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The Weakest Link - US Reboot

Some interesting format and presentation changes (September 2020)

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BR
Brekkie
Jonwo posted:
Another clip from The Weakest Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKYsOj4R0XU

Trouble with that money tree is unless you're going to go for 6 in a row or more you might as well bank after every question.
JO
Jonwo
Jonwo posted:
Another clip from The Weakest Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKYsOj4R0XU

Trouble with that money tree is unless you're going to go for 6 in a row or more you might as well bank after every question.

I wonder if banking answering every question isn't allowed? I've never seen it done before.
JO
Jon
Jonwo posted:
Jonwo posted:
Another clip from The Weakest Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKYsOj4R0XU

Trouble with that money tree is unless you're going to go for 6 in a row or more you might as well bank after every question.

I wonder if banking answering every question isn't allowed? I've never seen it done before.

It’s always been allowed in the past and it would over complicate things to now allow it now.

On the UK version it’s only really worth doing on the final round when the questions are the most difficult and every is going to be tripled anyway.

You’ve also got to bare in mind, that contestants are different people so will make decisions.
Last edited by Jon on 23 September 2020 7:14pm
JO
jordanhowell
Paul Farrer premiering a section of cues from his remake of the original Weakest Link soundtrack on YouTube next week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJtu4nBhkHo
RO
rob Founding member
Here's the first round...



bilky asko, Jonwo and DeMarkay gave kudos
CH
Charles
This actually looks pretty good. Who knows how long this will stick, but I'd bet it'll last longer than the original NBC version. Jane Lynch is well-known and liked, and it looks like she'll be able to strike a good balance between being snarky but approachable.

All the US networks scrambled to try to replicate the success of Millionaire on ABC, and none of them ever really panned out. Fox had Greed with Chuck Woolery, and CBS briefly tried Winning Lines with Dick Clark.

NBC originally did a reboot of Twenty One with Maury Povich, which flopped. Perhaps the biggest mistake they later made with the Weakest Link was Anne Robinson. Anne was an unknown in the US, and then NBC overexposed her before the show even started with a splashy ad campaign and interviews on almost every show treating her like she was the biggest celebrity in the world.

The show promised high expectations, but her style just was never right. I never understood her appeal or the show's appeal until a few years later I saw the original UK version on Youtube. She was much better in a place where people knew her and where the audience was more accustomed to her humor. I also think the show is much better without a distracting studio audience. If the shoe were on the other foot – if we sent you our most garish American host to present an overhyped game show – it probably would face a similar fate.

The syndicated version with George Gray was even worse, though somehow it lasted a little longer. The show I guess did have a cultural impact, and I bet people will remember it.
JO
Jon
I think what the Americans (broadcasters) didn’t understand one of the reasons one of this for the instant success of The Weakest Link here was that Anne was known here and that persona took to people by surprise. In the US there wasn’t that element of people being taken aback because Anne had already been painted as this strict character before anyone had scene the show. If they wanted to replicate the success the show had here a better route to go down would be to have got an unassuming known American personality and took but that audience by surprise in the same way.
JO
Jonwo
Was Anne’s personality that surprising though? I assume many sort of expected it due to how she was on Watchdog.

It’s weird that the Americans didn’t take to Anne but were able to accept Simon Cowell.
JA
JAS84
TV Tropes even credits him as being to blame for the Mean Brit trope. Anne is listed as an example though.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheMeanBrit
CH
Charles
Jonwo posted:
It’s weird that the Americans didn’t take to Anne but were able to accept Simon Cowell.


They came into the public eye under very different circumstances. NBC overhyped Anne and the Weakest Link before the show even debuted. They were booking her on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Today Show when she was still completely unknown. It seemed somewhat alienating that she was given this mega star treatment when nobody knew who she was, much less even liked her.

Simon Cowell's rise was a little more organic given that American Idol started out with a much lower profile and lower expectations. Fox barely even went ahead with the first season and then it became a surprise hit. Simon also had the delightful Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson as foils every step of the way to temper some of his bitterness.
BH
BillyH Founding member
Yep, quite a bit of online reaction to the first series of American Idol was all about "that British guy" and how he makes the show worth watching, it grew a lot more naturally. In the UK The Weakest Link simply started on daytime BBC Two in the middle of the summer holidays with little publicity and by the autumn school term everyone was talking about it.

I remember a documentary shown on the BBC about the show moving to the US, complete with outtakes of Anne telling contestants they'd won x-thousand pounds, only to abruptly correct herself to dollars.
SW
Steve Williams
Yep, quite a bit of online reaction to the first series of American Idol was all about "that British guy" and how he makes the show worth watching, it grew a lot more naturally. In the UK The Weakest Link simply started on daytime BBC Two in the middle of the summer holidays with little publicity and by the autumn school term everyone was talking about it.

I remember a documentary shown on the BBC about the show moving to the US, complete with outtakes of Anne telling contestants they'd won x-thousand pounds, only to abruptly correct herself to dollars.


The US version seemed very exciting because it felt quite a big thing for a little British quiz show to go to America, and Anne Robinson to come with it who we'd all seen on telly for many years. It was such big news that as well as the documentary, BBC1 showed the first US episode only a few days after it had been on in America, unscheduled one afternoon. Actually they showed quite a few of the early US episodes in the breaks between new episodes of the UK version, but the novelty wore off quite quickly.

As you say, it started very quietly. In fact it started the day after The People Versus had begun on ITV which had been massively hyped as the next Millionaire, and I don't think many people thought that of the two shows starting within 24 hours, the unheralded teatime BBC2 show would become a national talking point and worldwide hit and the big budget primetime ITV show would be a huge flop. But it took off really quickly, by the end of September everyone was talking about it, although it was helped by ITV having recently lost Home and Away, so they were flailing around a bit, and during the Olympics Neighbours was off air for two weeks as well. Then by the end of October it was in primetime, although it turned out to be very useful for BBC1 as that was when the news moved to ten but all the dramas were still fifty minutes long, and having a forty minute show in The Weakest Link was very helpful.

The show promised high expectations, but her style just was never right. I never understood her appeal or the show's appeal until a few years later I saw the original UK version on Youtube. She was much better in a place where people knew her and where the audience was more accustomed to her humor. I also think the show is much better without a distracting studio audience. If the shoe were on the other foot – if we sent you our most garish American host to present an overhyped game show – it probably would face a similar fate.


Well, that sort of happened in 2002 when the Beeb bought The Chair from NBC, and the original host came with it in John McEnroe. Of course we all knew John McEnroe already, and it wasn't his fault that it wasn't a success on either side of the Atlantic, it was a flawed and boring format. But I did enjoy watching John chatting with the contestants about their hobbies and where they lived, much as I like listening to him garbling British place names when he does the Wimbledon phone-ins on 5 Live.

I can't agree it worked best without an audience, mind, the primetime ones with the audience often ended up being the most entertaining as it was more obviously played for laughs and everyone knew it, and the audience laughter was infectious and you'd even get Anne smiling and laughing throughout.

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