WWTBAM Bored

Today's first contestant was felled by geography, the Achilles's heel of so many players. He got enormous help from the 50/50 lifeline, but it wasn't enough.

Spoiler

The question was: "What capital is on the banks of the Tiber River?" He didn't know where the Tiber was, so he wisely used the 50/50, which left Rome and Cairo.

He chose Cairo!

He must have forgotten that Cairo is in Egypt, and Egypt has one river: the Nile.

See my post in the Patrick White thread.....

jarnon wrote:Today's first contestant was felled by geography, the Achilles's heel of so many players. He got enormous help from the 50/50 lifeline, but it wasn't enough.

Spoiler

The question was: "What capital is on the banks of the Tiber River?" He didn't know where the Tiber was, so he wisely used the 50/50, which left Rome and Cairo.

He chose Cairo!

He must have forgotten that Cairo is in Egypt, and Egypt has one river: the Nile.

Spoiler

But he could have ATA'd if he hadn't wasted his lifeline on one incredibly easy early question. Let's blame the hotseat

I saw this and wondered how many brain cells the poor guy lost while playing football.

This is another reason why BAM needs an ONLINE TEST-to weed out idiots like this that don't know basic stuff.

Kazoo65 wrote:I saw this and wondered how many brain cells the poor guy lost while playing football.

This is another reason why BAM needs an ONLINE TEST-to weed out idiots like this that don't know basic stuff.

Oh goodness no, don't say that! It would make too much sense.

Kazoo65 wrote:I saw this and wondered how many brain cells the poor guy lost while playing football.

This is another reason why BAM needs an ONLINE TEST-to weed out idiots like this that don't know basic stuff.

And how would an online test weed out anybody who isn't already weeded out by the in-person test?

I think you're assuming that an on-line test would be tougher than the current in-person tests. But I really don't see anything to support that conclusion.

The value of the J! online test is not to weed out any additional people but instead to INCLUDE more people - those who wouldn't bother travelling a great distance to an in-person test if they didn't already know that they had leaped over one of the hurdles.

An online test for WWTBAM would do a little bit of weeding out if it replaced the current testing system because then you wouldn't have people taking and retaking the test until they ran into the same one again. But really, how many people are there who actually do that? And I'd think there would be something about the personality of such a person that prevented them from getting by the APs anyway.

Thousandaire wrote:

Spoiler

Don't be too hard on him. My first response was Baghdad, until I read the question more closely.

If the 50/50 left Rome and Baghdad maybe it is reasonable to think one might get confused with the pressure of the hot seat. But Cairo?

I think that has to qualify one as a card carrying geo-nitwit!

Spoiler

perhaps the contestant might live in an alternate universe, in which Rome had been destroyed by Hannibal crossing the Alps on all those llamas.

I hope that is not too labored a connection of the two...

[/spoiler]

etaoin22 wrote:

Spoiler

perhaps the contestant might live in an alternate universe, in which Rome had been destroyed by Hannibal crossing the Alps on all those llamas.

I hope that is not too labored a connection of the two...

Somebody call Harry Turtledove

Here is why I think BAM should institute an online test:

(A) they would get more people from different places. This show sorely needs geographic diversity. They could offer the online test at about the same time NYC auditions start (late April) and then, when they do their "road trip", they could draw names of those passing said test and invite them to regional auditions at various cities around the country, like J! does.

(B) When the auditioners get to the in-person tryout, they should have to play a mock version of BAM, to see if they understand how the game works and the proper use of lifelines. How many times have we seen people misuse lifelines?

(C) It would increase interest in the show. On tvgameshows.net, there's a story about the latest ratings. BAM had a 2.9. The first time J! did the online test 2 years ago, there was a TON of media attention and publicity about it. Anything that helps to increase interest makes it more likely that the show will be on longer-even though it was renewed until 2012 last year. The longer BAM is on, the more chances of getting BBs in the Hot Seat!

BAM will not have an online test any sooner than J! will conduct a contestant search in Kalamazoo.

Kazoo65 wrote:Here is why I think BAM should institute an online test:

(A) they would get more people from different places.

If they wanted, they could have this right now. Check out a road audition sometime. (Seriously.) Given the number of people that pass the test in any given town, they should have no problem casting a more geographically-diverse contestant pool should they be so inclined.

(B) When the auditioners get to the in-person tryout, they should have to play a mock version of BAM, to see if they understand how the game works and the proper use of lifelines. How many times have we seen people misuse lifelines?

Again - do you really think that TPTB crave a steady diet of high-caliber players? They are not playing on the same budget that they had available to them back when Regis was on four nights a week...

(C) It would increase interest in the show.

Maybe so. But if they were really looking to increase interest in the show via a more open qualification process...well, I think you know where I am going with this one...too bad that TPTB treat the phone game like radioactive waste...

The longer BAM is on, the more chances of getting BBs in the Hot Seat!

Although I agree with the spirit of that last sentence...well, have you looked at the list of contestants over the past two seasons who actively posted to the Bored prior to getting the call to the show?

Yeah.

Bottom line: What we want and what TPTB want are quite often on opposite ends of the spectrum - not by design, I am sure, but certainly based on self-interest. Their money, their game...all we can do is work within their boundaries and hope for the best.

Or we can sit on the sidelines and howl about it. Can't say that I have seen anybody qualify by that process as of yet, though...