Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

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Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by alietr »

While not trying to take anything away from WWTBAMBored, I figure there's enough discussion going on to warrant a separate thread.
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by earendel »

OK, I'll bite. The new season has already started out better just because of the reversion to the older game play - no guaranteed $1K, two "plateaus", no more randomizing of questions and the return of the 50:50 lifeline, replacing Jump the Question. Chris Harrison is a better host than either Terry Crews or Cedric the Entertainer - he dresses more like Regis and isn't trying to make every question and answer into a punch line. Of course they've sorta stacked the deck with the first two contestants, one a test prep company owner and the other a trivia game runner. And although it may seem a petty thing, the fact that Chris uses the full name "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" rather than just "Millionaire" makes me smile.
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by ElendilPickle »

What fun watching Tony Hightower yesterday and today!
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MarkBarrett »

ElendilPickle wrote:What fun watching Tony Hightower yesterday and today!
Yes, he is an excellent contestant in both TV likeability and game playing ability. He got a nice reward for enjoying trivia on J! a few years ago and this time he got an even bigger premium for his years of working in the trivia world.

It was more playful than mean, but Tony got in a little dig at Ken Jennings walking with the 100K while he planned to play with a little more courage/risk.

Three days and a very nice start to the season.
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by alietr »

That was some kind of excitement! Way to go, Tony!
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Rackme32 »

No disrespect to Tony Hightower meant by this post, at all... He did great!

However, the host could have made the show move a little faster... Tony's last two questions took up at least half the show. Much of this was between-questions
gabbing, nearly all of it caused by the host, not the contestant. Excruciating. Good thing I watched it on DVR and could easily shorten it down to four or five minutes.

It's one thing to fast-forward through ads, but totally another to waste my efforts zapping my way thru most of the show just to get to a question or two...

Excruciating. No more Millionaire for me...
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by triviawayne »

Rackme32 wrote:No disrespect to Tony Hightower meant by this post, at all... He did great!

However, the host could have made the show move a little faster... Tony's last two questions took up at least half the show. Much of this was between-questions
gabbing, nearly all of it caused by the host, not the contestant. Excruciating. Good thing I watched it on DVR and could easily shorten it down to four or five minutes.

It's one thing to fast-forward through ads, but totally another to waste my efforts zapping my way thru most of the show just to get to a question or two...

Excruciating. No more Millionaire for me...
It's always been that way when a contestant gets high up the ladder. It stretches the game to two shows.

I think the player deserves the extra time when they do that well.

Chris could show a little excitement though.
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by triviawayne »

Rackme32 wrote:No disrespect to Tony Hightower meant by this post, at all... He did great!

However, the host could have made the show move a little faster... Tony's last two questions took up at least half the show. Much of this was between-questions
gabbing, nearly all of it caused by the host, not the contestant. Excruciating. Good thing I watched it on DVR and could easily shorten it down to four or five minutes.

It's one thing to fast-forward through ads, but totally another to waste my efforts zapping my way thru most of the show just to get to a question or two...

Excruciating. No more Millionaire for me...
It's always been that way when a contestant gets high up the ladder. It stretches the game to two shows.

I think the player deserves the extra time when they do that well.

Chris could show a little excitement though.
Total game show career losings = $171,522
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Vanya »

Well, WWTBAM is no longer being shown in my market. Hmm... is there trouble in paradise?
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"Off to College" Week

Post by Vermonter »

Comment on Monday's college show:
Spoiler
That Twitter question was ridiculous. A great way to keep the number of questions to a minimum, I guess.

But why would you call down your "extra help" just to help you count? That seems like a waste to me.
and on Tuesday's show:
Spoiler
How can you go on the show without knowing the years of the presidents? And how can you walk without taking two seconds to think through the answers?

Maybe that "extra help" would have been useful!

And too bad about "Ottawa" – I liked that kid.
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Re: "Off to College" Week

Post by MarkBarrett »

Vermonter wrote:Comment on Monday's college show:
Spoiler
That Twitter question was ridiculous. A great way to keep the number of questions to a minimum, I guess.

But why would you call down your "extra help" just to help you count? That seems like a waste to me.
and on Tuesday's show:
Spoiler
How can you go on the show without knowing the years of the presidents? And how can you walk without taking two seconds to think through the answers?

Maybe that "extra help" would have been useful!

And too bad about "Ottawa" – I liked that kid.
That's too much of a teaser for the Canadians here.
Spoiler
How many letter Os in the spelling of the capital of Canada(wording not exact)? The student thought the capital was Ontario, but used a Plus One to ask his mom. She knew the capital was either Ontario or Ottawa. The student locked in 2 as his guess since either Ontario or Ottowa both had 2 Os. :) He was lucky he was already at the $5000 level to not leave empty-handed.
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Re: "Off to College" Week

Post by triviawayne »

MarkBarrett wrote:
That's too much of a teaser for the Canadians here.
Spoiler
How many letter Os in the spelling of the capital of Canada(wording not exact)? The student thought the capital was Ontario, but used a Plus One to ask his mom. She knew the capital was either Ontario or Ottawa. The student locked in 2 as his guess since either Ontario or Ottowa both had 2 Os. :) He was lucky he was already at the $5000 level to not leave empty-handed.
some days it's better to be lucky than good...
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by MarkBarrett »

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. These are the $5,000, $10,000 & $50,000 questions Alec Hersh faced on the Oct. 1 show.
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Image

Image

Image
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by jeff6286 »

Poor kid looks seriously flummoxed by these diabolical questions. I assume Gramps was at least helpful with the 70s question?
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Vanya »

An Irishman would take issue with that last question.
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Winchell Factor »

On more than one occasion, this WWTBAM "Off to College Week" has left me thinking, "Poor kid, a Vine of that really wrong answer is going to follow you to [INSERT NAME OF FANCY-SHMANCY COLLEGE]."

And I mean that sincerely and sympathetically. When I was heading off to college, there was a whole lot I didn't know either. And of course, all of us who go on TV game shows risk...let's call it "unsought YouTube celebrity." But to have a prominent wrong answer be the first impression many of your new college classmates have of you? That could make for a really rocky start.
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Vermonter »

Winchell Factor wrote:On more than one occasion, this WWTBAM "Off to College Week" has left me thinking, "Poor kid, a Vine of that really wrong answer is going to follow you to [INSERT NAME OF FANCY-SHMANCY COLLEGE]."

And I mean that sincerely and sympathetically. When I was heading off to college, there was a whole lot I didn't know either. And of course, all of us who go on TV game shows risk...let's call it "unsought YouTube celebrity." But to have a prominent wrong answer be the first impression many of your new college classmates have of you? That could make for a really rocky start.
I wonder if incoming college freshmen have a perspective on social media infamy that differs from prior generations, since they've grown up with the possibility that anything they do might go viral within minutes. It's a new thing to us – and, yes, I am thankful Twitter didn't exist when I was on the show.

At the same time, I think – and this comes from experience working with this age group – they have more of an apprehension about attaining new knowledge, since anything can be Googled. For example, you can take 12 AP classes and still not know
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Tigershark »

Winchell Factor wrote:On more than one occasion, this WWTBAM "Off to College Week" has left me thinking, "Poor kid, a Vine of that really wrong answer is going to follow you to [INSERT NAME OF FANCY-SHMANCY COLLEGE]."

And I mean that sincerely and sympathetically. When I was heading off to college, there was a whole lot I didn't know either.
A lot of times when watching this, I been scratching my head wondering what the hell is being taught in high schools these days. And yes, I am watching from the perspective "Would I have been able to answer that when I was a senior in high school?" (Almost always, the answer is "Yes.") I mean two people were lacking very basic knowledge of U.S. Presidents. One guy thought there had only been one President named James. When I was a junior in high school, my AP History teacher gave us a test where we had to name all of the Presidents in order and spelled correctly. He said that information was critical to doing well on the AP exam.

Also, it seemed like a lot of times these kids lacked basic critical thinking skills. More than one of them immediately used a lifeline before reading the question a second time, thinking about it, and asking themselves "Do I really need to use a lifeline here?" The girl who asked the audience when saw the question was about musical theater comes to mind. Maybe she didn't know much about musicals, but even if you knew nothing about musicals, it was pretty easy to figure out the answer, but she didn't even try. Same goes for the kid who asked the audience where the Middle East was. (I don't even know where to begin with the fact that majority of audience didn't know the answer.)
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Winchell Factor »

I just watched that episode, Vermonter. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing that I'd really hate for the other freshmen to know about me before they actually knew me.

Tigershark, you're far too young to be that curmudgeonly! But I'm not disagreeing with the substance of what you said.

I was especially taken aback that the kid's history teacher couldn't help him name the Presidents of the United States. Ignorance in kids, I can forgive. Ignorance in teachers really infuriates me. And I say that as a once and future teacher.
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Re: Millionaire Season 16 Discussion [SPOILERS]

Post by Carpe Diem »

jeff6286 wrote:I assume Gramps was at least helpful with the 70s question?
IIRC that was his dad. :shock:
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