I usually watch every new game show at least once but The Wall was on for close to a year before I even knew it existed. Why? Because it's on NBC and I watch almost nothing on NBC on my TV set. What I do watch on that network — highlights of Seth Meyers' show and occasionally Jimmy Fallon's — I watch on YouTube. So I never saw a commercial for The Wall and I missed any mentions of it on the 'net.
If you haven't seen it, it works like this: They bring on two contestants who have some sort of bond between them — they're best buddies or they're related — and who are extraordinary people who have done good things for the world and/or each other. The show spends a lot of time telling you how extraordinary they are and what good people they are and how much they love each other. And when the show isn't telling us how much they love each other, the contestants are telling us how much they love each other.
Sometimes, it has a very rehearsed feel and sometimes it sounds spontaneous. I suspect it's all sincere but that the players have been seriously coached to present all that sincerity in a way that will work better on television. Some of them — well aware they've been given the opportunity to maybe go home as millionaires — are probably trying way too hard to give the producers what they want.
The game itself involves a giant Plinko board and dropping red balls and green balls into its slots. When a green ball goes into a slot, the players win the amount of money associated with that slot. When a red ball goes in, the players lose that amount. Since the amounts escalate throughout the show and near the end, one slot is worth a million dollars, it is literally possible to win a million one minute and lose it the next.
Most players at one point rack up a total of well into seven figures but most do not keep all of it. A few keep none of it. So it's often an hour of wild mood swings.
Most of the ball-dropping is done by one contestant while his or her loved one is off in isolation, racking up bucks by answering questions. Then that person in isolation is given a contract which says that their team will accept the prize money they've accumulated answering questions plus what they won in the first ball dropping. They can do that and take home that amount or they can tear it up and accept the unknown-to-them amount that their partner has won on The Wall. So it's kind of a question of "How much do you trust your partner's luck?" Most of the time, they seem to tear up the contract.
In each show's finale, the player who was in isolation is brought out to go face-to-face with their partner and tell them whether or not they tore up the contract. But first, they make a little speech to their partner about how they love them and trust them and their lives would be worthless without them. Then they fake out their partners and this is where things sound almost scripted to me. If they tore up the contract, they have to start speaking about why they decided to sign it…so for a moment, everyone thinks they did. But then they make a switch and reveal that they tore it up after all and they're really, really unsure if that was the right thing to do.
Or it sometimes works the other way: They start telling their partner about how they love them and trust them and their lives would be worthless without them and then they start speaking about why they tore it up and then they do the switcheroo and reveal that they signed it instead. Then their partner makes a speech about how they love them and trust them and their lives would be worthless without them before revealing how they did on The Wall.
On one recent episode, there was a father/daughter team. The father, sent off to isolation, had to choose between accepting "the guarantee" — which he thought might be around $35,000 but was actually around $95,000 — or tearing up the contract and accepting what his daughter had won on The Wall. He had no way of knowing if that amount was more or less than the guarantee. For all he knew, it could have been zero.
Before I go any further, here's the clip of the finale…
It's kind of a strange situation where, if they'd left with $35,000 or even $95,000, he and his daughter would have been regarded as losers. I can remember the day when winning ten grand on The $10,000 Pyramid seemed like all the money in the world…and it's not just inflation that has changed the definition of Big Bucks on game shows. The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! all now occasionally dispense prizes that make the prizes dispensed on earlier versions of those shows look like a case of Turtle Wax and a copy of the home game. They have to to keep up with the trend.
Anyway, as you just saw if the video embed is still there and you clicked on it, the father made his speech about how much he loved her, no matter what the outcome, then he made his speech that made it sound like he'd signed the contract and accepted the 95 thou on their behalf…then he finally said, "I tore it up."
They cut to the other daughter in the audience — the who hadn't come onstage and dropped balls — and that daughter reacted a bit (quietly) because she now knew they'd won the $1.4 million. The daughter onstage knew too but she had to remain expressionless. I can't think of any other game show in history where if you won mega-money, you had to not show emotion for a minute or two. She had to deliver her little "I love you, no matter what" speech first. It actually makes that winning moment more meaningful.
If you think Big Money game shows are stupid or contrived or you resent the emotional roller coaster they put you and the players through, it could be agony. I'm fine with that if it seems genuine and there's enough on The Wall that seems genuine that I'm watching it. I occasionally fast-forward through some of the padding but I am watching it. It works for me in a way that most of these shows don't and one big reason I haven't mentioned yet is its host, Chris Hardwick.
He's real good. Real, real good. I liked him on @Midnight and I like him here because he's a person hosting a game show instead of playing the role of Game Show Host.
Unlike most in that job description, he doesn't seem to be reciting lines that were drilled into him and doesn't seem to believe that the show is about him. He's either a darn good actor or he really cares about the contestants and he has a way of saying just the right thing when, as often happens on this program, things don't turn out the way anyone would have liked. He's also sometimes pretty funny but he knows when not to be.
Years ago when I was working with Dick Clark, I was brought into a meeting about a game show proposal. The proposal never went very far but at one point, they were discussing potential hosts and Dick, who was a terrific game show host himself, vetoed one suggestion. I'll change the name of the suggested host to Johnny Giveaway and what Dick said was, "You don't want him. Instead of servicing the game, he'll spend every minute in front of the camera trying to turn it into The Johnny Giveaway Show."
The host of The Wall is wise enough not to do this…which is one reason I suspect we'll soon see The Chris Hardwick Show. Until then, I'm going to watch The Wall, occasionally throttling through with the FF button.