“Power of 10″ + “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” Debut Dates

20 Jun

Posted by Alex Davis as CBS, Don't Forget the Lyrics, FOX, Power of 10

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We’re seeing shades of the Chair/Chamber situation with singing game shows. Hot on the trail of NBC’s Singing Bee, FOX is rushing Don’t Forget the Lyrics to air. The Wayne Brady hosted show will debut on July 11th at 9:30PM ET and its second episode is July 12th at 8:30PM ET. On the show, contestants will have to sing along to the show’s band while lyrics are displayed on a large screen. The contestant will have to continue to sing when the music and lyrics stop. After each right lyric, the contestant has the option to stop the game. However, if they can answer all 10, they win $1,000,000. In the pilot, two “Helplines” were used. For more pilot information, click here.

Also debuting this summer is CBS’s Power of 10. The show sees contestants predicting the percentage of people to answer a topical survey question. The first right answer gives the contestant $1,000. Each right answer after that multiplies their money by ten, making the top prize $10,000,000 for five right answers. The Drew Carey hosted show from Embassy Row will debut Tuesday, August 7th, at 8PM ET before settling into its position of Wednesdays at 8PM ET the following night. Taping will start in mid July.

Any pre-airing thoughts about either of these shows? Don’t Forget the Lyrics is going to be polarizing for the main reason of musical taste. I guarantee you all of the songs will be known pop songs. I like the old 70s/80s/90s punk and grunge music like X, Pixies, and Fugazi, so I know at least that if they stick with pop music, I’ll be screwed. I couldn’t even name one popular song today. A good chunk of my fear about Power of 10 is gone from what I’ve seen of tiny chunks of the pilot. It looks rather good. I’ll always have a tiny level of fear about Embassy Row shows after the horror that is Chain Reaction, but I think Power of 10 will make me completely forget about it. Looks like we finally have another winner in this new boom of game shows.

11 Responses

steve
1
June 20th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

i’m in the same boat as you… i spend most of my time listening to jazz and classical music… generally music without lyrics. so i’d be as dead in the water as you would be. what i’m interested to see in both of these music shows is how strict they are on tonality. like, what if someone has the lyrics to any toughie you could throw at them, but they’re absolutely pitch-deaf? granted, they’d probably filter these people out in the auditions (to avoid first-round american idol-type singers). on that same line, what if someone decides to get a little creative and slightly… shall we say… improvises? like, they’re strictly with the melody of the song, until the end of a line, where they (forgive the music lingo) go up a third, instead of going down a fourth (to the fifth of the chord) like the original performer does it? what happens when a contestant slips in to the harmony of the song for one note? is that automatic disqualification?

similarly, there’s got to be some leniency for judging lyrics when it comes to minor words like “the” and “a”. for example, looking at the two top google search results for “bohemian rhapsody lyrics”, one has the line “Because I’m easy come, easy go, Little high, little low,” while the other has “Because I’m easy come, easy go, A little high, little low…” minor difference, but when does the judge hit the “you’re out” buzzer? and even interchanging otherwise indisdinguishable words… in the backstreet boys’ “larger than life”, the chorus starts “ALL you people, can’t you see, can’t you see,” whereas up until five minutes ago when i first looked it up, i thought the lyric was “OH you people, can’t you see, can’t you see.” if i were on the show, i would sing “oh”. would they call me on that? what if i were to sing “oh” in such a way that mimics the way i hear it on the radio, thus sounding like i sang “all”? there’s too many little discrepancies to count here, and i’m not sure how the judges will go about handling this.

power of ten? uh… no comment, yet. i think drew might make in interesting host. given what i’ve seen of him before, he knows when to joke around, and he knows when to play it serious. i’d like to see how he handles this one.
steve
2
June 20th, 2007 at 1:43 pm

oh, one other thing… the adverts for power of ten claim it’s the largest jackpot in television history or something like that… am i to assume we’re not including pepsi’s play for a billion? or shows like the rich list, where the prize amounts are theoretically infinite?
aaron
3
June 20th, 2007 at 2:05 pm

yeah, because the rich list, you COULD theoretically walk away a multi-millionaire, but realistically speaking no, because your team would have 2 win a minimum of 16 games and you’d have 2 get 2 $250k with each “rich list” and we know that if that did happen fox would be investigating immediately
Dave
4
June 20th, 2007 at 4:09 pm

As much as I am looking forward to “Power of 10″, I worry because…there’s only 5 questions to reach 10 mil! How much stretching is going to be done in a show if there’s only 5 questions to reach the jackpot?
abric
5
June 20th, 2007 at 5:52 pm

Then this game sounds interesting after all.
Donald
6
June 20th, 2007 at 7:13 pm

I think “10″ will actually have more contestants per episode. If it is just a 5 question game, I think there will be two maybe three contestants on each episode. There will be some drag to enhance the dramatics just like any prime time game show, but keep in mind that this isn’t an NBC show so the drag wont be as bad like “Deal” or, sad to say “100″ does it too but not that bad.

Out of all these new crop of game shows, I think “Power of 10″ will be the biggest hit. The music shows, keep Bai Ling out of them and you might get lucky. LOL
Nikolai
7
June 20th, 2007 at 9:38 pm

Drew Carey hosting a game show, eh? I may try watching a few minutes to start, which will probably determine how long I can stand him after that. I never watched “The Drew Carey Show”, but I did watch “Whose Line is it Anyway?”. So I’m in limbo for this. As for the other show, Wayne Brady should have better luck with it than he did with “Celebrity Duets”. It probably won’t last long (partly because it will be on FOX), but longer than than CD.
J.C.
8
June 21st, 2007 at 2:50 am

Am I the only one who thinks Don’t Forget the Lyrics seems to be coming off almost as a revival of What’s this Song/Win With the Stars?
Ryan
9
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:52 pm

Like the concept of Power of 10. The questions seem very thought-provoking, like the ones formerly used on Card Sharks. As for Don’t Forget the Lyrics, I love this idea. I’ve always been a fan of song lyrics, so I really like this concept. I think Wayne Brady will be an interesting host for a show like this. Let’s just hope he does better than Greg Proops.
Intelligentfan777
10
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:06 pm

Greg: “Good evening and welcome to Don’t Forget The Lyrics….I’m “Unusually Large.”

:p XD

Seriously, “Power of 10″ looks real good, and “Lyrics” is a combo of “Name That Tune and Millionaire, it oculd work.
Intelligentfan777
11
June 26th, 2007 at 11:49 am

Hey Alex I have two quick questions.

1. If taping of this show begins in July, then I would assume that the promos we are seeing now are from the pilot?

2. And also, when the series debuts, will they start with the pilot, or the actual first taped episode?