Grand Slam, Opinion, Reader Input

<>We had major computer errors, but we’re back up and we’ll post what was supposed to be posted before this evening’s episode of Grand Slam on GSN.

In the first game, we see David Legler of Twenty-One versus mega-Jeopardy! champion Frank Spangenberg. My prediction for this game is Mr. Spangenberg. I don’t mean to downplay Mr. Legler’s huge win on Twenty-One or his relatively impressive winning streak, but the speed is horribly important in Grand Slam. Frank Spangenberg faced tougher material, tougher competition, and tougher clock scrutiny on Jeopardy!. David Legler may have won seven+ games of Twenty-One, but it doesn’t come close to the huge accomplishments that Frank Spangenberg had on Jeopardy!.

We come to the final prelim match between Nancy Christy against Ogi Ogas both of the syndicated edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I don’t like admitting my flaws, but here we go: I have absolutely no idea who is going to win. At all. My prediction is Ogi Ogas, but that’s just on a few simple factors and even all but one is a stretch. For one, Millionaire was easier when Nancy won her million than when Ogi won his $500,000. The only remote way I can make a prediction is going by age, and even that is too hard to tell. Ogi Ogas is unbelievably smart, doing research funded by the Homeland Security Department. Then again, Nancy Christy is a teacher and may be more well-rounded on the math, logic, and word puzzle areas. I think both will be even on the trivia. The main reason I’m going with Ogi Ogas is the age, truth be told. I feel since Mr. Ogas is younger that his reflexes will be faster than his older competition Ms. Christy. This is honestly the only reasoning I have. This is such an even match that I won’t be shocked if I’m wrong.

What did you all think of tonight’s match; let’s get some post-show commentary.

17 Responses

lobster
1
August 13th, 2007 at 2:57 am

ok it’s time someone mentions this now that this has occurred in more than one episode. The board op needs to get his SHIT TOGETHER, seriously, or someone is going to youtube up a close-call demonstrating that the game could have gone the other way if the ops were paying closer attention. Twice already we’ve seen a contestant yell “SWITCH!” and either they weren’t heard by control, or it switched over about 3 or 4 full seconds after the switch was called for. I’m sure it’s tricky to sit there and acknowledge in a split second whether they’re wanting to pass or switch and have the clock/game react accordingly, but it seems like every time now, some time gets eaten up before the switch is actually made.

The only way to fix this, it seems, would be to give the contestant some sort of Scrabble-style plunger that they can slam down on that would effectively switch for them (they can still yell SWITCH! for effect, I suppose), but that way it would be more precise, so when there’s 3 precious seconds left and they want to switch, they don’t have to worry that someone in the control booth is going to be late on the buttons expiring their time out — because in this game, every fraction of a second really DOES count!

LObs
lobster
2
August 13th, 2007 at 3:03 am

one more thing :D .. it’s just a little inconsistency that is strange to me..
have you noticed that only during the questions that involve spelling (or roman numeral questions) does Pat cut the contestant off at the very point that they’ve misspelled the word, as opposed to letting them complete their answer (even though it’s already wrong by that point)? its a kind gesture that they do that, saving the contestant time, but if it was any other question, and say the contestant were to give the incorrect answer of “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest” — Pat probably wouldn’t cut them off in mid-answer like he would with the spelling.. it’s weird.

also, out of curiosity, does anyone know if the contestants can hear Miller’s analysis n’ jokes?

LObs
OgiOgas
3
August 13th, 2007 at 3:22 am

lobster: Actually, there were a few rules underlying the switch which were never clearly communicated to the audience (but frequently communicated to the contestants). With regard to your sharp observation, contestants are not allowed to switch until the end of the question. If you say “switch” before the question has been read, then Pat will keep reading until the end (while your clock burns up), and then will switch to the opponent. Basically, if you say “switch” too early, you’re giving your opponent time to think while you pay for it.

Another detail which may not be apparent to the audience:

- Others have mentioned that contestants only got to read the questions during the math and word rounds. But I don’t think anybody has mentioned yet that there is a delay before a math question is shown on the screen. That is, Pat reads for a second or two (maybe another contestant with a better and less distorted memory can clarify exactly how long) before the contestant can see the math problem. I think this is to prevent contestants from shouting out an answer before the audience at home has even had a chance to parse the question themselves.

Here’s a few other random notes about the opening round games (SPOILERS):

- I like most of the audio and sounds for the show, but I think they should come up with a different sound for the end of a round. The fluttery arpeggio is too flaccid and ambiguous. The end of the round is the most important thing: it’s the moment of winning or losing, and I fee lilke the sound should be sharper, more final and abrupt. I never really was sure the rounds were over, because the sound is too much like a warning or highlight.

- When I was playing, I thought the math questions were much harder than the British versions. Watching at home, they seem to be about the same level. However, the American math questions are much more diverse. Not just the *kind* of problems, but within a particular category of question the range of possible answers is wider. I had a heuristic I used for algebra problems. However, my heuristic only worked when the problems had positive solutions. On the British show, they never had a negative number as a solution to a problem. However, in my match with Nancy, my first algebra problem had a negative solution. It took me a long time to answer, because I just couldn’t accept that the correct answer could be negative, because there was never a negative answer on the UK version. Also, in the British version, on the multiple integers addition (e.g., 23 + 31 + 54 + 13), on the UK version the answers were never below 0 or above 100. But they were on the American version.

When I made a reference to “working the kinks out of my system”, I was thinking of divergences on the USA show like those: I had some tricks, but some were limited in scope (for example, they only work with positive solutions) and after my match with Nancy, I realized that the math was going to be much more complicated and varied than I ever would have expected. I actually guessed the math would be dumbed down in the American version; instead, they really pushed it to the limit.

The word puzzles in the American version were also more varied than their UK counterparts. In this case, I would also say that they were HARDER than the UK version.
OgiOgas
4
August 13th, 2007 at 3:29 am

lobster also asked: does anyone know if the contestants can hear Miller’s analysis n’ jokes?

For contestants, the taping was often a ghostly, eerie experience. The studio was usually graveyard quiet, except for the whirring and humming of eldritch machinery as it rolled across the floor or floated above our heads. We could not even see Dennis and Amanda, let alone hear them, and the Questioner was as invisible as a deity and as potent: it was his voice intoning “Take your positions” that broke the quiet and heralded explosive battle, followed by applause, swallowed by silence. No commentary, no music, no biographical clips, no graphics or stats, we couldn’t even hear our opponents’ interviews. A strangely disembodied experience, reminiscent of the scene in Amadeus where Mozart is forced to stage the wedding dance in The Marriage of Figaro without any music because of a ban on ballet and the opera goes quiet while costumed aristocrats bounce on their toes.
David Howell
5
August 13th, 2007 at 6:33 am

Interesting that you watched some of the UK show to prepare (did everyone?), and the observations from it. I think the biggest single difference between the two versions is the two questioners; to me, Pat Kierney sounds almost robotic (though in a ‘ever-so-slightly-distorted voice’ way rather than a ‘dull monotonic’ way, and the former may be down to poor audio quality on the YouTube clips I’ve seen), whereas our equivalent Nick Rowe had quite brilliant diction and was electrically quick. (As someone harbouring at least some desire to be a sports commentator, I am horribly envious of Nick Rowe…)

…was that Amadeus analogy an attempt to do a Dennis Miller-style analogy but better? If so, it worked…

Good point on the questions. Honestly, I expected the trivia to be the toughest round of the three, but it’s the easiest. That, in turn, means this competition is going to be won and lost on alphanumeric ability rather than trivia brilliance, and I’m not even going to try and call it.

(Incidentally, Ogi, you’ve already done better on Millionaire than the guy who eventually won ours; after Grand Slam, he ended up on Millionaire, and ‘only’ won £125k - that, of course, being equivalent to the $100k level on the revised US prize ladder. Oddly, only one of the three £1m winners we had at the time appeared on Grand Slam, though we also had a £500k winner and a £218k loser; all three of these were regulars on a variety of other shows and in particular radio quizzes, which is probably why they were chosen as there seemed to be a real bias towards serial contestants. The US version, probably helped in part by the one-year rule, hasn’t had so many serial contestants to choose, Harris being the only obvious example present here.)
Erskine Thompson
6
August 13th, 2007 at 8:11 am

Not having access to spoiler information, and certainly not being involved, I can only comment on what I have actually seen, which is the first round of the competition. That said:

Dennis Miller has proven to be an awful choice to anchor this competition. He seems to mock almost every aspect of it, and uses it only as a method to get his nearly-too-obscure references in at every chance. Amanda Bynam is trying to bring some seriousness to the proceedings, but can’t seem to overcome Miller’s smarminess, which brings down the whole tone.

As to the gameplay: I very much enjoy the line of questioning, which has led to what a few people would consider upsets. If you didn’t know what you were getting into beforehand, or had trouble switching between math and words, you’re doomed. A prime example was in the McKee/Carpenter matchup, which was close until the words and letters round, which Thom McKee completely bombed. This, of course, put him far behind in the final, and it still was nearly close. Had Thom even shaved some time off Carpenter’s bank for the words and letters round, he still could have won overall.

I didn’t see Brad Rutter’s first round performance, and although I’ve heard it was an absolute thrashing of poor “Lingo” player Amy Kelly, it’s hard to imagine it being a more complete victory than that of Ogi Ogas over Nancy Christy, which may seem a bigger deal because most expected it to be closer than it was; nobody gave Kelly a chance against Rutter, while most put Ogas/Christy as a toss-up.

I look greatly forward to the second round, with the hope that (a) the questions increase in difficulty as the rounds advance, (b) the timing is a little tighter, as others have mentioned, and (c) a second tournament is done next year. So far, this is easily Michael Davies’ best show in a LONG time.
Ben Williams
7
August 13th, 2007 at 10:19 am

I know Dennis Miller’s jokes have been pretty stupid, but I don’t think he’s the “host.” He’s a sideline commentator, akin to MNF.

Wait…he sucked there too…
Bobby McBride
8
August 13th, 2007 at 10:57 am

For the first two rounds of Nancy Christy vs. Ogi Ogas, Christy started out well in each of the rounds, only to fall apart down the stretch. The wheels really came off for her in Round 3.
Scott
9
August 13th, 2007 at 10:59 am

First, a shout-out to Ogi for joining us and enlightening us with some “inside” scoop about the show. Great job last night…you are clearly a contender. All the upcoming matches look very exciting.

I was willing to give Dennis Miller the benefit of the doubt, but I have concluded he is a bad choice. His references are just too over-the-top and obscure, and his mocking of contestants is uncalled for. This show plays up to the audience with Pat Kiernan and a challenging format, then destroys a lot of that with Miller.

If the show comes back, they need new sideline commentators. Amanda is OK, but I could imagine others who would do vastly better. Michael Davies, what were you thinking?

It would be better to give the audience some info about the internal “rules” of the show like Ogi has shared with us. Otherwise, we are sometimes left scratching our heads.

Also, am I wrong or did the British version use 1:30 clocks instead of 1:00? With less crap commentary we could easily have a bit more game.

Yes, there ought to be a switch button, and moreover, a limit of one switch per question. Too many wasted switches with the “switch back” option. That would improve the game play and strategy immensely.
Brig Bother
10
August 13th, 2007 at 12:45 pm

Hmm, I quite Dennis Miller from what I’ve seen from it. Anyhow:

No, the British clocks were also at one minute, although it was only 30 seconds for the final round. However our version did have five/six rounds. The original British line-up was general knowledge, numbers, contemporary knowledge (whatever that actually was), words and letters and the final round. After the first set of match-ups, a sixth “keyword” round was introduced after contemporary knowledge where each of the questions featured a certain word.

The US show certainly has a bias for mental dexterity over knowledge which is quite interesting given that you don’t really have shows that test that sort of thing. I’m wondering if the “keyword” round was added in our version to give more of a chance to the trivia people - you can have fine mental agility skills and still know an awful lot, but it doesn’t necessarily follow the other way around. We do have shows that test mental arithmetic and word skills in Countdown - indeed, our competition was won by a Countdown champion against a Mastermind champion.

I’m all for limiting switches to one per question.

In the numbers and words rounds in our show, there were 13/11 different “forms” of question which cycled round - presumably so if both contestants answered perfectly they’d each get a crack at the same sorts of questions. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the question stack in the US show, but I don’t think the comment that your questions are more exacting is unfair. And they were pretty difficult as it was. Ours didn’t have the “and logic” bit, though.
lobster
11
August 13th, 2007 at 2:16 pm

Pretty handy to hear the answers from Ogi himself, how cool is that? :D

And while you’d like to thing that due to the “battle” nature of this show the contestants would have a bit of a sense of humor (as seen in the teasers and promos showing them making those “bring it on” gestures), I was willing to give the whole Dennis Miller smartass thing a chance until he straight-up made fun of Ogi’s parents for naming him Ogi..

In the art of truly being a GOOD smartass, one needs to recognize that there is a line between funny and insulting.. Sure, there’s a time and place where you can outright rip on someone unsolicited — say, at a Comedy Central roast — but certainly not a game show.

And speaking of which, Tivo is the best thing ever for shows like this — I can watch both matchups skipping right to the faceoffs — pure questions & answers, no commentator bullshit, no commercials — in a total of about 15 minutes.. good times :D

Thanks again for responding, Ogi.. Brain scientist represent!

LObs
Kevin
12
August 13th, 2007 at 8:05 pm

Initially, I didn’t like Dennis Miller as commentator, but he has grown on me. I don’t think he’s being insulting. Actually, the funniest comment of the night was when he “mocked” Ogi w/ the robot comment…It was all in good fun. (And Ogi did seem like a robot with all the brain jargon in the interview).

But anyway, it seemed apparent that Ogi was there TO WIN, while Nancy was taking it a bit ligh heartedly. Correct me if I’m wrong (Ogi) but was he perhaps there to redeem or make up for not going for the million? It seemed like Nance was like “I already have the million…this is just fun.” Ogi was very serious.

Do you think Ogi was actually insulted by Miller’s comments??
OgiOgas
13
August 13th, 2007 at 8:35 pm

Kevin asked:

“Correct me if I’m wrong (Ogi) but was he perhaps there to redeem or make up for not going for the million?”

Very perceptive. Everyone else in the tournament won a top prize in their respective game show… except me. And I came so close, but blew it because of my anxiety and lack of confidence at the moment of truth. This was a hugely motivating factor for me: I spent a lot of time reflecting on the mistakes I made on Millionaire, and vowed to not repeat them in Grand Slam.

For example, one major function of the “meditating” I was doing was to keep myself calm (I get emotional pretty easy) and to prevent myself from having a “Hot Seat Flashback” to Millionaire — on both Grand Slam and WWTBAM, the contestant sits in a chair surrounded on every side by the audience, and I was worried that the Grand Slam chair would automatically trigger an adrenalin surge.

Also, all the other competitors had some sort of claim to the record books, and I wanted my own shot. I watched 8 Mile’s final rap battles over and over. I still think those rap battles are very similar to Grand Slam.
The Great Whamini
14
August 14th, 2007 at 12:40 am

Miller is as good a choice as any. His insults are mild compared to the scripted insults of Anne Robinson and her syndicated successor.

So far, it looks like the purpose of this tournament is to prove that youth will trounce the old every time. Was it necessary to bring McKeon and Spangenburg out of mothballs for a royal beating? What do they get for their trouble? Just an all-expense paid accomodations? Jennings already lost his Ultimate Tourney. What is he doing playing for smaller stakes? A possible rematch with Rutter? How many more contests must he lose to humanize him?

I hope you’re catching my tongue-in-cheek drifts. Believe it or not, I’m not trying to stir things up. These are mostly my ruminations in the form of questions.

The right to claim the title of “Best in the Land”? …Until the next Grand Slam.
David Howell
15
August 14th, 2007 at 6:49 pm

Very good point from Ogi that he was the only person there not to win a top prize (except KJ, who’s a completely different case in point). I sensed that you felt that the lack of certainty on the last question - and perhaps the fact that just minutes earlier you were so very close to losing $225,000, which at the time would have tied the US record for biggest game show loss, had an effect? (For what it’s worth, I’m positive I’d have cut and run at the $250,000 myself, superimposing my attitude to risk upon your knowledge and confidence upon it.)

Whamini - this format seems to have worked very much in favour of the young guns courtesy of its speed emphasis. Certainly, Kitt over Olmstead proved as much. This is an incomplete format because there’s so few questions of sustained thought, but that wouldn’t make as good a television spectacle.

It’s going to be fascinating watching the rest of the tournament unfold!
Ed Toutant
16
August 15th, 2007 at 9:19 pm

The remaining episodes of Grand Slam have been changed from twice a week to once a week. I hope this is good news. Maybe GSN realizes that they have a great show and they want to make it last as long as possible. I hope this also gives them time to add more content to the Grand Slam web site, like the UK site had. It would be nice to see game summaries, player statistics, sample questions, contests, interviews, etc. It would give everyone more to talk about and help spread the word about the show.

Here’s the new schedule:

Saturday, August 18 at 7 PM ET
Featuring Brad Rutter vs. Ogi Ogas and Leszek Pawlowicz vs David Legler
Encore showing at 8/18 10 PM ET, Wed. 8/22 at 8 PM ET and Thur. 8/23 at 10 PM ET.

Saturday, August 25 at 7 PM ET
Featuring Ken Jennings vs. Phyllis Harris and Michelle Kitt vs. John Carpenter
Encore showing at 8/25 10 PM ET, Wed. 8/29 at 8 PM ET and Thur. 8/30 at 10 PM ET.

Saturday, September 1 at 7 PM ET
Featuring semifinal matches
Encore showing at 9/1 10 PM ET, Wed. 9/5 at 8 PM ET and Thur. 9/6 at 10 PM ET.

Saturday, September 8 at 7 PM ET
GRAND SLAM Championship
Encore showing at 9/8 10 PM ET, Wed. 9/12 at 8 PM ET and Thur. 9/13 at 10 PM ET.

***In addition there will be a GRAND SLAM marathon on Championship Saturday, September 8 from noon to 7 PM as a lead in to the Championship show. All seven previous episodes will be replayed.
Don H.
17
August 15th, 2007 at 9:34 pm

A schedule change, eh? I like that! I know I was worried that I would be going into Grand Slam withdrawal earlier than I’d like, and I’m pleased to see that GSN decided to make that change in the show’s schedule. Thanks for the info, Ed!

BTW, I just finished seeing Nancy vs. Ogi again. I thought Ogi did a really great job, and I can’t wait to see his match with Brad Rutter on Saturday!