My Philosophy on Game Shows (Part 3/3, Ending)

Hey, folks. I apologize for having so many posts for this one subject...I guess I just have a lot to say about it. Anyway, I shall reiterate the third of my basic standards for a game show, and continue by discussing "Weakest Link."

3) Contestants should not be allowed to eliminate each by any means other than good old-fashioned competition. Pretty self-explanatory, right? The point of a game show (at least in my opinion) is to determine which player, or players, is the best at a particular game on a particular day. The only legitimate way to prove who is truly the best is to let them compete...cleanly and fairly. Allowing contestants to decide who should stay and who should go by their own devices ultimately allows for the darker side of human nature to emerge...in which players make the easy choice as opposed to the honorable choice. Some examples of this include:

2) "Weakest Link": Once again, while I enjoyed the challenge of playing along as I tried to "bank" more money than the players on television (many times I was successful)...what I grew to hate was the part where contestants voted for the "Weakest Link." During the early rounds, it seemed to be fine...as contestants usually picked off the teammate who really did appear to be the weakest. Unfortunately, in the later rounds of the game, teammates would start deliberately picking off the stronger players...an unmistakable, but not unpredictable, gesture of cowardice. If the whole idea is to eliminate the weakest players on the team so they have a better chance at banking the most money possible...allowing the contestants to decide who to eliminate and when just doesn't work. Why not let the audience decide who the "Weakest Link" is? They're basically neutral, and don't have any reason to do anything but pick who they believe to be the weakest player...whereas the contestants always had a vested interest in eliminating potential competition.

Fortunately, there was always a penalty for eliminating the strongest players...banking significant sums of money usually became more difficult, particularly as the time for each round continued to decrease. However, the daily version of "Weakest Link" (hosted by George Gray) did something I believe killed the production of the show for good in the U.S....they eliminated the round that came after the final vote. This basically gave the contestants the ability to freely eliminate the person they were afraid of, without any consequences in the form of the final question round. George Gray even said this to the contestants before this final vote: "The question is...who do you want to face in the final round?" (sigh) All I can say is, you will never see any such contestant elimination process in one of my games. I hated watching it, and it would go against my conscience to allow it on any game show with my name on it.

And that, folks, is the basic philosophy that goes into the design of my game shows. I believe this will make all of my games more enjoyable for the contestants, and more fun for viewers to watch. I look forward to showing you all the best ideas I can come up with. Until next time....