The ratings are in for yesterday’s “Identity”, and it’s looking pretty good. For reference, “Deal or No Deal” had a 9.5/15. “Identity”, for the hour, scored a 7.5/11, which fell a bit from the second half hour of “Deal or No Deal”. However, it retained the 18-49 demographic, which is extremely important. However, how can it do on its own tonight? Tonight will be a major test to see if the show is dependent on “Deal or No Deal” for ratings and if the show will return.
What did you all think of the show? I thought it was rather enjoyable. My only real gripes are that the money chain is a bit off (who’s going to risk $50,000 for another $25,000 more?) and the fact that after time, “Identity” can and probably will become incredibly boring. Nonetheless, it’s a fun little diversion. It kicks the crap out of “Show Me the Money” and is a bit better than “The Rich List”, but doesn’t trump “1 vs. 100″ and “Deal or No Deal” in my book. It’s a nice companion to the other NBC game shows. Now be afraid if and when NBC schedules “Child’s Play” like rumored.
24 Responses
alexis
1December 19th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
i enjoyed the show alot! i get the money chain comment…depending if i had a life line or not would be a factor of going forward or just leaving with the cash…im definitely going to watch tonight! the previews are keeping me glued…
Wheelloon
2December 19th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
I rather did like the show too. It is a totally different concept than Deal or 1v100, and it’s an intriguing one at that. I was worried too, because I could see how the average Joe could call the show a drag and/or repetitive.
Two gripes, Penn was a little over the top (though that is Penn I know) for the show, and if he turned it down a notch, I think he’d be pretty go for a show that could, otherwise, come off as dragging and monotonous.
And what was with that family thing from Deal?? I thought in an identification type game, money was given on how much you know, or could identify, BY YOURSELF! Choosing briefcases with family there isn’t a real biggie, but using whatever ID powers that your friends also possess seemingly takes away from the show’s premise. It’s supposed to be a show about one’s own first impressions, not the group’s. If a family member notices something important about an ID member that the contestant didn’t, that gives away their identity, the contestant will have won additional money they really didn’t deserve…
As for the money tree, it may be a little awkward, but it’s a “gamer’s” board. Only those, I believe, that are true gamers, gamblers, and risk-takers will be the ones to make it through that middle ground to the $500k. Now that’s something I like… :)
Julia
3December 19th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
I liked the concept of the game, but it doesn’t stand alone by itself. This would be a good bonus round to a game show about identities. I think it’s too long, and way too simple, to keep my attention past the first two shows. I think the only things getting people to watch are the good timeslot, the fact that it’s produced by the same people as Deal or No deal and 1 VS 100, and the gobs of money thrown out at such an easy task. This show will most liely bomb, IMO, if they do not completely retool this show to make this portion less of the focus of the show. And when did Endemol get the idea that we like seeing one contestant go against a tower of money instead of two or three competing against each other for the right to play for loads of money as they do on every other version of DoND I have ever seen online, including the Telemundo version?
Doug Morris
4December 19th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
“Identity” looked good. Agreed the money tree flawed. It should be a bit more, dare I say, Millionaire-esque (in other words, your money should roughly double with every right answer; meaning the first few right answers should only be worth hundreds of dollars).
Plus, I wanted to hear a little more about some of the strangers. The shark attack victim I’m sure had a great story to tell. Sure, it was easy for the bikini model to show the bite marks. But Penn easily could’ve spent no more than a minute chatting with the victim about the incident.
Penn didn’t really get in the way of the debut. At least whenever a player burned his/her “Mistaken Identity” pass, he didn’t scream out “YOU FOOL!!!!!”
Intelligentfan777
5December 19th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Uh Julia, the UK DoND is just like ours, only with 22 boxes, scaled down money and no models. Although some of the contestants are pretty darn HOT…hehe.
Not every version is the same, each version is unique and that’s the way it should be.
Now as for Identity, very good debut, lets hope the next games are good.
Scott Meckley
6December 19th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
well this game was alright although I enjoy DOND and 1 vs 100 more. I think that people will get bored with Identity after a while. I do like this show better than say What’s My Line. I do applaud NBC though for trying something besides a luck game and a trivia game although I enjoy those more especially luck games. I will admit I wasn’t as sold on Penn hosting this really though but maybe i need more time to adjust to him. I really enjoy the online game that nbc has though and hopefully this will pop up on http://www.joytube.com It not the best gameshow i’ve seen but it’s not the worst. I think though I could only take maybe a season or two of this show. i would definity like to be one of the 12 identities that a contestant that would have to guess.
mr man
7December 19th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
It might face some tough competition vs. one of the once-a-year specials on ABC. Good thing it’s a five-week deal this week. (No pun intended.)
HQ
8December 19th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
NBC will just put it on 8 days a week and it will be gone before you know it.
Intelligentfan777
9December 19th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
And you just made a complete (bleep) of yourself with that very statement.
God, some people.
Jordan S.
10December 19th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
This isn’t a perfect show, but it’s a great concept! It encourages a different sort of smarts from contestants, and dare I say, you really do earn your money.
Could be bet
- Penn milks tension where there shouldn’t be. The first few rounds should be just flip and go. I find he’s a bit of an irritating host at times and wish he would calm down a little, but I think that’s just the sort of person he is - he’s really good with the contestants, and has some outright positive moments.
- Having loved ones on the set is a little bit too tacky and on par with DonD. Actually, the entire presentation of the show is too reminiscent of DonD for my liking - is there some way that we can at least get make it look somewhat different?
- I agree with what Doug said; I’d really like to get to know the stories of these strangers a little more. Just a quick little 30-second sound bite for some of the more fascinating identities would be interesting, IMO.
Jordan Hass
11December 19th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
PROS:
——-
+Good Concept
+Reasonable Tree, and Top Prize
+Penn is funny
+DUUUUUUUUUDDDDEEEEE!
CONS
———
- The 10,000 Listerine Kid Thing…. THAT WAS B.S.
- The “NeXt” writers are used on the idenities “YOU’RE SAFE!”
- The Experts are 0/1
- ITS SEALING IN THE IDENITY, locking in is a diffrent show!
Andrew
12December 19th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
someone won it tonight!
Intelligentfan777
13December 19th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
INDEED! WOW! WHAT A SECOND SHOW!
Also, this proves that contestants STILL DO have significant guts to GO ALL THE WAY! I always knew that, of course!
Proof of this is that fact (new rule learned alert) The “Mistaken Identity” immediately goes out of play when reach the final two! This took me by surprise because at first I thought, “There’s no way he can lose now,” Then they reveal no more “Mistaken Identity” if he goes for it. So, in a way, it’s brilliant because it means there will be a definite “climax” to the game rather than anti-climactic finish! We’ve got to give them credit for that!
I also want to say that certain people on a certain “game show forum” said a lot of nasty things about this show! They are the most closed-minded/ no-perspective people I have ever heard. Like one person who said “nobody would ever risk $250,000 for $500,000?! OK….Last Time I checked, there’s this great show called “WWTBAM!!!!” The contestants will risk it on that show every now and then, why would it be any different here?! That really proves that most of the people on that forum really just don’t know what the heck they’re talking about. No objectivity whatsoever. So just ignore them.
Hey Alex, You’ve got to admit, it was a great show tonight!
In closing, Just about everything nasty they said about this show was proven WRONG…..Tonight! What an exciting show!
Jordan S.
14December 19th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Personally I think the finale was a little bit ripe for exploitation… the experts could have misled the contestant easily on an all-or-nothing choice. It might have been stated in the rules that you lose the Mistaken Identity if you reach the final two, but I don’t think it’s very fair to the contestant, either. Then again, it’s a good example of Monty Hall’s principle that on any good game show there’s a moment where a contestant can win everything or lose everything. This was one of those moments. I’m kind of torn, in any case… either way, I didn’t like seeing it go out of play, and saw that he got far less confident after it went off the board.
But one thing is certain: he had guts. He is the ultimate game show contestant - and he was probably exactly what the contestant coordinators were looking for.
Julia
15December 19th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
I will say this again…BORING! He was an enthusiastic contestant, but come on! Do you have to drag out the show just so such a simple idea for a show lasts a whole hour? You could probably do the same show, and give away the same amount of money within a half an hour and get the same results. I watched because I wanted to give the show a second chance. The third chance is not happening because even though he won $500,000, it’s kinda like that lady who won lots of money of Show Me the Money. Nobody really cared because the show sucked. I don’t care about this guy either. The producers did not pull anything inside of me that got me to care.
I’m sorry, but this show just doesn’t have enough to it to keep me interrested. An hour of this is just total boredom.
Intelligentfan777
16December 19th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
I think this is very different though, because this show is BETTER than Show Me The Money!
Hey, if you don’t want to watch, your loss, our gain.
SeanB
17December 19th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Did I hear 1 vs. 100 music cues in Identity?
alexis
18December 20th, 2006 at 12:37 am
what an AWESOME show tonight…holy cow!!! that kid had me on the edge of my seat and was soooo entertaining!!!
i don’t know about this ‘julia’ chick…girl, why you gotta be so negative? i haven’t heard anything positive come out of you comments ever, whateva chica…just don’t watch honey, you don’t have to hate…do you work for a competing show or something, jeez!
anyway, tonight’s contestant, Robert, had me and my boyfriend cracking up! he was GREAT…NBC should scoop him up! congratulations to him and to IDENTITY…it’s a HIT in my book!!!
Darren
19December 20th, 2006 at 1:33 am
I’ve only seen the first episode - missed tonight’s and hoping to catch it on the Canadian carrier channel’s web site. Sounds like it’s one to play along with. :)
I think the show is quite good. Penn is very much himself as a game show host, and once he gets into a pattern, he’ll settle down and be fine, just as it happens with almost every host out there. The show concept is great. And I’d like to see it picked up. This is testing a skill that we haven’t really seen in a game show before.
Intelligentfan: If you read the OP again, you’ll see Alex’s point. He said, why would anyone at fifty thousand (not 250 thousand) take a gamble for an *extra* twenty-five thousand (not double) for a total of $75,000. That’s risking losing 50 to get just another 25. Earlier on you risk $1000 to get $5000. The branches on the money tree do get a little thick up at the top.
DJ
20December 20th, 2006 at 7:11 am
An interesting concept for a show, and could be a great show, but Tuesday night, I turned it off at about 8:25. It was……………….very………………….slow………………….and…………………unneccessarily………………………drawn……out. They even went one segment without actually playing much of the game. The thirty seconds between the host asking the question and the response is absurd…and do people really get surprised when they go to commercial anymore?
If they pick the pace up a good bit, it could really be a winner. As somebody else said, this is a talent not explored on game shows.
Intelligentfan777
21December 20th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Darren, please look at it again.
I clearly said that the comment was made by someone ON ANOTHER FORUM! Not by Alex himself, someone on another forum said “nobody would ever risk $250,000 for $500,000!”
Which is very inaccurate, for the very reasons I gave in that post.
Speedy
22December 20th, 2006 at 11:43 am
Intelligentfan777, why don’t you just go reply in that “game show forum” instead of whining to us about it? I’m reading Buzzer right now, I don’t care what’s happening elsewhere.
Anyway, is this sort of slow… painful… pacing… the norm for primetime game shows now? What’s the last fast-paced primetime network game show? The idea is interesting, the money tree isn’t completely offensive, Penn Jilette seems right at home… but it moves… too… slow!
Wheelloon
23December 20th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Tonight’s show was…. interesting, to say the least.
I’m happy that, FINALLY, on an NBC game show, a person has won the top prize, showing that it’s possible to actually do so, but the guy that was on last night, (and take note, I’m a BIG [u]WHEEL[/u], so I’m very used to people screaming and hooting and hollering at anything and everything all the time) was just too much. He was WAAYYYY too over the top.
I’m not saying the guy can’t get excited, he was on a roll, but some of his off the wall motions, jumping all over Penn after EVERY identity was revealed, and sliding around the set like it was a new incarnation of Grease made me roll my eyes a few times.
Plus, as I mentioned in comment number 2, tonight was another reason why the families SHOULD NOT be there on Identity, and thus, be able to help the contestants. The one reality TV starlet identity was a giveaway IF you had seen her show, and since that guy hadn’t seen it, it shouldn’t have been such an easy identity, which, because of his family, it was. He didn’t deserve to get that identity so “easily.”
I’ll definitely keep tuning in, it’s a game show for pete’s sake, and it’s better, IMHO, than 95% of anything else on the air. If it’s a game show, I’m almost assured to be tuning in. However, I don’t hold it in as high regard as DoND or especially 1vs100, which has been appointment TV for me as of late…
Intelligentfan777
24December 20th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Fair Enough, My friend. I want to mention that tonight we had an extra treat, as Phire Dawson was on the board today as a “Price is Right Model” (file under “OBVIOUSLY!”
…..YES, I know You already new That! It was nice to see her though.
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