TVSquad

Anyone who's read TV Squad for any period of time knows that we have a bunch of game show fans here. OK, maybe it's just me and Bob. But we've been watching game shows for years and know what works and what doesn't. A challenging premise that allows the viewer to play along? That works. Picking numbered cases at random? That doesn't (at least not after the first five episodes, anyway).

So, when I heard about the changes that were coming to the syndicated Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, I wanted to reserve judgment until I saw them. Now that Meredith Vieira's smiling face has graced my TV for the seventh season opener, I can say that I like most of the changes ... except for one. The new graphics and music are fine, the new lifelines make more sense (more on those in a second). But now there's a clock.

Yeah, you heard me; the show that once let contestants take as much time as they wanted to answer very tough questions now adds the pressure of a time limit. And that's not a good thing.

A 15-second clock is in place for the first five "easy" questions, a 30-second clock for the next five questions, and a 45-second clock for the final five questions; if you're fortunate to get to the million-dollar question, you have 45 seconds plus any time you saved on all the previous questions. All the while, an ominous ticking sound plays. If they haven't said "final answer" by the time the clock runs out, they have to walk away with whatever they've earned to that point.

I would have welcomed a clock on the old primetime version of Millionaire, where the questions were easier and the contestants liked to filibuster. No one wanted to hear a contestant telling the story about how he dropped LSD during their college years to explain, for instance, how he knows the answer to a question about The Doors. But the questions on the daytime version are much harder, and giving the contestants a time limit will likely lead to less risk-talking and people talking themselves into committing to an answer and more drop-outs and defeats. But, I guess that's the idea; last season, most contestants settled at either $16k, $25k, or $50k. I can see more people this year walking away with $4k, $8k, and $16k, which I'm sure will help the new producers' bottom line.

Considering that the game seems to be larded with more on the "personal story" front (today's first contestant, for instance, was asked to supply photos of her kids and all her lifelines), I'm not sure if the game action will be any faster than it was before, despite what Michael Davies has said. Oh, and I wonder if people are going to start cutting off Meredith as she asks a question (the clock starts when the answers are displayed, which is now all at once), just because they know the answer and they can bank the time for later. Cutting off the host mid-question never helps the flow of a show, at least to the home viewer.

As I said, the other changes are just fine. The contestant now gets a view of the topics that will be covered by the fifteen questions, which will probably help them plan ahead during the later, more difficult rounds, especially in terms of which lifelines to use. The 50/50 and Skip the Question lifelines are gone. In their place is Double Dip, where the contestant can answer the question twice if necessary, but can't back out after choosing the lifeline, and "Ask the Expert," which arrives after the fifth question. This week, the expert is Bill Nye the Science Guy, who's calling in via the nicest-looking Skype videophone connection I've ever seen. The 50/50 was almost always a waste of time, as was Skip the Question; because it didn't arrive until after the 10th question, the latter lifeline was often deployed during the $50k "free guess" question, taking all dramatic teeth out of it. So these new lifelines seem like they'll be used in much smarter ways by the contestants than the old ones were, especially given the new time limits.

Ugh, that clock. Something tells me that it won't last the season, even if people get the hang of it. I just hope it doesn't completely kill what has become a pleasant early-afternoon diverson for me.