Friend or Foe

First of all. Nearly every contestant is pretty much a half step from being a prison inmate. The show actually seeks out and finds people that are unethical or criminal in nature. One of the contests was introduced as a guy that stole his mother's car. Another won $2,000 by stealing raffle tickets. I only wish I was joking about this. There is no one that you wish to win, you hope they all lose. They are all some of the biggest lowlifes in the country.

As if this weren't bad enough, they get yet another chance to prove what lowlifes they are at the "Trust Box". The money that each team wins is somewhat up for grabs. Each member of a team stands on the side of the trust box to play a sort of twisted rock, paper, scissors type game. Each of the two people from the team chooses either "Friend" or "Foe". Here's how this works...

If they both think they trust each other they would both choose "Friend". They would then split the team money and each of them would take half home.

If neither thinks they can trust the other they would both choose "Foe". When this happens, they both screw each other and no one gets anything.

Now comes the worst. If they both appear to trust each other and one of them chooses "Friend" and the other chooses "Foe" then the person who voted "Friend" gets nothing. Nada, zilch, zippo. The person who voted "Foe" goes home with the entire wad of cash.

Sound bad? It's a lot worse watching it.

Trust me there's no redeeming quality to this piece of crap excuse for a show. Avoid it at all costs.

The people in charge of Game Show Network must be almost as dumb as those in charge at CBS when "Match Game '79" was canceled. What were they thinking? This show is horrible! First, the hostess...who told this girl that she was capable of hosting a game show? She comes across as a cold, uncomfortable emcee. Her "funny" comments seemed forced and rehearsed. Plus, who could ever trust a Republican with the name KENNEDY?!

Now, for the show itself...worse than Kennedy! The questions are bad, and the answers are questionable. The concept is original, but still uninteresting. Any contestant who knows anything about competition would vote "Foe" all the way. There is no chance whatsoever for your "friend" to win a dime.

Save your time and watch a decent show. This isn't worth 30 minutes.

Personal Secrets Placed on the airwaves for the entire world (poeentially ) to hear? to turn the unforgiving masses against you? Speaking for myself, to coin an old cliche, "Some things are better left unsaid." Anybody who has ever been on this attrocious joke of a game show must want money pretty bad.

0* (not worth rating) out of a possible *****

Very rarely does a game show offer you one epiphanous experience equivalent to the Divine Revelation of St. John, but the game show "Friend Or Foe" has the benefit of not one, but four dramatic insights into human nature. They are as follows:

1. When mankind works together in a spirit of harmony, the mutual reward produces not only material gain, but the feeling of trusting your fellow man.

2. That the world is made for the cunning, and in the wake of those who would deceive, the innocent are caught in their snares and left to languish with the dull-eyed feeling of their own stupidity to warm them. Soon, they return hardened with the lessons of life to make them wiser.

3. Ultimately mutual destruction will beset those who seek to destroy each other, leaving a void of broken dreams to punish those who would do harm to their brother for mutual betrayal leads only to a burden for the wicked.

But the fourth and most important revelation. No matter how much time Viacom (owner of Game Show Network) has to burn off on a back-dated contract from MTV that they acquired in the merger, the only people who will suffer a torment as of being subjugated to horrors of hell are those who have to watch Kennedy in what is the single worst game show of the last 10 years. That includes STUDS.

So the only question you have to ask, probably about twenty minutes into this train wreck, is the following: Would the seas running red with blood really be that bad right about now?

The question-and-answer sessions were pretty interesting sometimes, and the final question-and-answer round was fun to watch. It was these question-and-answer sessions that really made the game anything interesting at all.

What ruined Friend or Foe was the Trust Box round. Both contestants in each Trust Box round can vote Friend or Foe. If both vote Friend, they split their pot equally. If both vote Foe, they both get nothing. But if one votes Friend and the other votes Foe, the Foe gets the entire pot and the friend gets nothing.

It happened a good 99% of the time, where both contestants in each Trust Box round would state syrupy cases on why they should both vote Friend, then stand there giving each other unbearably fake and cheesy smiles, and then Kennedy reveals their choice and they both voted Foe and go away with nothing. This was one game show where maybe 1% of the contestants actually won a single dime... even the winning two contestants because they both give ridiculously fake smiles and both vote Foe. Of the 1% where any Friend votes were given, it was 90% Friend - Foe and only 10% Friend - Friend. As Carmen-5 said, double Friend votes happened but they were so rare you could count them on one hand. Even Friend - Foe votes were uncommon as too many people were greedy.

This show had a short run because so precious few of its contestants ever took home any winnings whatsoever. The question-and-answer rounds made the game, but the Trust Box rounds broke it. Almost nobody wanted to share, and as a result, both got nothing... not even plane fare home. There was no element of luck here... it was all a matter of trust and greed. Trust was in short supply, greed was abundant. Friend or Foe was a reasonably good idea that was ruined by Aesop's fable of the dog with a steak that saw its reflection in the water. After too many dogs grabbed for the others' steak and ended up with no steak, all the other dogs got the message and walked away from the pond.