"Show Me the Money"

posted by JediSheltie @ 9:47 PM

Wow... Talk about taking one for the team...

You know, back when I was naught but a lad, prime time television post 8:00 pm was a fairy tale land of scripted television series with highly paid actors and poorly paid writers coming together to provide only the highest quality entertainment. Where would I be without The A-Team, Knight Rider, and Airwolf?

And I didn't even like Airwolf. You can't shoot Sidewinders out of a TOW launcher, dammit!

But I, as usual, digress... The point here is that game shows were the sole dominion of daytime television. I only saw game shows if I was home sick from school. I really didn't find Bob Barker all that engaging, nor did my dog, whom I'm pretty sure knew exactly what Bob's intentions were towards his family jewels.

Now I'm told game shows are a staple of prime time entertainment, and one of them now stars William Shatner. It's called Show Me the Money and I watched it last night in a fit of schadenfreude, knowing, if nothing else, I'll be able to pad out some content on this very website.

The Game

Basically, you spend about 45 minutes with one contestant who is asked a series of questions. That, of course, describes virtually every game show in existence, so I'll endeavor to elaborate.

The first part is a question / answer section where the contestant may choose to answer one of three questions. He can pass twice if he doesn't know the answers, but he has to answer the last one. Once that answer is “locked in”, we get to the part about “money” and “showing.” The contestant chooses from among a group of “dancers”, who display a dollar amount after the contestant requests they “show me the money.” Get the answer right, that dollar amount is added to the winnings, wrong, it's subtracted. Lather, rinse, and repeat until the contestant has answered 5 questions correctly or incorrectly.

There's also a “Whammy” card, which isn't really called a Whammy card, but I've seen a lot more Press Your Luck than Show Me the Money, so I'm calling it the Whammy card, which means you have to get the question right or lose all your money, and if you miss it, answer another one to keep playing, period.

The questions were all fairly simple, though some of them had that “you either know it or you don't” feel to them. I know questions are simple when I can answer some of the ones they ask about “sports.”

Now, even though I've never actually watched an entire episode of Deal or No Deal, I've accidentally seen enough of it by flipping over early to watch Heroes to know where the “dancer” idea came from. As a regular visitor to “the Internet”, I'm really mellow enough not to get too worked up over some glorified Booth Babes to keep watching.

The Shat

So, that leaves Shatner. Which is why we're all here, right? As Kirks pointed out to me when he heard the first news of this show, William Shatner should make a good game show host. Part of me wanted to say “no”, the rest of me just sighed and agreed. Shatner, perhaps appropriately so, finally settled down into a long, close relationship with self-parody.

Personally, I'd have preferred he not continued this course after picking up multiple Emmys and proving to a generally dismissive public that he has real talent. The talent I would, sadly, attempt to defend him for a lot over the years without multiple Emmys to back up my part of the story.

Does he really excel at game show hosting? You know, strangely, not really. His presence was serviceable at best, and he tripped over a lot of the questions. He didn't really seem to have that free flowing, witty banter thing down with a human being who wasn't Leonard Nimoy. I think there were a couple parts he actually screwed up, but due to the nature of the game, it didn't really matter when the “right” or “wrong” element of the question was revealed.

I'll float the guy some credit for it being his first stab at it. Since I'm acutely aware the show isn't going to magically morph into Star Trek, I'm not going to stick around to find out if he finds his groove.

So, I can't recommend this show to sci-fi fans. I can't really recommend this show to game show fans, either, because it's a glorified also-ran whose major improvement seems to be that the chicks “move around” a little more. If you wish to see jiggling female flesh, there are far more efficient methods. I can hardly recommend this to die-hard Shatner fans. If you are a “die-hard Shatner fan,” I guess you're watching anyway, so feel free.

I still like Bill. I'll still defend his chops like the pathetic geek loser I am. But I'm not going to watch this show just because he's in it. I reserve that slavish, ill-considered devotion solely for the combination of Shatner and Trek.