The Wall

Fantastic show, but they could cut out a lot of the talking and building suspense stuff. Great concept for a show!

"The Wall" is a game show where a married couple competes against The Wall for money. And The Wall is very impressive: 4 stories tall, a massive video display, complete with built-in cameras. The host, Chris Hardwick, says the show is designed to provide "good opportunities for good people". We might wonder how they defines "good people".

In the first four episodes, the contestants include s school teacher, two marines, a parole officer, a police officer and couple that gives free donuts to police and fire personnel. Obviously, giving service--especially in the government sector--is what makes one good. As far as I know, this is the first game show with a political/philosophical agenda.

The game-play involves dropping balls down the wall, like a giant pachinko machine, and seeing if they land in slots designated as large money amounts or smaller money amounts. You can count the number of slots and their values to determine the odds of getting big bucks or not. But some balls subtract money, making it even more a game of chance. Yes, there are (embarrassingly easy) multiple-choice trivia questions involved at some point, but they only serve to distract one from the randomness of the outcome.

The ideal contestant is someone who (besides working for the government) is not too smart, likes gambling (e.g. dice, the lottery, or slot machines), likes to be the center of attention, is overly dramatic, voices every thought, and is superstitious. Expect to see every game show cliché. Expect contestants to give inane reasons for choosing certain numbers. Expect them to talk to the balls, perhaps even kiss them. And you can definitely expect them to provide lengthy, sometimes irrelevant justifications for their trivia answers.

The first couple is from Akron. So is LeBron James, producer of the show. A coincidence? Or just a totally random outcome, like The Wall?

If you like games of skill, try "Jeopardy". If you like games of chance that last an hour, "The Wall" may be for you.

The premise is simple, the gameplay is too. I won't fault it for that. My issues with this show are that 1) The participants are all the exact same: Really stupid living saints. Meaning, while being "great" people, they obviously have lower-than-average intelligence, making their easy trivia questions way harder than they should be (I believe gameshows pick "dumb" people on purpose, to lower the prize value given away, and to make the audience at home feel "smart" by comparison), 2) For a "feel good" game show, most of the episodes end with (what I'm assuming will be) a lifetime of trauma for the contestants, when the show often ends with an individual being told by a smiling loved one that they just threw away millions of dollars. How "uplifting". 3) Cliched! Cliches galore! I really hope the 1:1 conversations were written for the contestants, it's so cheesy!

Chris Hardwick does a serviceable, if unenviable, job hosting, as he tries to piece back together the shattered psyche of his contestants, but I think he's good at that due to his years of experience (at his other job) of trying to make the most of a terrible situation (TWD).

The worst aspect of this show is that, in the end, every episode is a repeat of the last, nothing ever changes, and you forget the contestants 5 seconds after they leave the screen, meaning this show gets very boring after watching 2-3 episodes.

At the time I wrote this, there were 6 other reviews and I read them all. My favorite was by "atlasmb". I must admit, the concept for this game is intriguing -- you get money in your "game bank", you answer crappy trivia questions to hope to get more in your bank, but if you miss the answer, you have an equal chance of losing money in your bank. Then at the end of the round you have to perform an act where you can only lose money. Each time the odds of gaining or losing money are 50/50. So it's basically a demented PLINKO ripoff. The Price is Right might have a lawsuit (snicker).

Now here's the part that bugs me -- there are several phases of the game where drama is intentionally built. I'm not talking extemporaneous drama (like people just saying what's on their minds), NO, I mean scripted drama, like on your basic crappy reality show. It's all too-well rehearsed, and no amount of editing can hide that. I gave this show a 5/10 because I don't even know if this show is "real". And we'll never know...everyone involved has (no doubt) signed legal documents that if they come forward they get their pants sued off.

So welcome to the new world of reality game shows, where actors replace contestants, and life just gets more disappointing. Nice try producers, just make more Hell's Kitchens...at least Gordon makes me laugh.

This should be a half hour show. Just play. Less talk, and because they are stretching it out for an hour, the contestants end up rambling. I skip forward 30 seconds whenever they're talking. The worst parts are when the person heads to the back, and they have to talk for a minute about how much the love the other person. Then, after they come back, it's even worse. Agonizing over it and blah blah blah. I end up watching this hour show in about 20 minutes. If they have to keep it at an hour, add more questions. I don't need 30 seconds of why they chose the number 6.