Fun with GSN's "Master Minds"

[MarkBarrett]

The show starts at 4:00 on Monday, April 6th. The first episode (or an episode) is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3pHuVlabsQ

Wow, credit to the staff for reworking Best Ever Trivia Show to make a better quiz show. It's great to have some portions not multiple choice.

The experts are Ken, Muffy, Jonathan, Ryan, and Arianna returning. The new member is: http://www.j-archive.com/showplayer.php?player_id=11794

As the season goes along please post J! alum appearances and I'll add a line to their archive bios.

[Rackme32]

Watched it... Agree, a much better remake of "best ever", but still not the best ever (obviously, to those on this forum)

Nice to see Brooke Burns back on the air, too.

[BrigadierSolo13]

I enjoyed this as well, if for no other reason than the fact I would have beaten Ken Jennings in those final 5 questions

[alietr]

I liked the faster pace. I don't think it's must watch TV, but I did prefer it to its previous incarnation.

[MinnesotaMyron]

Agreed that this version is more fun to watch. (I watched the YouTube preview.) I tensed up a little watching Ken and Muffy shake hands at the end there. February seems so long ago, doesn't it?

ETA: More prescription drug questions please. (Looks like today's broadcast ep had one too.) And Charles, don't touch your face.

[MarkBarrett]

The 4/6 game on the regular 4:00 GSN slot was not the one previewed early on YT. My plan is track some of the experts stats again and post on Friday or Saturday each week while maintaining a running total for the season.

[ElendilPickle]

J! season 34 champion Lakedra Pam is also one of the experts this season.

[LucarioSnooperVixey]

J! season 34 champion Lakedra Pam is also one of the experts this season.

I think you missed Mark Barrett's post.

[econgator]

I liked the faster pace. I don't think it's must watch TV, but I did prefer it to its previous incarnation.

Agreed. Could have done without the "let me read this random fact off the teleprompter", though.

[triviawayne]

I liked the faster pace. I don't think it's must watch TV, but I did prefer it to its previous incarnation.

Agreed. Could have done without the "let me read this random fact off the teleprompter", though.

I wouldn't have minded it if it was spontaneous, as I'm sure they could all do. With it being fed to them, it looks so forced (such as when Ken Jennings was on Millionaire and 5th Grader and "acting" like he wasn't sure about things he actually knows).

[slam]

I enjoyed this as well, if for no other reason than the fact I would have beaten Ken Jennings in those final 5 questions

How did you "beat" him when he got them all right?

[BrigadierSolo13]

I enjoyed this as well, if for no other reason than the fact I would have beaten Ken Jennings in those final 5 questions

How did you "beat" him when he got them all right?

Unless you are referring to some other episode, I referred to the episode posted by MarkBarrett in the first post. Ken and the challenger both only scored 4 out of 5, where as I got them all.

[MarkBarrett]

I enjoyed this as well, if for no other reason than the fact I would have beaten Ken Jennings in those final 5 questions

How did you "beat" him when he got them all right?

I was beat the to buzzer for my first comment.

(BrigadierSolo13's post was on Sunday so the remark was about the preview episode on YT and not the premiere ep. on GSN yesterday. Ken having the wrong S guy like the contestant left an opening for home viewers to best him.)

After a whopping sample of two games it seems like it will be tough for Ken to be beat against the other two experts as his knowledge/buzzer skills are of course superior. What can trip him up is an error as a score swing the wrong way can be tough to overcome with limited questions.

Muffy is holding her own and Jonathan would seem to be be in a tough spot when his rotation draws Ken & Muffy. We'll see if the shuffle over 65 games evens things up a bit with the experts.

[econgator]

I enjoyed this as well, if for no other reason than the fact I would have beaten Ken Jennings in those final 5 questions

How did you "beat" him when he got them all right?

Unless you are referring to some other episode, I referred to the episode posted by MarkBarrett in the first post. Ken and the challenger both only scored 4 out of 5, where as I got them all.

Yeah, the link above was not the episode that aired Monday.

[slam]

I liked the faster pace. I don't think it's must watch TV, but I did prefer it to its previous incarnation.

I agree. The faster pace packing in more questions made the show much more enjoyable to watch. I stopped watching the previous incarnation after a handful of episodes because it didn't grab me. I have now set my DVR to record the show everyday. For now, at least, I'll continue to watch.

The structure of the game is much better. Even the contestants who get knocked out after round #2 have the opportunity to answer a decent number of questions. I also like that the first round allows everybody to answer every question before getting to the buzzer competitions in the following rounds.

Does anybody know what happens if there's a tie in the last round? Tiebreakers? Tie goes to the expert? Tie goes to the contestant? With only five questions in the last round, we're likely to see a tie fairly soon to answer this question.

One thing I didn't like was the degree to which the point values increase throughout the game. I don't mind that they do increase. After all J! clues go up for DJ! However, that's a doubling of the points. The first clue of the game is worth 100 and the last clue of the game is likely to be in the 1,000 - 1,500 range. A increase by more than 10-fold just doesn't make sense. It means that the first round is played basically for fun, the second round is played for survival and the third round determines who gets to play the final round. Only under extreme circumstances will a contestant have a useful lead going into the last round. Even if a contestant has a 1,000 point lead going into the 3rd round (unlikely to be that large), it can be wiped out within the first two questions of 500 and 600. Yesterday, the final round was 7 questions (if memory serves) and I think that it will be in the neighborhood of 7 each time. I'd guesstimate that the number of questions in the final round will likely be in the 5-10 range. That's more than enough to render the earlier rounds nearly irrelevant to determining who gets to play the showdown round.

I'm fine with increasing the values throughout the game, but I feel that a smaller increase would be better. I understand that the producers of the show want to keep the final result open as long as possible to create an interesting game. And I think that's a reasonable goal, but that they overshot the mark.

Overall, I liked it and will continue to watch.

[slam]

I enjoyed this as well, if for no other reason than the fact I would have beaten Ken Jennings in those final 5 questions

How did you "beat" him when he got them all right?

Unless you are referring to some other episode, I referred to the episode posted by MarkBarrett in the first post. Ken and the challenger both only scored 4 out of 5, where as I got them all.

Yeah, the link above was not the episode that aired Monday.

Fair enough. I've only watched the game that aired yesterday.

[slam]

I enjoyed this as well, if for no other reason than the fact I would have beaten Ken Jennings in those final 5 questions

How did you "beat" him when he got them all right?

I was beat the to buzzer for my first comment.

(BrigadierSolo13's post was on Sunday so the remark was about the preview episode on YT and not the premiere ep. on GSN yesterday. Ken having the wrong S guy like the contestant left an opening for home viewers to best him.)

After a whopping sample of two games it seems like it will be tough for Ken to be beat against the other two experts as his knowledge/buzzer skills are of course superior. What can trip him up is an error as a score swing the wrong way can be tough to overcome with limited questions.

Muffy is holding her own and Jonathan would seem to be be in a tough spot when his rotation draws Ken & Muffy. We'll see if the shuffle over 65 games evens things up a bit with the experts.

I was wondering how often Ken is expected to get to the showdown round. Since one late mistake in the 3rd round could cause him to lose, he certainly will not win them all. But I would guesstimate that he'll win at least 75% of the time, assuming they don't bring in any "elite" experts (like Brad Rutter or some others).

[MarkBarrett]

I enjoyed this as well, if for no other reason than the fact I would have beaten Ken Jennings in those final 5 questions

How did you "beat" him when he got them all right?

I was beat the to buzzer for my first comment.

(BrigadierSolo13's post was on Sunday so the remark was about the preview episode on YT and not the premiere ep. on GSN yesterday. Ken having the wrong S guy like the contestant left an opening for home viewers to best him.)

After a whopping sample of two games it seems like it will be tough for Ken to be beat against the other two experts as his knowledge/buzzer skills are of course superior. What can trip him up is an error as a score swing the wrong way can be tough to overcome with limited questions.

Muffy is holding her own and Jonathan would seem to be be in a tough spot when his rotation draws Ken & Muffy. We'll see if the shuffle over 65 games evens things up a bit with the experts.

I was wondering how often Ken is expected to get to the showdown round. Since one late mistake in the 3rd round could cause him to lose, he certainly will not win them all. But I would guesstimate that he'll win at least 75% of the time, assuming they don't bring in any "elite" experts (like Brad Rutter or some others).

Last season I have Ken at 15/34 being the best of three experts. With the new format I expect his win percentage to go up. Muffy, Ryan, Arianna, Jonathan and LaKedra are the other five known experts. Yes, someone could win the bonus round three times and become an expert to throw another name(s) in the mix.

There have been several posts between this and last season about prospective contestants not making the cut due to knowing at least one of the experts. No way Brad will be a contestant on this show. There are still plenty of other trivia greats available good enough to become a Master Mind to stand by Ken.

********
If there is a tie after the five bonus round questions then just the contestant faces one question (not multiple choice) to either win the $10,000 or go home.

[Ivoryface86]

Add Raj into the mix of being seen on the right side of the screen and John Carpenter as well.

[LucarioSnooperVixey]

http://www.j-archive.com/showplayer.php?player_id=11401 was on today's episode.