"Password": Rapid review

[Brad Beam]

Gameplay: Ludden classic

Tiebreaker: “Super”/”Plus” puzzle

Bonus round: tag-team Alphabetics, with replacement clues (first half only)

 

The password is… hour-long?!

[Mark Jeffries]

That's prime time game shows today.  They do play two games each show.

Too much audience noise, but that's also prime time game shows these days.

Mark Jeffries
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[M-D November]

I haven't watched yet, but it's nice to see a return to classic gameplay after the atrocity that was Regis' "Million Dollar Password".

[Tom Wolper]

I watched the first one and my only comment is on classic Password you could imagine the celebrities and contestants sitting in the green room before the show and studying thesauruses, and before this version you can imagine them sitting there and binging on cocaine. There was a lot of energy expended out there.

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[Diner]

I liked it. It's got some kinks to work out, and the game (and the host) are too hyper for their own good, but for a premiere I can let that slide. 

(Haven't seen episode 2 yet.)

But I could do without the rehearsed, fake-shocked "oooooh" reaction from the audience every time the password was announced. Even Jon Hamm was like "c'mon!"

(That crap ruined the Jane Krakowski "Name That Tune" for me - why was the audience shocked that somebody said "I can name that tune in three notes"?)

[Tom Wolper]

Yeah, game play moved fast enough. My problem with prime time game shows has been the way they get stretched out and Password doesn’t have that issue. I’ll have to wait until there’s an episode without Fallon (good player but way too much excess energy) and watch again.

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[Jon Delfin]

If I read a thing this morning correctly, you'll be waiting a very long time for

an episode without Fallon.  

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[Jim Ellwanger]

I feel like they could have gotten even a little more game play into the show if there wasn't such a huge reaction to everything. As I said to someone else, "It's supposed to be a parlor game, not a contact sport."

Also interesting is that, back in 1979, they were giving away roughly $25,000 a week on the daytime "Password Plus"... this version having a prize budget of $50,000 an episode as a weekly show is effectively half that, due to inflation.

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[Mark Jeffries]

Pray that if the show gets renewed, Fallon will be too busy with other things.

Mark Jeffries
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[Diner]

I just saw episode 2, and there's a feature that didn't turn up in episode 1 called the Redemption Round. 

If a contestant doesn't get all ten words in the bonus round, they then have a chance to double their winnings on one word. The contestant gives one clue, then puts on noise-canceling headphones and turns around. The two celebs then have 30 seconds to decide between them what their guess is. The contestant is then asked what the password is, and if the celebs were correct, the prize is doubled.

In this case, the contestant didn't win the $25K grand prize, but he was able to double his winnings from $8K to $16K.

It's way too drawn-out, but it's not a bad feature. 

Episode 2 also featured Fallon accidentally blurting out the password at one point... just like his "Tonight" predecessor Jack Paar did repeatedly.

[Bob Jersey]

From the ex-Chief's site: https://www.primetimer.com/features/nbcs-password-revival-has-a-jimmy-fallon-problem (link)

TL;DR: Think Betty White.     B

Mark Jeffries, to Jon Delfin et al, Aug 11th:

[Tom Wolper]

If I could write a long form review of the show that would be it word-for-word.

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[Mark Jeffries]

And they've added a new penalty if someone blurts out a password like Fallon did--the other side gets two points.  In previous versions, the word was just thrown out (and in "Plus/Super," the word was placed on the puzzle board and no one guessed).   In this version, the top value in the front game is six points instead of ten and like the ABC version, they play until three times around the table or guessed.

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

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[Dave Sikula]

The wife and I could make it through only the first half of the first episode. It's manic and exhausting.

While I applaud the idea of not using Another White Guy as the host, Palmer is a non-entity to me and not hosting material. (I vaguely know who she is, and will blissfully stay in that state).

The original wasn't the brainiest game, but there was at least a sense that everyone playing had a vocabulary of more than a few hundred words and more decorum than Trump Jr. after a coke binge.

I think I'd rather watch the Wiig/McKinnon Hour than any more of this.

--Dave Sikula

[M-D November]

Re: Pace of play, that's actually something that I haven't found to be an issue with the majority of the ABC revivals; "Pyramid" is effectively 2 self-contained half-hours so it's pace is dictated by time (although I hate the fact that, with no wraparound for champions, ties have to be broken by time rather than a tie-breaker), and although "Press Your Luck"'s new bonus round can go on, I don't find it to be to be overwrought for the sake of drama, as in the case of Millionaire and its clones.

The exceptions to this rule are "Celebrity Family Feud", which moves at whatever the hell pace Steve Harvey decides it should move - usually something between 'glacial' and 'snail', and the now-cancelled  "Card Sharks", whose producers didn't seem to understand that the drama of that game was created by the speed at which decisions were made when contestants had to call 'high/low' in the original version (and originally host Jim Perry may have had something to do with that as well, although I feel like the mid-80s revival hosts did a decent job with the pacing).  The trivia rounds were fine, but any time attention went to the cards, the show ground to a goddamn halt.

[M-D November]

Quick aside - and I know there are obvious logistical reasons for it - but does anyone else miss hearing "From Television City in Hollywood" during the opening credits of these revived game shows?  

[Jim Ellwanger]

The announcer still says that on "Press Your Luck" -- actually, I should say that he's back to saying it after the previous season was taped at the Studio City complex currently known as Radford Studio Center.

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[Kevin M.]

On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 9:26 AM M-D November <mdnov...@gmail.com> wrote:

Quick aside - and I know there are obvious logistical reasons for it - but does anyone else miss hearing "From Television City in Hollywood" during the opening credits of these revived game shows?  

I, for one, was partial to shows “from the NBC Studios…” in “… beautiful downtown Burbank…”

Waiting to see if Warner will put the old building to good use. I still maintain it’s the best designed facility I ever worked in. Though the numbering system for each of the studios never did make sense.

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Mark Jeffries]

I will say that in the case of "Card Sharks," Bob Eubanks went too damn fast with the cards, since he (understandably) seemed to be more interested in the survey questions, especially when he could do what he did on "The Newlywed Game."  In fact, I am convinced that they added the coda (first the "take the joker you found during the round and match it to a number and hopefully win a car" game, then a range prediction to the "audience" poll question taken from the end game of the Goodson-Todman bomb "Mindreaders")  to the Money Cards round because he was just speeding through that round.  Jim Perry's knack to when to do the drama and when not was virtually unerring.

Mark Jeffries

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