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

And now, finally, here is the third of the basic principles I prefer to follow when working on a new game show project:

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:

1) "Greed": What always bothered me about Greed was the "Terminator", which allowed a random member of the group to attempt to steal another group member's share of the potential winnings for a guaranteed $10,000...which the group member almost invariably took advantage of, which is why the show's producers eventually had to stop referring to them as a "team." Why do the players do it? It seems logical that a group would stand a better chance of answering the increasingly difficult four-part questions with more brains working together on them. Also, every player who auditions to be a contestant on Greed is there for the same reason: they want (or in some cases, need) to win a significant sum of money. No one person is less deserving of this opportunity than another, so there's no real reason to deprive them of that chance just to enrich one's self. But that's the point, isn't it? A person who chooses to take that $10,000 can only be thinking of one of two things: (1) if the group goes on to answer the question correctly, that player will end up with at least twice as much money as all of the other participants, (2) if the group goes on to answer the question incorrectly, and/or the player ends up losing the Terminator...at least that person has the guaranteed $10,000, even if all of the other group members end up with nothing. Either way, the only reason why anyone would use the Terminator is if that player is thinking only of his/herself...and couldn't care less about any of the other group members he/she is supposed to be joining forces with. Basically, it's selfishness...and it's a human trait that no game show should ever cater to. While I personally enjoyed the challenge of the four-part multiple-choice questions, I hated watching people use the Terminator practically every time...knowing exactly why they did it. Perhaps this is one of the main reasons "Greed" went off the air after only one season. I certainly can't say I'm sorry....

(sigh) Looks like this post is getting very long. I have much more to say on this topic, so stay tuned for my next post where I hope to finish this without having to divide what's left into two more posts....