Preview of “Million Dollar Password”
Edit: We’ve got a video of the set. Click here.
An audience member who wishes to remain anonymous sent us a look into the rules of CBS’s new bastardization of a classic: Million Dollar Password. I’ve already started off negatively because they really, really screwed up the show. Not nearly as bad as something like, say, Temptation. But this is bad. They’ve transformed it into an extremely lackluster revival of Pyramid. Get ready for speed round after speed round after speed round.
Of course the set is a stereotypical game show set. Circular, audience all around, different entrances, huge monitors, neon, dark colors, and so on. Honestly if you were expecting anything different you were crazy, so no use dwelling on this. It’s become a device game shows use so much that I’m fine with it at this point. Plus, honestly, I like the neon sets. I think they are very nice looking.
And now the format. It’s the same celebrity and contestant setup as every other version of Password. There are four rounds in the front game of trying to get five words in 30 seconds. Each word is a point. Celebrity/contestant trade off giving each round. After round two the celebrities switch. Opposites are allowed as clues. Most points plays for $1,000,000. So far not so bad, but be careful. Money chain alert!
In the end game, the entire premise is to get five words out of a certain amount in 90 seconds each time. There are six tiers to the end game.
Tier 1: 5 words out of 10: $10,000
*Tier 2: 5 words out of 9: $25,000*
Tier 3: 5 words out of 8: $50,000
Tier 4: 5 words out of 7: $100,000
Tier 5: 5 words out of 6: $250,000
Tier 6: 5 words out of 5: $1,000,000
$25,000 is a milestone. If you get to that, you don’t leave with less. If you beat a level, you decide to play the next tier or go home. The words get harder as you go up the money chain. If you lose, though, you go back to either $0 or $25,000. The really strange part is that you can only give THREE clues per password. That’s right, just three. After that, you’re screwed. Whenever you are done with the end game, two new contestants come on.
And there we have it. It’s been well documented at this point that I’m not a big fan of the classics, but there are three that I love, and Password is one of them. I wouldn’t have a problem if it wasn’t just constant speed round after speed round. It truly turns the show into Pyramid with a costume on. I hate to complain about the money chain also, because it’s probably the safest, though least inventive, game play device. If you can keep a nice chain, it’s hard to go wrong. It just seems awkward in this format.
I always had a bad feeling about this show, and I was fully expecting to be proven wrong. However, this actually worries me more than I figured. It was going to be excessively hard to turn Password into a $1,000,000 game show, and they did it really poorly. It’s not totally wrong. It has the heart and soul of the original in it. But so does Temptation. We see where that went. Hopefully it’ll look better played on TV, but right now, looking a bit scary.
They’re trying to “Millionaire”-ize Password.
To me, this doesn’t sound terrible but the bonus round needs to be altered. 90 seconds is too much time and like you said alex, why are you limited to 3 clues? and in the money chain the jump from $250K to $1M seems a little large to me.
If it were me, I’d just use the password all-stars format. with 6 contestants (or 4 contestants and 2 celebs. if the network insisted on celebs.) first team to 50 points won and plays the lightning round just like the 1975 version: 30 seconds per level to get 3 words in level 1: $500 per word plus $100 for every unused second, level 2: the amount in the first round won for each word plus $250 for each unused second, level 3: 5X previous winnings for all 3 words. after 5 shows, highest scorer wins an additional $100,000 and returns for the tournament of champions where the bonus round values at level 1 & 2 are doubled and the overall leader after 5 days wins another $250,000. I figure the average tournamnet of champions winner would get about $800,000 in this format (by my math) assuming it would be a half hour show,
Mark Goodson and Allen Ludden I’m sure are looking down now from above and saying “WHAT THE HECK ARE THEY DOING? our version’s much better”
Wait just a minute…Password All-Stars was a diaster, and poor Allen Ludden was unable to make the show understandable. The game needs to be understandable and watchable for the home viewer. This is an admirable update.
Here, the front game is a takeoff on the original Lightning Rounds (though those were 1 minute each originally). The bonus game is basically a scaled-up version of Alphabetics, but without the hint of the lead letter (it would seem — perhaps a BIG mistake there — this could be what the contestnt sees before making the decision to go forward). Or, better yet, let the clue-giver see a few or all of the words first, for a few seconds, perhaps one second each, rapid succession, and give advice to the contestant — play on or stop — (or if it’s the contestant, they can take it into account) before deciding to go forward.
The 3-clue limit is actually an inventive twist, and it raises the stakes, so I am willing to reserve judgment there. The ladder seems interesting enough, but without the chance of a walk-away option (such as Pof10 or 1v100) no one will try their chance at the full Million where NO mistakes can be made (so again see the ideas above). I see most folks stopping at $100K, maybe the risky folk stopping at $250K, but the celebs better be genius-quality for this to be workable.
I would make the safety-tier the $50,000 level, so that $100K is essentially a free shot, which will allow more excitement about whether to go for the $250K level. Fremantle, are you reading this?
I was at the Saturday evening taping, and yes, it was a pretty big letdown. The great thing about Password was that it’s a simple but challenging game. Here, they made the rules more complicated and the challenge level lower. I’m no Password ace but I would’ve totally kicked butt on this show. Of course, they got the usual contestant types that were all hype and no skill. And as for the celebs – I’m sure the teenyboppers would know who they were, but I sure didn’t. The set did look nice, and Regis was his usual self (which for me is a good thing). But otherwise, while this isn’t the worst thing to come out of either Fremantle or the recent string of primetime game shows, it just feels so uninspired.
I really don’t see what the complaining is about. This seems a decent updating. MUCH better than Password All-Stars. And this idea that this is “Pyramid with a costume on”? Pyramid’s just Password with a costume on to begin with! That’s hardly a crime!
Hi Guys,
I was at an audition last week (no, I wasn’t chosen) and the all-speed-round format was disappointing to me as well, and I’ll tell you why. When I was emailing back & forth with the casting folks to get a slot, they advised going back and watching the old shows on You Tube, which I did. And I think two of the things I enjoyed the most about the old shows, which seem to be missing in this update, are the pacing and the unknown quantity of what the opposing team will do when the clue-giving/guessing switches between the two sides. It was a pleasure to watch Betty White or Vicki Lawrence think about her clue, decide whether passing or playing would be advantageous, and then use some creative way (voice, facial expression, accent) to get her partner to the answer. Yes, they got “buzzed” if they took too long, but they had some time to do something fun with it. Too slow for today’s audiences? Maybe, but maybe us 40-somethings would tune in and make it a hit for a different demographic… I would have liked the old format with a higher payout, not necessarily a million dollars, but we’ll see how it does with viewers.
IMHO, this format doesn’t sound too bad. If you go back to the original 60′s Password, the winning team would play a lightning round, consisting of five passwords in one minute, at $50 a word.
MDP could benefit by playing for dollars, instead of points. In the first round, the celebrities give the clues (at $500 for a correct Password. In round two, the civilians give, at $1,000 each. The player with the most money plays for a million.
The Million Dollar Password round is simply the Ca$hword game from Super Password. The celebrity has five seconds to give a clue, and the player has three chances to guess the more difficult password.
Being a Password fan all my life, I can actually see this game coherently work. Just think of the Lightning Round (times 4) for the main game; Ca$hword (times 10) for the bonus game.
Try playing this with your original Password home games. Each card has two sets (consisting of five words) on each side. Get yourself a kitchen timer or digital stopwatch and play the Lightning round. For the Ca$hword game, use another leatherette card and give up to three clues each. It can be done!
Julie’s right.
The BEST part of the classic versions of Password have always been the strategies of playing off the OTHER team’s clues. You won’t get any of that here, it seems.
Pass or play. Finding that perfect SECOND clue. Watching the round go “off course” because a contestant went in a different direction with a creative clue… and watching the cluegivers try to get it back on track, and (playing along at home) wondering what kind of clue would do just that.
And oh, for those wonderful weeks when you had the great celebrity players like Elizabeth Montgomery vs. Carol Burnett. They were masters at creative vocal inflections and stealing words off their opponent’s clues.
It doesn’t sound like any of that is even possible here. And that’s a shame.
Everybody, normally I don’t like complaing, but this time I’m gonna have to put my minus two cents into this. I saw the video clip, and the set stinks (not just because of Rosie O’Donnell); these crazy circular audience rounded infested sets gets boring after a while I’m glad Wheel, Jeopardy, Price is Right, etc. are not jumping on that bandwagon. Even Press Your Luck nor Let’s Make a Deal, Tic Tac Dough, Joker’s Wild etc. would jump on that bandwagon. Besides, I did drawings of my idea of what the set could/should look; it’s not the best, but I did all that I can do. And shouldn’t there be $500,000 in between $250,000 & $1,000,000?
The new format seems to be something that I’ll have to wait and see before I comment on it. But anyways the set is pretty nice BUT (just like most game shows these days) it’s kinda too dark. I wish that game shows sets could come back to being flashy and yet still unique.
Ah, the familiar “bash it because it’s different even though we haven’t actually seen it on the air” routine all over again…
Yeah, I KNOW! Ugh! That’s the problem with fans today, too quick to rush to judgment. But do they listen………:p
So the initial reviews thus far are mixed, but to tell you truth, this does look like a very neat update! I mean, the challenge is actually tougher because you know are working against the clock the entire time, so you have to think on your feet and be really prepared! I don’t agree with the three clue limit in the end game though, but for a Million dollars, it has to be very tough to win, right? This could work. We’ll see. BTW, I heard this may be run in the Summer, so we may have to wait a bit before seeing it. But, again, this could work.
OK…I call this false advertising. Can you tell me what this version has to do with the originals, other than the give a clue, guess a word gameplay? The whole speed round idea of this is horrible. I thought the show was supposed to be a mix of Password, Password Plus, and Super Password, but I see almost nothing of this from what I’ve read. Why dump the passing back and forth? Why dump the puzzles? Why make this into a Pyramid-ized Password? While I’ll give it a try, I’m not holding out hope. I hope I am proven wrong.
It doesn’t sound totally bad, but lacks a lot of what made Password, Password. And as everyone is saying, it feels more like Pyramid. Which is not an insult, but did Pyramid allow for any distinctively PW moments like “You cannot give France for French” and so on and so on? It won’t be relaxed and will indeed feel like another show in many ways. So you still guess words, does that mean CS2001 had credibility just cause you still called high/low on cards? It would probably be better with another name, or if it was a Sony production instead, if it was Pyramid (Lord knows it needs something to get off that low note it ended on)
Game show revivals (or revivals of any property) used to be something to look forward to. Now I’m like, it would be better if you got your own ideas! Leave the past in the past, and leave it to GSN to give us our fix there. For various reasons (some the producers’ fault, some are the fault of changes in advertising, demographics, tastes, etc.), it just doesn’t work now. Well at least TV isn’t as bad as the movies (what’s the latest remak…I mean, the newest films?)
Oh well, at least TPIR is still good, and has a decent new host. Ditto Feud (replace “new” with “new-ish” host :-)) So the blind Fremantle squirrel did find one or two nuts :-)
I personally might be a loner here on this but I actually enjoyed Password plus and Super Password more than the original Password because not only did i like that players had to guess the passwords but the passwords put up on a board and had to guess the password puzzle which was my favorite part. I might still watch this because i did like the original password but not as much as password plus or superpassword. This doesn’t sound as horrible as CS01 which totally stunk. I’m sure FOX will probably rush a revival of Pyramid just to compete against Million Dollar Password and call it the $1,000,000 Pyramid.
Once again, Fremental, er, uh, Fremantle has served up another bastardized, truncated, and very disappointing version of one of the mega-calssic game shows of all time.
At the very least, MILLION DOLLAR PASSWORD sounds like an oxymoron; y’know, like (as George Carlin used to say) “jumbo shrimp” and “military intelligence.”
Quite bluntly, this game was never meant to have a million dollar payoff. I can see it with TPIR; I could even imagine the feisability of a $1,000,000 PYRAMID (played just like the $100,000 version – maybe with a little more of a tounament-style element)
The original and 1971-74 versions of PASSWORD were the standardbearers; I won’t get into PASSWORD ALL-STARS and it’s reversal back to PASSWORD (that version was merely the carnage left over from PA-S). I know I wasn’t the only one who never really warmed up to PASSWORD PLUS and SUPER PASSWORD.
I still feel the brtaintrust at Fremental, er, uh, Fremantle blew a golden opportunity to take on Bob Stewart as a consultant. On the other hand, how do we know they DIDN’T, and this Password/Pyramid hybrid wasn’t HIS idea. (may G** forgive me for even THINKING that one out loud!!!)
I know that you younger bloggers (overall) relate more to P+, and SP than the original. But, if you were in grade school in the early ’60s, chances are, you played PASSWORD in school-during class – and got away with it!! How? Simple, it was used as a teaching tool, to help enhance our budding vocabulary skills. (even PA-S was capable of doing that, if you played along; P+ & SP diluted the spirit of the original rules so much, no wonder older fans didn’t cazre for the hose versions as much). And more likely than not, the addition of the puzzle and the use of some proper names (and sometimes, places) as the actual passwords may have helped to somehow “juice” the game, which to me, might explain a little as to why younger fnas may prefer it over the original. And that may be another point; the average 18-34 year-old viewer has a shorter attention span than a housecat; gets distracted more easilly, and seems to be very attracted to a million-dollar payoff like it were a bright, shiny object. And (I’m sorry, but)using MILLIONAIRE, GREED, and 1 VS. 100 as examples, but it’s to painfully evident, that it has become almost a prerequisite for Q&A game shows to utilize multiple-choice answers, to make it easier for the contestants to win (and viewers to play along). What does this have to do with PASSWORD? Simple; make it easy enough, and you give the players/viewers one less reason to…THINK!
I’m “MrQuiz,” and I won’t be here to play MILLION DOLLAR PASSWORD. (lol)
Alex, it was cruel of you not to warn us that the video clip was from Rosie O’Donnell’s blog. We saw more of Rosie’s mug than we did of the set, because of course, it’s all about Rosie.
I would urge everyone who’s panicking about the new format sight unseen to at least wait until it’s on the air before passing judgement.
IMO, a faster-paced game show in a time where Deal or No Deal can spend 90 minutes playing one freakin game, isn’t the worst thing in the world. One thing I like about The Price Is Right is that it really moves compared to the snail’s pace of the Bill Cullen original. And I’m sure there were people in 1972 who were shocked to see the changes they made to The Price Is Right. But they got over it and the “new” show’s been on for 36 years. You can see an entire episode of Cullen’s show at tv4u.com and judge for yourself.
And as for the comparisons to Pyramid: Password begat Pyramid which then begat Password Plus. It’s the circle of game show life, Simba! I say, bring on a Pyramid revival! (Just don’t mess with the format. It’s a nearly perfect game.)
;)
I don’t like the look of the video, the set has “Who Wants To be A Millionaire” written all over it. In ironic terms, that question best suits the genre of the game.
They should have called it… “Who Wants To be A Millionaire by Playing Password?”
To Myke25:
It may look like paint drying to you, but the original version of TPIR with the immortal Bill Cullen was a ratings force to be reckoned with in daytime in its day. That clip you mentioned on tv4u is from 1957; at that time, viewers were more patient; they had longer attention spans, and weren’t distracted by bright, shiny objects, unless it was a prize involving a diamond (lol). When it came back in ’72, the appearnce and pace of the show HAD to change; Mark Goodson had said so himself many times. So, let’s play fair, here, and kindly keep things in context…shall we?
P+ was not begat from PYRAMID, pallie! You wanna talk about “the circle of game show life,” as you put it, then try getting your facts straight. If nothing else, the original PASSWORD and PYRAMID were the brainchildren of Bob Stewart. Absolutely; PYRAMID is considered a “descendent” of PASSWORD. However, it was a concept that was essentially created from scratch. On the other hand, P+ and SP were more like a reworking of an already existing concept, which Bob Stewart had nothing to do with. If you want to make a more direct comparasin of PASSWORD to another game show, try YOU DON’T SAY! Even Tom Kennedy once said that P served as (as he put it), the “genesis” of YDS. And, he should know; he hosted both of them.
re: TPIR, more specifically, the one most of us know today, this talk makes me still wonder how that is still good, and how Feud has gotten so good. While nothing else seems to work (at least for hardcore GS fans). Do those two shows just have more staff that “gets” it? Do the games just translate better to 2000s sensibilities? Or as I suggested, were these the two times Fremantle just got lucky?
Like I also said, the concept isn’t bad on its own (Pyramid was a great show, bar the last two versions, we all know that), and certainly it’s a DOND alternative, it just might have been better with a name other than Password. Its concept will rob it of many PW-like elements. Better to get people accusing it of being a PW ripoff than a PW rape-off. If only Fremantle could have gotten the rights to Pyramid from Sony and made this a full-blown $1M Pyramid, then this would be awesome. On a related note, given how much better Sony’s revivals were than theirs…HS/H2 was very good and at least Pyramid was the same game (a watered-down version of the same game, but the same game nonetheless)…I think some of us wish they’d just sell the G-T rights to Sony altogether. (On the other hand, we’d have the threats of: “This Alphabetics round is brought to you by Hot Pockets…”; the Goodson-Todman graphic and announcement being plastered over in reruns by the Sony Pictures Television logo; them only leasing one season of each G-T show to GSN; and so forth and so on)
Oh well, if it bombs at least we have the old shows in our collections and on GSN. If it does well, well, the kids have their own Password, good for them. And maybe we’ll get a Best Of DVD of the classic series (like MG, TPIR, and FF).
One more thing…maybe we can write to Fremantle with our complaints? It worked for PW All-Stars. (then again, I’d imagine Allen and Mark cared what the fans thought a lot more…still who knows?)
I think Fremantle simply haven’t been capable of creating something good from the get-go.
With TPiR, they really just picked up where Goodson left off. They still have numerous veteran staffers, and the format has stayed the same. The shapes may be a bit different on the new set, but it’s still has a turntable, three big doors, and a bright, colorful 70s look. And since the show is such an American institution, they had to take great care in finding a new host. As much as we diehards may love classic shows like Password, I doubt the masses will care nearly as much if they mess it up.
As for Feud, it took them *seven years* to get it right. That’s much longer than they had to fix their other revivials. I think it was just a matter of trial and error, and possibly some viewer input. Though it does help that the game was basically the same from day one, in spite of the flawed scoring system, and it does continue to work very well today judging by the ratings.
If Fremantle wasn’t producing this you wouldn’t see half the bashing you do…
*sigh* They just HAD to whip out the ol’ money tree again, didn’t they? I don’t really think Password fits into that mold…escalating jackpot, maybe, but not a friggin’ money tree…
I’ll wait for this one, though. But it could’ve been a bit more thought-out than what we have.
To James: Fremental, er, uh, Fremantle had nothing to do with PASSWORD ALL-STARS. This was 1974-75, and the company that packaged it was known by its original name: MARK-GOODSON-BILL TODMAN PRODUCTION(s). The complaints levied by viewers was aimed at ABC, who knee-jerked when PASSWORD started to slip in the ratings (it was on opposite the original JEOPARDY! on NBC at the time). The “alphabet network” all but demanded Goodson-Todman do something to improve its numbers. That something was to rework the format, which Mark Goodson was quite adamant about doing. The rest, as they say, is history.
(as an aside, a similar scenario involving LET’S MAKE A DEAL, ABC insisted Monty Hall expand to a one-hour format, and incorporate that “deal wheel,” or whatever the hell it was. In any case, Mr. Hall tried in vain to convince the “alphabet network” suits it would be a bad move. In the end, he was right, not unlike what happened with PASSWORD)
Well, at least that video convinced me not to have high hopes.
Really, they didn’t need to change much of the format, I think Password Plus is still fast enough for today’s viewers. All speed rounds do are turn most game shows into spectator events, as opposed to playalong games, and for some formats, it works well. I don’t think it works very well for Password.
If they wanted an exciting round with a million dollar jackpot, they should have just done Alphabetics, 26 in 2 minutes. Make it a money tree similar to the bonus round in Winning Lines. You’d have a minimal amount of large winners, but you could set 20 to be around the average giveaway each week for whatever they wanted to spend on it. 26 in 2 minutes would be near impossible, but just within reach where it’d be interesting.
As is, it’s hurry up and wait, and I don’t think there’s enough built in drama to keep viewers during the wait part.
Yeah, I know Fremantle didn’t do PWAS…my point is, when people wrote in when PWAS was on, it got results. Have any of you hardcore game show fans tried writing similarly to a company you think did you wrong? (I know now it seems more TV people are bigger tightasses though and won’t admit they are wrong)
“Mr. Quiz”-
First…don’t call me “pallie.” My name will do nicely. You can sometimes be pretty condesending for someone who dares to call himself “Mr. Quiz.” Let’s be civil here, ok?
Password vs. Pyramid:
Yes, it’s a pretty common POV that Pyramid was considered “Son of Password.”
If Bob Stewart had any fault, it was his tendency to recycle game concepts. (See Chain Reaction vs. GO)
What really separated Pyramid from the original Password was the big money bonus round. Password’s Lightning Round was never played for a lot of money. After Pyramid became a hit, soon every new game show had a big money bonus round…including Password Plus. Alphabetics was even staged a lot like Pyramid’s Winner’s Circle. That’s what I meant when I said that Password begat Pyramid, which begat P+. I should have been more clear.
As for You Don’t Say, there wasn’t a clearer case of intellectual property theft until Temptation! ;)
TPIR:
Just how was I being unfair? Posters here were worried that a faster-paced Password would ruin the game. I was merely citing that some of us old farts thought the same thing about the “New” Price Is Right back in ’72. And when I look at the Cullen shows today, I can really tell the difference in pacing. But we got over it and TPIR has been thriving ever since. Heck, the pacing’s faster now than when the new show premiered in ’72! A few remakes have performed better than the originals. That could be said of TPIR, Match Game, even Pyramid…though I still enjoy the Cullen $25K Pyramids the best! I was just saying that faster isn’t necessarily bad. Let’s give this new Password a chance before condemning it sight unseen. We might like it even if it’s not just like the original.
Aaack. So far I’m not impressed. I agree with the poster that said that they’re trying to “Millionarize” Password. I had hoped to see a return to the classic game where 25 points won. The theater-in-the-round thing is way overdone – does everyone have to have an dark, arena-size stage for a game show now
I didn’t like the revival of “Pyramid” much either, and I doubt I’m gonna be bowled over by this one. But I’ll watch the first show at least.
Why didn’t they try to incorporate the Password Puzzle into this? That was what you saw in Password Plus and Super Password – 5 words that all fit together to describe a certain thing. And then the winner would move onto the “Alphabetics.” I thought those were very fitting updates to Password, and I enjoyed them very much (watching on Game Show Network, anyway). I always found ‘regular’ Password boring, and these much more exciting.
Certainly they could have just chaged these with larger amounts of money or something, maybe with a Tournament of Champions round worth 1 million. But I do think 1 million dollars is a lot for Password.