Why 'The Wall' Is Probably Doomed

[Brit Canuck]

Former 'The Chase' winner and BuzzerBlog writer Cory Anotado has been doing reviews of recent new game shows for the popular game show site, and now has a review up for NBC's new quizzer and Plinko rip-off that debuts tonight. While Chris Hardwick and exec-producer LeBron James have been saying over and over in clips and promos how much they want to give away NBC's money to needy, deserving people, there come two points in the gameplay where Cory feels this no longer rings true.

At the end of (both the third and final rounds), balls are dropped in the same drop zones selected (for free green balls to add money to the bank) at the beginning of the round. These balls, however, are red balls (that subtract from the bank). The last two main rounds of this game end with the players losing money - potentially ALL their money. Let me block-quote that, because, for a game that says that contestants are chosen because they deserve a lot of money, it’s a weird, s**tty way to handle the balancing of the game:
The last two main rounds of this game end with the team losing money - potentially ALL their money.
There’s a few different ways where the game could be balanced better without forcing players to end the game with a guaranteed loss of money. Even Million Pound Drop’s final round was all-or-nothing, and skill and knowledge came into play. No game should end with players who could potentially play a perfect game be forced to take a drop in score for no other reason than 'that’s how the game works'. It screams, “we built a giant wall, let’s make a game show,” and that’s not the best look.
The front game construct of ending each round with automatic money losses, even if the total is as low as $1, feels so gross and unfulfilling to watch. Why are the nice people getting penalized for no reason other than 'that’s the rules this round'?

Once again, NBC giveth, and NBC taketh away. Didn't they learn anything from 2012's 'Take It All'?

I'm not a big fan of game shows that dangle carrots in front of contestants, make them work hard for it, then potentially take away the carrot and punish their hard work at the end (based in part on that, WWTBAM lasted a lot longer than 1 vs. 100 and the one Cory was on, regardless of all three shows being good). 'The Wall' sounds like it might potentially be another in a growing line of such shows - deserving, much like its contestants, but ultimately falling short in the rewards it eventually gives.

http://www.buzzerblog.com/2016/12/18/review-the-wall

[Brit Canuck]

Good viewing if you have a pet cat, though. (From Chris Hardwick's Twitter feed)
http://www.twitter.com/hardwick/status/ ... 7814996993

[Bob Juch]

Trump will be disappointed.

[Brit Canuck]

Game Show Kingdom II recap
http://bobbymgsk.wordpress.com/2016/12/ ... iew-show-1

Spoiler

Despite a nerve-racking -$250K hiccup that emptied their bank midway through, John and Angel (the latter a teacher) managed to come away with $1.3 million.
Yup, The Nerdist did in 60 minutes what SyndieBAM hasn't been able to do in six years.

That said, the $250K penalty came on one of those must-play red balls that Cory was so concerned about in his Buzzerblog review, so if one or more of those land in a $1M slot at some point, I fear that big payouts like or higher than the one on tonight's preview may be rare.

BuzzerBlog was tweeting about 'The Wall' just after the East Coast airing. Some highlights:

...Playing a perfect game and still having just as much a shot of leaving with $0 as winning like $2M-$4M is total BS.
Also amazing about The Wall is that they've generally chosen the absolute worst elements of *so* many different game shows and combined them.
It's enough to make you miss Think Like A Cat, which I'm clearly never going to ever forget.
Having said all this, still better than (GSN's) Divided.

Chris Hardwick was also live-tweeting during the East Coast airing:

I'm feeling all the same emotional stress I felt when we were taping this episode.
(after that one red ball) ...OK The Wall is being a jerk to these nice people. COME ON.
REDDDDDDDD NOOOOOOOOOO! It looks so evil!
I love that (The Wall) reminds me of playing on the Tron game grid. Does that make me the MCP (Master Control Program*)?

Too early to tell if this will catch on. At least Chris' cat liked it.





* The MCP from Tron is red. 'Red light!'

[Pastor Fireball]

Trump will be disappointed.

If it wasn't for president-elect and walking constitutional violation Donald Drumpf, this program would be the most shameful wall foisted upon the American people in 2016.

There is really so much more that I want to say about this show, but I'm getting a migraine merely thinking about how awful this show is.

[andrewjackson]

I watched on Monday night. Easy trivia and pretty much random prizes. Not that entertaining to me.

I do like the gimmick of having one of the team isolated so he had no idea what was going on but it is hard to imagine anyone ever playing it safe.

[SportsFan68]

SteelersFan was channel surfing during halftime or sometime last night and stopped on the wall. The contestants were doing great, the questions were fun and interesting, and they built up something like $150,000, a very nice chunk of change. Then they had to drop the red ball, and bam! minus score. SteelersFan had been saying they controlled the board, and that confirmed it for him. I don't know about that, but I know The Wall will never again be watched at Casa Sprots.

[jarnon]

There were few trivia questions. Most of the show was spent dropping balls down the Wall. Reminds me of Deal or No Deal without Howie Mandel and the babes with briefcases.

[Estonut]

Reminds me of Deal or No Deal without Howie Mandel and the babes with briefcases.

One of those briefcase-holding babes has been in the cast of "Suits" on USA for 6 seasons. She is now dating Prince Harry.

Meghan Markle

[Jeemie]

Reminds me of Deal or No Deal without Howie Mandel and the babes with briefcases.

One of those briefcase-holding babes has been in the cast of "Suits" on USA for 6 seasons. She is now dating Prince Harry.

Meghan Markle

Those are some nice assets...

[Brit Canuck]

Last night's second preview show was a disaster. Despite only three wrong answers, the last two red balls of the night stripped the competing couple of more than $1.3M, sending them home with bupkiss, and exposing the exact flaws Cory was so concerned about in his review.

http://bobbymgsk.wordpress.com/2017/01/03/the-wall-12

[bazodee]

Hated it.

Contestants straight out of Central Casting.

I wouldn't be surprised if they have a professional choreographer on staff just to orchestrate all the emotions that are in the script.

[TheConfessor]

I just watched tonight's episode. The game itself isn't terrible. I just hate watching idiots winning huge money for no good reason. The annoying contestants held my interest only to the extent of hoping to see them lose. But instead, they won more than half a million.

[Snaxx]

Last night's second preview show was a disaster. Despite only three wrong answers, the last two red balls of the night stripped the competing couple of more than $1.3M, sending them home with bupkiss, and exposing the exact flaws Cory was so concerned about in his review.

http://bobbymgsk.wordpress.com/2017/01/03/the-wall-12

I stumbled into tonight's about 15-20 minutes in and saw this for the first time. Fortunately for tonight's couple the result was a lot better, but the defining moment for me was when the guy selected the far left point to drop a red ball because the $1M was the second to the right, and the red ball managed to get to the one dollar slot to the right of the million, giving me an impression that it really does not matter where to drop it. I wonder if some statistical analysis is available showing the odds from each slot. Plinko was more fun.

[TheConfessor]

Last night's second preview show was a disaster. Despite only three wrong answers, the last two red balls of the night stripped the competing couple of more than $1.3M, sending them home with bupkiss, and exposing the exact flaws Cory was so concerned about in his review.

http://bobbymgsk.wordpress.com/2017/01/03/the-wall-12

I stumbled into tonight's about 15-20 minutes in and saw this for the first time. Fortunately for tonight's couple the result was a lot better, but the defining moment for me was when the guy selected the far left point to drop a red ball because the $1M was the second to the right, and the red ball managed to get to the one dollar slot to the right of the million, giving me an impression that it really does not matter where to drop it. I wonder if some statistical analysis is available showing the odds from each slot. Plinko was more fun.

I just googled "plinko statistics" and here's the first thing that came up. The analysis makes a lot of assumptions, but at least it's an attempt. In general, the most likely slot for a ball (or plinko disk) to fall into is directly below the drop point, but it's just an overall tendency with a lot of variation.
http://theskepticalstatistician.blogspo ... linko.html

[Snaxx]

I just googled "plinko statistics" and here's the first thing that came up. The analysis makes a lot of assumptions, but at least it's an attempt. In general, the most likely slot for a ball (or plinko disk) to fall into is directly below the drop point, but it's just an overall tendency with a lot of variation.
http://theskepticalstatistician.blogspo ... linko.html

I also figure the variation is greater as this board is bigger.

[TheConfessor]

I just googled "plinko statistics" and here's the first thing that came up. The analysis makes a lot of assumptions, but at least it's an attempt. In general, the most likely slot for a ball (or plinko disk) to fall into is directly below the drop point, but it's just an overall tendency with a lot of variation.
http://theskepticalstatistician.blogspo ... linko.html

I also figure the variation is greater as this board is bigger.

Actually, if you drop it from the extreme left or right, the most probable end location is probably not directly below, since the peak frequency would be somewhere between the extremes of the range of possible outcomes.

[Pastor Fireball]

I couldn't keep it to myself anymore. I had to do a full review of this show. It ended up being 18 1/2 minutes long. Fair word of warning: I drop the F-bomb and S-bomb quite a few times while talking about this ungodly mess. And if you're wondering what my fellow churchgoers would think of my language in this video... well, they were the ones who urged me to feel my oats and get it all out of my system.

[Brit Canuck]

Temporary stay of execution for 'The Wall', as NBC orders 20 more episodes, citing decent ratings (average of almost 7M total viewers, 1.7 share of 18-49 advertisers' demo). Still has to get to season two, though.
http://www.buzzerblog.com/2017/01/18/nb ... l-episodes

I will admit, it's fun to watch from time to time and, whenever his contestants get stripped of all their winnings midway through by one red ball after doing well early on, shout 'Negative Points!' at Hardwick.