AlphaDummy wrote: Just saw the season premiere of SyndieBam:
Spoilers, in no order:
First, on the clock speeding up play:
10 questions were played this time. Granted, it took MV a couple of minutes to plug the new lifelines - but, in the long run, I am still not convinced that we will see many more questions being put into play.
The one unique thing that was left about this show was that contestants could take their time and the audience could listen to them reason out challenging questions. (That many contestants couldn't or wouldn't try to work out questions--math questions, for example--says more about the casting process than this rule of the game.) Now, TPTB have killed that. When contestants aren't chatting with Meredith, they're in a rush.
AlphaDummy wrote:Ask the Expert:
The Skype video obviously does not produce as high of a quality picture as a studio camera. I'm just sayin'. As for today's actual Expert (not hinting as to whether he/she was called):
I would be happy to have Bill Nye on my side. Although it was obvious that he did not have to audition with an AP.
Yes, Bill Nye is a good choice for an ATE, if we're to have one. But as I said in the transcript thread, perhaps not the best "expert" for a stack which doesn't have any categories listed for science! And I suspect it will only get worse. As Steve Beverly mentioned on his
Daily Game Show Fix, this is TPTB's way of sneaking in some more celebrity chit-chat.
FWIW, at least contestants get this new lifeline at $1K instead of having to wait for the upper tier. But that's probably for the experts' benefit--they'd be left standing by without so much as an introduction if they had to wait so long.
AlphaDummy wrote:Revelation of the fifteen subjects in advance:
Hopefully the contestant gets to see more of this than we do at home. The brief time that they were shown on the screen was of little use to this home viewer.
Meh. You need lifelines when you need them. At best, contestants could gamble on guessing early without a lifeline, in the hopes of saving it for a later, more ominous category. If they had time to strategize about that, which they don't.
AlphaDummy wrote:Graphics/bells and whistles:
Okay - I'll fess up...I did like the additions and the changes. More changes than I had expected with the graphics and sound effects - but I think they did well here.
What are those new sound effects? Metal gongs? Glass harmonica?
I really like the old music. When Play It! was still in business, it would get my adrenaline pumping just to walk in and hear it. These new effects don't fit. If they want to boost the tension, how about the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard?
I've been reading all the hints and previews about the changes, so nothing came as a real surprise, but actually seeing them all left me as depressed as I was after my most recent audition.
My overall rating of the changes:
Fluff and nonsense.
<grumble>®
Same writer(s) now scouring it for reactions, I'd bet.
