What is too much Jeopardy?

 Jeopardy announced the participants in the upcoming Jeopardy Masters tournament. It's a fun all-star competition, without question. 

And unlike pro sports, some players get better with age. But that doesn't mean a youngster won't come along and hold his or her own against longtime players. 

I'm not watching the daily game as often these days, so I'm not real familiar with the newer names on the 2025 Masters list. And I completely missed the recent Jeopardy Invitational Tournament. The JIT, as they like to call it, is played during Jeopardy's daily syndicated program and is another interesting way to bring back names from the past, as well as serving as a feeder to the Masters tourney. 

In theory I don't like the idea that the heaviest of hitters are invited to the JIT. When you've held your own on Jeopardy Masters, it feels like the JIT should be beneath you. And sure enough, I see Matt Amodio won the 2025 JIT, sending him back to the Masters tournament for the third time in three years. I get that the idea was if you finished in the lower tier of the Masters, you aren't automatically invited back the next year, and Amodio finished in the lower half of the six-player field in 2024, forcing him to earn his way back to the Masters tourney in 2025. 

And while it seems like the best of the best will reach the finals of the JIT, I see that Amy Schneider lost in her first game of the JIT after two years in the Masters tourney and is not coming back for the  Masters tourney in 2025. 

So it's silly of me to expect the best of the best to run the table in the JIT, and this year's tourney proved it. 

I'll watch the Masters tourney, I suspect, because it's a lot of fun to see familiar and outstanding players in a battle royal. And a couple of the first-time participants intrigue me.  

I have limited familiarity with Roger Craig, but I've seen him over the years. He didn't have a long reign as a champion, so that's part of the reason why he doesn't stand out in my Jeopardy memories. Given he has held his own in past tournament play, his punching a ticket to Masters via a runner-up finish in the JIT is deserved, and I look forward to seeing him play for the first time in years, given I missed his recent JIT efforts. 

I have always been dazzled by Brad Rutter, seemingly more so than the media. I used to argue he'd have been Ken Jennings if Rutter hadn't been capped at five victories during his original reign as a Jeopardy champion. Would he have ran off 74 victories? We'll never know, and that's unfortunate. 

I wouldn't have held him in high esteem had he not bested Jennings in Jeopardy's big tournament action on more than one occasion following Jennings' 74-game run . I always enjoyed watching Jennings, so I never rooted against him. And I figured he was invincible when Jeopardy started creating special tournaments to capitalize on his popularity and notoriety. So it was borderline amazing to see the less adored Rutter defeat Jennings.   

And yet Jennings continued to be a media darling, despite being second best, at least until the 2020 Greatest of All Time tourney, created to capitalize on the popularity of 2019 superstar James Holzhauer. Nobody had dazzled the masses like Jennings until Holzhauer came along, and a tournament pitting them against each other was inevitable. How and why it turned into an ABC prime time spectacular, I don't know, but it did quite well, as I recall, and likely inspired ABC's lust for more Jeopardy more often. 

And as we know, Jennings won the GOAT tourney, as it is often known. 

Rutter, who had always bested Jennings, other than when they both lost to a computer, seemed like an afterthought in the GOAT tournament, and for the casual Jeopardy viewer, likely looked out of place. 

I had no idea what to expect with Holzhauer in the mix, but I didn't expect Rutter to finish a distant third in the tourney. For a guy who seemed unbeatable in previous tourney action, it was a disappointing showing. So I'm glad to see him get another chance to compete in this spring's Masters tourney.

But his participation seems to be in place of Holzhauer, who won the first Masters tourney and finished second last year to Victoria Groce. 

Groce is well known in trivia circles, but didn't make a big splash during her brief run on Jeopardy in 2005. Her elevated presence in the world of trivia, outside of Jeopardy, earned her a spot in the 2024 JIT, which she won, and a slot in the Masters tourney, where she bested the field to win it all. As I recall, she won it in rather convincing fashion. As the tournament unspooled, it seemed clear that Groce was destined to win it, which she did.

We typically like rematches when it comes to sports, and I would have enjoyed seeing if Holzhauer could up his game for the 2025 Masters tourney, but it's not to be. And so far there has yet to be an explanation for Holzhauer's absence. 

If there has been an explanation for why the Masters tourney has been expanded to nine players, I have not read it. But with nine players, I have to assume the Masters tourney will run longer than past seasons. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess ABC wants it that way.

In decades past, a Jeopardy tourney in prime time might not have been worth a network's trouble. But in 2025, when network viewership -- prime time and otherwise -- is a a shell of what it once was, a must-see Jeopardy tourney in prime time is likely to bring a large, dedicated Jeopardy following to the network. And more is usually better, in TV and elsewhere. 

But is everyone excited about even more Jeopardy in prime time? I'm skeptical. 

For ABC it seems more is better. They have the celebrity tournaments that now run in prime time and are more elaborate than the past tourneys that were part of the daily games. With each tournament there are fewer celebs I know much about, and several I have no clue about. Watching celebs play can be fun. But when the caliber of celebrity dips below a certain level, my interest evaporates. And these prime time offerings have never fascinated me. If I've watched more than two hours of ABC's celebrity games, I'd be surprised. I've sampled it once or twice at best, and by accident when I did. 

Beyond the celebs and the masters, ABC aired a special college tourney a few years ago, as well. I didn't watch that, either, and it hasn't been repeated. 

Maybe ABC realized that there is such a thing as too much prime time Jeopardy. 

I'm not compelled to watch any of it, so f I'm not interested, I don't watch and life goes on. In theory, more is better, and I'm always happy to see game shows -- real game shows (according to my definition) -- anywhere they can find time on a broadcast schedule. 

Sony seems to be more than happy to sell new product to ABC on top of its syndicated package that includes the JIT and annual tournament of champions. (Is that second-chance tourney now a regular thing?) And I haven't even mentioned Pop Culture Jeopardy, which Sony has sold to Amazon.

But there's a point where you reach viewer fatigue. Not all of us are going to watch every program produced. And I'm quite happy to watch the Masters and ignore the daily games. I can't be the only one. 

At some point, you over saturate the market and cannibalize your viewership with too much product. Sony must not think it has reached that point, and likely it hasn't, but I'd be interested to know how all the secondary product on ABC and Amazon, on top of more tournaments and stunts on the daily show, are impacting the daily ratings versus five years ago. Maybe prime time stunts draw new viewers and grow the daily game's audience. 

I'm skeptical, but I don't know.

But I do know that, at least for me, there's more product than I care to watch, and having a Masters tourney is no longer an addition to my Jeopardy diet, it's a substitute for my daily intake that was more common in recent years. 

Lucky for who?

I never watched one second of Lucky 13, an ABC game show that came and went last summer. 

It was a twist on the big money prime time quiz format... dangle a $1 million prize, make it tough to achieve and hope it fascinated the masses. 

An article I just read suggests it dazzled a few people by summer 2024 TV standards, yet the program fell woefully short in the very important revenue demographic.... it failed to generate enough. I'm not clear on all the ways it was supposed to generate cash for UK producer Studio 1, but its share of ABC's ad revenue wasn't enough to pay the bills. 

I don't work in television, I won't pretend to know the ins and outs of game show production. What little I do know is that game shows are cheap to produce in comparison to scripted dramas. Prize money and host salaries make game shows an appealing alternative for filling hours of prime time television these days, or so I've been told, many times. 

Why has Let's Make a Deal filled an hour of CBS's daytime programming for more than 15 years in a slot that was once, at least here in Minnesota, reserved for a network soap opera? It's cheaper! 

The same story has been sold many times. Game shows, tired reality competition formats like Big Brother, news chat.... they're often touted as cheaper to produce than crime dramas and soap operas. 

In a world where 2.7 million viewers of a network's summertime, prime time programming is respectable, somehow game shows are supposed to be financially viable. 

And it appears to have worked for game shows that attract and maintain an audience. ABC has tried a variety of game shows in prime time during the past several years. Celebrity Family Feud, Pyramid and Press Your Luck aren't being churned out by the dozens each year, but they have survived for several seasons and irregular scheduling. And ABC is eager to churn out any variant of Jeopardy it can get its hands on, with or without celebrities. 

And let's not forget that The Bachelor, which is far from unscripted yet still considered a reality show by some, draws far fewer viewers than it did as a hot new dating show two decades ago. But ABC has a rotation of Bacheloresque shows plugging its prime time schedule through the year. 

All of this begs the question, if game shows are cheaper to produce than scripted dramas, if Lucky 13 is as valuable and proven as the CEO of Studio 1 claimed in the linked article, how the hell were both the contestants and the hired hands producing the weekly episodes left waiting to be paid? 

I can't know all the nuances of television production or how much Lucky 13 hosts Shaquille O’Neal and Gina Rodriguez were supposed to be paid. I didn't see the show, but having seen Shaq on TV plenty in my life, I'm going to guess he was overpaid for his presence, whatever his salary was supposed to be. 

My initial response to the Lucky 13 story left me wondering if game shows aren't the cheap network fix for prime time programming in 2025. But I'm more inclined to believe that the folks running Studio 1, which I knew absolutely nothing about before today, simply aren't as brilliant when it comes to producing game shows as they think they are. 

The ironic twist to all of this: I had zero interest in watching Shaq host a game show of any kind last summer. I'm still not interested in watching Shaq do anything. But given the disaster this show turned out to be, I'm going to check out an episode on Hulu in the near future. 

Lucky 13 for the win! 

One more time, just to be sure that Hollywood Squares is not good

I watched another hour of 2025 Hollywood Squares a day after the fact. 

No, it wasn't a fever dream, or whatever the kids call it. Nate Burleson is not a good host. He is if you want him to act as the life of your frat party rather than the emcee of a game show. 

Drew Barrymore as the center square plays the role of Drew Barrymore, which doesn't work well in a game show where she's one of nine celebrities on the panel. 

The celebs are trying hard to be naturally funny, but nothing feels natural about it. Leslie Jones played the part of Leslie Jones quite well. She yells like she's mentally unstable, as if that is funny in and of itself. It never is.

Squares has always been the stomping ground of lower-tier entertainment... older comedians, longtime actors who aren't busy making movies around the world these days and other random public figures with varying degrees of cultural significance. 

From what I can tell, Squares '25 draws a similar caliber of talent, even though this is a once-per-week prime time offering. I shouldn't be surprised. 

The difference is that this show really wants the celebs to banter with each other. Whoever is calling the shots wants the show to be more about the celebs interacting with each other, the host and the contestants than playing a game of tic tac toe. It's a weird choice, but there's an audience for that. People like that the celebs are constantly trying to show how funny or clever they are, according to Twitter. 

It's 2025, we have different ideas of humor than we did in 1975. We can't get enough jokes about anatomy and sex. One of the Sunday night shows had a question for RuPaul about Tom Brady deflating his balls while he was an NFL quarterback. Squares has often targeted its questions for the celebs playing the game. A joke about male anatomy is the perfect question for a sometimes drag queen, enabling him to make a predictable joke about deflating his own balls. 

Hilarious.

I don't remember who got a question that had something to do with a place called Dildo Island in Canada. The question wasn't asked of gay television personality Carson Kressley, but he made sure to interject with a comment playing off the risqué nature of the question. 

Hilarious.

Burleson continued to play the part of the jock at the frat party, showing why he's not really a broadcaster, despite the fact that's how he makes his living. 

And this, collectively is what some people want when they watch a game show.

If that's what people want to watch, then the show must go on, without me. 

I tried. I'm old. It's not for me. 

My previous writing about the show is here and here. 

X gets the square, and that's not a good thing

Given my disappointment with the 2025 version of Hollywood Squares, I looked back at what I wrote last May, when I learned of the forthcoming show. What did I say then, knowing very little about what I'd see, or how disappointed I'd be with the end product? That text appears in black. My 2025 comments, responding to what I wrote seven months ago, appear in red. Additional thoughts appear at the end in purple. 

The best news, perhaps, is that CBS is planning a prime time version of Hollywood Squares next winter. So far we know Drew Barrymore is going to be the center square, and that's about all we know. We don't know who will host or how it will be staged. Forget returning champions, I suspect, but expect bigger money than we've seen in the past, most likely. I was right and wrong. Given CBS is running the show in prime time, presumably once a week, it's not hard to guess that they'd not have returning champions. I didn't expect the show to be Million Dollar Squares, but I thought that the winner of a 30-minute episode would have a chance to walk home with more than $25,000. I would have thought $25K would be a second-tier prize in the bonus game, with a top prize of $50,000, or better. But CBS must have spent too much money to coerce Tyra Banks and Drew Carey to make an appearance.

I should be excited about such a development. A classic quiz show being reincarnated for the third time, or more, depending upon how you count versions such as Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour and Hip Hop Squares. 

I should be excited, but these days I'm expecting to be disappointed. And I was, but this wasn't exactly a bold prediction. Networks don't seem to want game show fans tuning into their game shows unless they're legacy game shows like Wheel of Fortune and The Price is Right. 

I have said, time and time again, that I miss the days of the basic quiz show served with a dash of lady luck. Take shows like Hollywood Squares, Tic Tac Dough, Joker's Wild, Sale of the Century and High Rollers. They were all quiz shows in some way. Hollywood Squares was played for laughs far more than Tic Tac Dough. High Rollers and Sale of the Century had plenty of trivia mixed in with general knowledge questions. But the outcome of each game depended, to some extent, on an element of luck.

I enjoy simple shows like that. I like Jeopardy, and there's a degree of luck involved, but less so than the others. And that's the only one out there five days a week, not counting anything GSN is producing, which I don't have access to. 

We have some fun games in syndication at the moment, but nothing that's a classic quiz show, interjecting a tic-tac-toe board or dice into the outcome. I miss those. 

So I should be excited about Hollywood Squares. I hope I'm pleasantly surprised. I hope they pick a good host, one that doesn't irritate me. I'm a broken record at this point. I don't want to watch a long-in-the-tooth comedian pretend to orchestrate a game. I just want a skilled emcee, a broadcaster who isn't trying to play to the crowd every chance s/he gets, or an actor who hasn't had a big hit movie in a while but would like a steady paycheck. So this surprised me. They didn't go with a Steve Harvey or an Elizabeth Banks. They went with a broadcaster, of sorts. CBS chose its knock off of Mike Strahan to host the show. Nate Burleson if a former NFL wide receiver who works as a talking head for CBS's NFL coverage and as a co-host for the CBS morning show. I can't say I see much of his work. I don't watch much NFL studio pre-game programming or weekday morning news programs. He might be really good, but I have no clue. But his career seems to be mimicking Strahan's career, as now Burleson is an emcee, too. But instead of being a traditional emcee, Burleson acts like he's hosting game night at his mansion, where his celebrity friends and his civilian friends all gather together to mix and mingle while Burleson makes small talk with all of them. So I got a broadcaster, but not exactly what I hoped for. Jimmy Fallon hosts the over-the-top Password farce on NBC. Jimmy Kimmel hosts Millionaire for ABC. The tone of Squares is a little too nauseating for my liking, so perhaps Stephen Colbert wouldn't have been the right fit for this show. But I can't imagine staging Squares with Colbert as host would have produced a worse end product. 

But I expect the worst. The few comments I've read about the new version of Hollywood Squares didn't exactly lavish praise on its choice of a center square. I don't think anyone considers Drew Barrymore to be quick-witted or naturally funny. She's had roles in comedy films, but she's not exactly telling knock-knock jokes in Vegas during her off weeks from her current talk show. She seems to have time for a second job, and somehow a prime time game show is the best way to showcase her talent. I'm skeptical. She didn't try to take over the show as its center square. She also didn't add the quick wit and sharp humor I hope for from the center square. That's not mandatory, of course, and Drew's performance didn't do much for me, but she wasn't the most painful aspect of the show, by a long shot. 

I hope to be pleasantly surprised, and I'm not rooting against it. I'm just prepared to be disappointed, because I'm a traditionalist who doesn't need gimmicks and over production to enjoy a quiz show where knowledge is king and lady luck is queen. But I get it, I'm in the minority. Wow, I'm brilliant. The show feels overly produced, as if they coached a certain tone out of the host, celebrities and contestants. It doesn't feel organic, and, shockingly, I don't enjoy it. 

As annoyed as I am by the end product, I'm not surprised. And it's not a crime. 

I'm not a game show historian, but I know enough to know that the original Match Game was a rather straight forward game of matching words/phrases during the 1960s. The famous, beloved edition of the show debuted in 1973, and was less about wacky comedy questions and celebrity banter. But it wasn't winning over enough of an audience, and the humorous efforts of the show seemed to be connecting with the audience, so they dropped any pretense of formality in the game play and went wholly for laughs, and the show enjoyed a long run into the early 1980s. 

And lest we forget Family Feud. Richard Dawson interjected his humor as host back in the 1970s as a guy whose background wasn't in traditional radio and television broadcasting, as best I know. (I know him pretty much as a game show panelist and actor on Hogan's Heroes.) Five decades later the show is a success because of the sexual suggestiveness of some of the questions and the comedy stylings of Steve Harvey. The show doesn't appeal to me, but it's doing just fine without me. 

All of that is to say that as much as I dislike what CBS is selling in 2025, it's not a surprise. There's no reason a new version of a game show shouldn't be tweaked for a different market than past versions of the game. And CBS chose that route. I may have hoped for an end result that was akin to what some of us enjoyed from 1998 to 2004 in syndication, but no such luck. 

This is not your father's Hollywood Squares. Or mine.

Hollywood Squares has me rolling over in my grave

I know the times have changed, and yet I'm still stunned. 

The new Hollywood Squared debuted earlier tonight, and it was more painful than I imagined. 

I could write a novel in making my points, but I'll try to stop just short of that. 

The show dates back to the 1960s, and has been staged in a few different formats. Game show historians can tell you all about each version. For our sake, we'll note that the last staging of the show ended about 20 years ago, aside from a couple of short runs of variants with an emphasis on hip hop or country music, produced for niche cable channels. 

When the average viewer last saw the show in 2004, or more recently on a FAST streaming channel via Pluto TV, it was very much the same as the long running original version that was highly successful from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. 

The 2025 version on CBS doesn't stray from the format, but everything about it in its effort to appeal to today's audience is hard for me to watch. 

I'm not geriatric, I'm not a prude. But I'm part of that tiny niche of game show fans who likes a good game first and foremost. Squares has always relied on humor and celebrity banter to entertain the audience, but I never felt it was the basis of the show. It wasn't Jeopardy, it wasn't an intellectual showdown between two scholars, but it didn't seem to pander to the audience with cheap jokes and prolonged foolishness. 

My gripes, in no particular order:

Host Nate Burleson tries too hard to be the host of a party more than the ringmaster of a game show. CBS loves him. He's a former pro football player who has succeeded as an in-studio voice for CBS coverage of the NFL. CBS deemed him a worthy broadcaster who warranted a seat at the table during weekday mornings as part of the CBS Early Show crew. I don't watch the network morning shows, I haven't watched more than a few minutes of Burleson interview news makers of the day, so I can't speak to why he's great or appeals to people who seek morning news from an old-fashioned network. 

Burleson seems to be the CBS version of Michael Strahan. Strahan went from the NFL to the FOX studios on NFL Sundays and eventually added ABC's Good Morning America and ABC's prime time Pyramid to his resume. Now Burleson has completed the Strahan trifecta with Squares. 

I am weird. I like my emcees to host the show, not lead a party amongst celebrities on a game show. This isn't game night at the Burleson home. But CBS thinks it should be. And they must really want Burleson to banter with everyone, as if we're all hanging out at his crib. His banter with both the celebs and the contestants doesn't have to be all business, but clearly they want him to carry on with everyone on stage. 

And his delayed response to a contestant, deeming the contestant's answer correct or incorrect, isn't great drama. It's just annoying. And if that's not enough, he seems to want to celebrate at points during show as if he's on the sidelines with his NFL teammates. I guess that's what people want in an emcee. I am not people. 

As for the celebs, they seem to have free reign to yuck it up, as well. They banter with each other while answering questions. I was a little surprised two or three of them weren't talking over each other consistently, trying to get their quips in during a question and answer. The celebs in past versions of the show often gave "zingers" as their initial response... a gag/joke response to the question. That has been a staple of Squares, and it hasn't changed in 2025, except now it feels like two or three celebs have to be part of every question-and-answer exchange.

The celebs are about what I expect. The show had a few not-so-young celebs among the 16 that appeared with center square Drew Barrymore, the only fixture among the celebs, during the two shows that were broadcast this evening. But it didn't feel like a geriatric collection. There weren't young celebs, most were in their 40s or 50s, I think.

Game shows have often been the stomping ground of faded stars, and this group didn't feel like CBS had dusted off a lot of forgotten celebs, but most of them felt like B list celebs, at best. And I expectged a few stars from  CBS dramas, sitcoms and soap operas. It leaned heavily on comedic talent that isn't busy helming a popular sitcom. 

And of course there were two or three celebs that I knew nothing about during each show, but that's not a shock. My days of having my finger on the pulse of pop culture are long gone.

The celebs carry on a bit too much, and sometimes had weird interactions with the contestants. The contestants, conversely, acted like it was game night at the Burleson household, and the celebs were their peers. It's a weird dynamic, and one the show obviously pushes. It's not organic, and that didn't make it more enjoyable for me. 

Barrymore, as the center square and the focus of the celebrity ensemble, didn't do horribly, and wasn't the most obnoxious celeb on the show, but she didn't feel like the right fit for the show.

As for those contestants, they baffled me. They were clearly told to rationalize why they agreed or disagreed with a celeb's answer, which I don't need to know. More than that, it doesn't make the game more interesting. 

And you assume they audition potential contestants for the show. Yet at least two of the four contestants appeared to not understand basic tic tac toe strategy, or didn't care enough to pay attention to how the game was unfolding. It was bizarre. 

The game play is painful. It's too slow because of all the clowning. The questions related to sex more than a couple of times, and the very first question had something to do with marijuana. (I didn't take notes as I watched.) There were questions about pop culture, but the show seemed to lean toward the cheap, tawdry topics. I'm not a prude, but I'm old enough not to find such topics to be hilarious. 

The first game awards the winner $1,000. On one show, that's all they could play within 30 minutes and still have time for a bonus round, giving the winner a chance at $25,000. On the second show they played a second game, which they did not finish. The winner of game 2 gets $2,500. So, if you get beat quickly in game 1, you can win game 2 and basically ensure you're the champion because of the ridiculous scoring system and the slow pace of the game. 

And not to my surprise, there's no returning champion on this show. 

Weird moment to note before I conclude. The show briefly acknowledged the recently deceased Peter Marshall, the host of the original Squares run from 1966-81, in the opening minutes of the first episode. Nice gesture, I suppose. I had to wonder what percent of the 2025 viewing audience had any idea who Peter Marshall was, given he hasn't been featured prominently on TV in the past 40 years.

CBS thinks there's an audience for the show, and it may be right. I'm not that audience, but a few Twitter comments I read during the evening suggested there are people who think it's great entertainment. 

I've said it before. I don't watch a game show to see the emcee do his comedy act. I watch it for the game. CBS isn't interested in attracting me, they want an audience who enjoys game night at a Hollywood mansion, minus the cocaine in the bathroom. 

So CBS takes a show that, minus the hip hop and country music versions that reached a niche audience in the past decade, hasn't been seen by broadcast TV viewers for two decades, takes a variety of mostly B list celebs, none of whom are today's fastest rising stars, and places them in a game show format that is going to be familiar primarily to people over 40. Is this what the 40- to 60-year-olds of today look for in TV entertainment? 

The show does not need 20 million viewers to be deemed a success, not in 2025. And networks don't skew young these days. I'm not convinced that those who enjoyed the traditional presentation of Squares in the past are going to enjoy this version. So who is this show supposed to appeal to, and are there enough of those people to sustain this show?

Game shows have become an appealing format to fill prime time hours on the networks in recent years. They're supposed to be cheaper to produce, and people don't flock to the networks like they did when J.R. was shot on Dallas in the '80s. So perhaps a more annoying, plodding version of the game will draw enough of an audience. I'm skeptical, but the bar is so low any more that this show might stick around. 

As I said, the show follows the classic format, yet it amps up all the secondary elements at the expense of what made the show appealing to game show traditionalists like me. If you don't really like game shows, then perhaps the latest Hollywood Squares is the show for you.

I have to think Peter Marshall was rolling over in his grave tonight. 

Buzzr's strategies, or lack thereof, baffle me

There are all sorts of reasons why things happen, and sometimes they make sense. 

Then I watch Buzzr and scratch my head. 

Buzzr has some sort of data that guides its decisions after nearly a decade, but I'm left scratching my head periodically. 

Here are a few of the decisions, past and present, that leave me baffled. I'm sure there are many decisions that confused other Buzzr viewers. And there may be reasons, known reasons, for some of those decisions. In the world of game show fandom, plenty of people will claim they know, and state their opinion as fact. Much like the rest of the world, I suppose. 

Let's start with a big one: Buzzr is now broadcasting The Price is Right for two hours every afternoon. 

Yes, this puzzles me. I'm not puzzled by its inclusion on Buzzr. I'm not puzzled by the time slot. What confuses me is why it took so long. 

 

When I first gained access to Buzzr, I was tickled. It had its many flaws and drawbacks, but it was geat news for me. But I was puzzled. Why wasn't TPIR included in its schedule, given the streaming service is owned by the same company that owns and produces TPIR?

I had theories as to why it wasn't part of the equation. Given the show was still in production, perhaps the agreement with CBS to broadcast new episodes year after year included a provision that no other outlet could stream old episodes, from any decade. That seemed far fetched, but I couldn't think of a better reason for Buzzr to resist broadcasting the most powerful game show in its catalog on its lackluster, fledgling game show outpost. (The Game Show Network licensed TPIR during a brief period early in its history, of course, although that doesn't mean anything 15+ years later.)

I figured there had to be a way to bring TPIR in some form to Buzzr. Wouldn't it be advantageous to have reruns of past Drew Carey seasons on Buzzr in prime time? You'd draw hardcore game show fans and TPIR fans to Buzzr in a way no rerun of Match Game or Card Sharks could. Sure, you might draw 10 viewers away from the latest season of Survivor on CBS, but I refuse to believe there was a serious downside to showing Carey reruns in prime time.

And if anyone thought that Carey reruns would somehow hurt CBS, then run old Barker episodes on Buzzr. 

I just couldn't understand why TPIR had no place in the Buzzr schedule. Then, much to the surprise of many, I believe, Pluto TV lands a 24-hour TPIR channel featuring Bob Barker's early '80s episodes. 

And yet, no TPIR on Buzzr. So weird. 

We all know how this ends. Pluto eventually adds a separate TPIR channel for Carey, which only seems to air Carey's first season episodes. I rarely watch, but I have yet to see an episode with George Gray as the announcer. 

And Barker episodes not only continue non-stop to this day on Pluto, just about every quirky Pluto clone seems to carry Barker's episodes. And they're not all carrying the same episodes simultaneously. Roku's version of a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service, as they are known, so says Wikipedia, has the best Barker channel, as it skips some of the commercial breaks, while other FAST services seem to drop ads at every break in the show. 

And finally, after all that, Buzzr decides the time has come to add two hours of Barker TPIR to its schedule every afternoon. (Yes, there have been moments when Buzzr would show a black-and-white episode of the game from the 1950s...which bears little resemblance to the show America has known for the past 50 years.)

There are business reasons behind why Buzzr didn't drop episodes from its Barker/Carey catalog immediately, I suspect, but the fact it took about eight years and thousands of hours of non-stop streaming of TPIR on Pluto and other FAST services before Buzzr finally deemed it worthy of inclusion on its own network, I don't know. But I'd love to hear the answer. 

There are other odd Buzzr decisions that leave me puzzled, and I won't go in depth on any of those, but I'll list a handful of them in a future post. 

So much for that all-important Wheel of Fortune "continuity"

So it has been more than a week since people stopped watching Wheel of Fortune because they'll never watch it again so long as Ryan Seacrest is the host. 

Sure, Jan. 

People are weird. We all know that. Some claimed they'd stop watching, and maybe they will. I doubt that the show is going to lose many viewers because of a host change, and I suppose a few people are going to tune in for the first time in a long time because the host is new. 

A lot of us simply like the game, and like playing along. Only a bad host and a dramatic change in the overall production will drive us away. 

So I watched a handful of episodes thus far, and I have mixed feelings about it all. 

Foremost, Seacrest is just fine. Is he perfect? No. He knows how to host. He knows how to broadcast. Wheel isn't in his DNA, but emceeing is. He's not flawless in his delivery and witty banter. But he'll get there.

I read an article pointing out that during the speed-up portion of the final round, Seacrest didn't remind a contestant to call a letter before solving the puzzle when she asked if she could solve it. Pat Sajak usually would note to the contestant that s/he could pick a letter first and bank more money. So the woman lost out on extra cash as a result. Oh well. Seacrest will get better at that sort of thing as he faces it on a recurring basis. 

The hardest thing for me is just simple stuff. I'm not Sajak's biggest fan, but his style, cadence, etc. were familiar. Seacrest does everything just a tiny bit different, and it feels a bit odd. It's not painful, but I didn't expect it, either. I'll adjust, and after a while I won't even remember how Sajak did it. 

What bothers me is that they've really messed with the continuity of the show. I just can't sleep at night. 

I read the suggestion, more than once, that it was really important to bring Vanna White back to the show after Sajak's faux retirement, because it was important for Abraham and Agnes to see her familiar face. Without her, they'd be so confused and disoriented they'd turn the channel to a rerun of Card Sharks on Buzzr. 

People really think Vanna is that vital. You can't make it up. 

And yet, as critical as it is to maintain some sort of continuity for the poor, simple-minded viewers, they changed the set to some weird, freakish chamber of odd wheel shapes. The puzzle board has this odd array of wheels spanning behind it, and the elements are incongruous. Not significantly, but they're a bit uneven. I'm not sure what that accomplishes, but it's an odd look, if you notice that sort of thing. I didn't, but another viewer did. And now I can't unsee it.

Likewise, they have those same odd wheel shapes, in varying sizes, behind the contestants. I'm not losing sleep over it, but why change all that to coincide with Seacrest's first season if continuity is so critical?

They changed the video editing of the show, as well. Now we see isolated screen shots of each contestant's giant head under the puzzle board during toss-up rounds. No big deal, but damn, you've upset my precious continuity. 

Somehow they don't seem as interested in highlighting Jim Thornton, the announcer. They had made his face a part of every show at one point. Now I don't see him as often. That's awkward, and ruining the continuity of the show I use to love. 

I haven't been able to sit through 30 minutes of every new episode thus far, but I'm seeing less of Thornton, and the one time I recall seeing him, they did an awkward bit between him and Seacrest, promoting a show sponsor. This isn't uncommon, in-show sponsorships of game shows dates back decades. But this seemed new and awkward for a show that needs continuity to keep me from running away. 

I didn't care for the gimmicky bonus round promotion during the opening week of the season, either. The gimmick was that LG, the home appliance and electronics company, sponsored the bonus round, and was adding $10K to the bonus round prize. And in doing so, players got an extra letter, the G, as in LG, as part of the opening package of letters for the bonus round puzzle. No harm in that, it doesn't do much for me, other than disrupt the show's continuity.

And where are the cars? I haven't seen a car on the set. Did they get rid of prizes on the bonus wheel. Is it all cash prizes on the wheel now. If they said so, I missed it. I'm fine with that, but doing so in the fall of 2024 really hurts the show's continuity. 

Without continuity, the show is going to fail. Sorry Seacrest, you're a one-and-done guy. Not even Vanna will save you now!