I’ve always liked game shows. I’ve watched them for a very very long time. I simultaneously watched the classics on Challenge and the modern shows on the BBC or ITV1 or whatever. And the one thing always standed out to me about the older game shows: is that most of them were only 30 minutes long.
Now, not all game shows were 30 minutes long then, 3-2-1 and the Leslie Crowther's Price is Right were 80s game shows that were 60 minutes or longer. But most of the shows: even the Saturday night ones, were often only 30 minutes (including ads and promos). Nowadays, the situation has changed. A lot of game shows today go on for between 45 and 60 minutes, including the daytime ones. Longer game shows aren’t an inherently bad thing mind you: big money game shows like WWTBAM definitely benefit from more game, and simple shows like Countdown don’t feel pointlessly longer with an added few more rounds. But there is a problem that has peeved me with new revivals of old game shows that unnecessarily feel the need to add another round to get 8 more minutes of advertiser money. This blogpost will meticulously and unnecessarily complain about revivals of game shows that feel the need to do this.
Let us begin with a relatively minor offender when it comes to this: The Price is Right! The 2006 Joe Pasquale version, to be exact. The mid 2000s was when I think most shows just started to become longer than 30 minutes. The show was originally modelled after the previous 30 minute Bruce’s Price is Right, which had 3 contestants each play a pricing game, spin the Big Wheel, and the highest scorer would go on to play the “Range Finder”, where they’d try to guess the showcase while staying in the range. A bit different from how the US version does it.
A month later, they decided to elongate it to one hour. So you’d have 3 contestants get on the first half hour, spin a big wheel, 3 more contestants get on the next one, spin the big wheel, and the two highest scorers in each regard, instead of the Showcase Showdown… we have the two highest scorers spin again. Why? In the original Showcase Showdown, only one wins the prizes in the showcase… why not have them both take in the chance to bid on big showcases? It would have been a much more tense final, especially for the potential chance of a Double Showcase winner. Damn you ITV, why didn’t you get bought out by Reynholm?
That same year, when they brought back Family Fortunes (as All Star Family Fortunes), they again felt the need to elongate the show, but a bit more egregiously. During the start of the show, each family, instead of already being on stage, instead gives a long-ass video introduction on the celebrity of the family. And then chats some more. Repeat the same for the other family. When I watched this show when I was younger I just wanted them to get on with the damn game! I couldn’t care less who the celebrities were at the time, I just wanted some Fortunes with the Family.
And one other change that didn’t annoy me at the time, but now does: the fact that there are a fixed number of rounds, instead of playing until one family gets over 300 points. If a family is already having a runaway and getting over 300 points, what’s the bloody point in watching the game, outside of the banters and stupid answers? But of course, there’s is an understandable reason for this rule, so that every family member gets a chance at the podium. But I don't really like this rule regardless, because there’s no way for the losing family to catch up, in the remainder of the rounds. Today’s Family Fortunes revival also implements this rule (alongside the long family intro). And I feel like you can less easily justify the fixed rounds rule, I mean these aren’t famous bastards playing. But I feel this isn’t much of a crime regardless, at least the family could potentially go home with a bit of extra cash in their pocket.
And speaking of today’s revivals: here comes my chance to rant about my disappointment in regards to whatever the fuck ITV did to the fuck up the formats of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Especially the former, as I was extremely hyped for it.
Now Jeopardy, in the United States at least, is basically just 20 packed minutes of quick trivia, with as much as 61 answers given in the three rounds of the show. It’s a good format that’s been attempted multiple times in the UK: and my main gripes with those is that they were very low stakes games, because of IBA restrictions on how much cash could be awarded on game shows, alongside not allowing betting. But these were still alright adaptations, and when a new revival was announced I was hoping for more money than £3000 to be awarded to players, and to see Stephen Fry hosting (he hosted QI which is a fucking GOATed panel show).
But then it first started airing on this New Year’s Day… and while I wasn’t disappointed it kinda just felt underwhelming. Fry’s hosting wasn’t all that, for one, but my main issue with the fucking thing… It's too long! This is a show fitting a 60 minute time slot, and they added one extra round. And to be honest with you, the round does nothing to make this show feel elongated than it should be. There’s a lot more conversation and waiting, with not much of the speed of the US original, but with the same amount of advertising breaks. A couple of episodes after I was less invested in watching an hour-long Jeopardy, my somewhat short attention span just wanted the answers not elongated info dumps or contestant interviews dammit.
Mind you, this is how the board looks:
So not only is it longer, there is much less money given out on this show (though honestly it’s probably because daytime game shows are always generally lower budget here). It also has to do with it being formatted as Standard-Standard-and-Double Jeopardy rather than say Single-Double-and-Triple Jeopardy. I feel like the latter structure would’ve made this format more interesting to watch: or hell just make it 30 minutes! Yes, there’s much less time to squeeze in ads to furnish the prize budget. But it would make for a much more interesting and capitulating watch. Or just make it 45 mins if you’re that desperate for 3 rounds, this would lead to a better pace, and would save some more minutes on the timeslot to air… I dunno horse racing coverage? ITV already has 2 60 minute daytime game shows (Tipping Point and The Chase) so why do we need another?
And now Wheel of Fortune. Honestly, I feel like this game show has more reason to be 60 minutes, after all it airs in Saturday night primetime, but at the same time I question the changes they made.
Originally the show like Wheel was hampered with IBA restrictions, the wheel were points, bonus cash prize was low until like the mid 90s blah blah you get the point I was excited to see people play for pounds, and seeing it in action it was enjoyable, but my main gripe with it was it’s random bonus holiday puzzle halfway through (where the highest scoring player has to solve a puzzle like in the final round), and while I do feel the slashing the wheel values from what they were originally makes sense, the fact that the final round’s jackpot prize only goes up to £50,000, kinda just represents of much of these revivals of game shows from yesteryear, while elongating their game, being too fucking afraid to give a cash prize anything above £50,000 unless if the name of the show is Who Wants to be a fucking Millionaire. It’s the year 2024, I’m not asking for a million pound wedge, just a bit more of some big money.
There’s also a bunch of other complaints I have regarding the show but it’s less to do with it being 60 minutes long (like seriously why do the categories have to be so fucking specific?). Really my complaints for this show are weaker, because my main gripes for this stuff mainly came as a result of one show…
Unlike Wheel or Jeopardy! I only got into this show recently, particularly the Password Plus/Super Password incarnations. And when I heard about the revival I just hoped they at least did do the Password Puzzles seen there.
Now this show is for a 40 minute timeslot (usually with 30 mins of content) so thankfully we don’t have a Jeopardy situation: but my time still feels wasted. It’s mainly due to the fact the first round feels long. It’s basically just having your partner guess the word via one-word clues, and doing this until you have enough points to get out of this hellscape of 10pm boredom and into the superior Super Password. Which is basically just the same thing but you’re looking to solve the Password Puzzle that is linked to the 5 words given. And then the tiebreaker if God wants to elongate it more, which is just the based Super Password except either contestant buzzes in for it. Then the Alphabetics, and to be honest with you I’m too lazy to explain it in detail. It’s just the same as before but with ten clues, each starting with a subsequent letter of the alphabet… and this is for £10k. 10 fucking grand.
Password started in daytime television as a 30 minute show. This revival only makes me yearn that it was still a 30 minute show in daytime. (Million Dollar Password does exist but it is very distinct from the original). It would’ve been much less of a drag especially with that first round making the game more boring than it should be, and all the unnecessary fluff and chatter that goes on (yes I know it’s a game show with celebrities, I still think there should be a bit more game and a bit less celebrity banter). This shit goes out on Saturday, and while it goes out on the watershed, this is still ITV, not the BBC. I’m sure they realistically could’ve given more out for that time slot. I don’t expect £250k or something, this is Password after all, but like come on at least £25,000 would be nice for Saturday night. Password’s revival being unnecessarily longer leads to the final round just being less cathartic, and the whole game just being less tense in general. I didn’t feel that engaged in the game till the Super Password section. And it just kinda makes me question why the hell they bothered bringing it back, especially with how low priority it seems to be for ITV. I wouldn’t even be surprised if it wasn’t renewed for another season.
I genuinely do think that producers should have a more indepth think before making a game show from the past longer, before it ends up being completely fucking warped and not as good as it should be. While I don’t think these fucking ruin the format permanently, they definitely have serious flaws. I can only hope when they bring back Bullseye this Christmas they don’t make us sit through two Category Boards and Pounds for Points rounds and have every team mandatorily have a go at Bully’s Star Prize…