Review: Sherri Shepherd's TNG & GSN's 1 Vs. 100

Review: Sherri Shepherd's TNG & GSN's 1 Vs. 100
Originally posted: November 19, 2010

Text by: Cyndi Seidelman

The GSN machine has given us some good stuff over the past 12 months, but they've also given us some downright dreadful programming (I.E. Carnie Wilson: Unbearable & new induction Hidden Agenda). So, when you get a new offering or change from GSN, then you're usually weary on how bad they are going to mess it up. With that said, both The Newlywed Game and 1 Vs. 100 have been ratings winners for them. For The Newlywed Game, Carnie quit. So, much to the delight of the people that thought she sucked hard and often, her role was filled in by Sherri Shepherd from The View. For the 1 Vs. 100 front, it's an outright revival from GSN. How well did it come out? Well, let's find out for both shows.

The Newlywed Game: It's basically the same format as before, but in certain episodes they give out a prize for the couple that is leading at the end of Round 1 in the form of a nice piece of jewelry. The major change is the host in Sherri Shepherd. Now, while Carnie was someone who was all happy-go-lucky & wanted to be everybody's perverted pudgy friend, Sherri Shepherd is a very funny and perfect instigator when it comes to couple's disagreeing and stirring the pot. Not only that, she's a great conduit in keeping the game moving. It also seems like the show flows smoother and better with Sherri instead of Carnie. However, although we had a major host upgrade, we got a major announcer downgrade. Randy West didn't make the trek to New York to do the announcing. Instead, we have an old host in the announcing booth with Gary Kroeger. I don't know what happened to his voice over the past 7 years or so, but he sounds a lot different and he lost all of his old announcing chops he had when doing the 2001 abortion of Card Sharks and Whammy. Anyways, it's a minor gripe. The show is now better than it was a few months ago and is now worth watching a lot more than it was.

Grade: B

1 Vs. 100: Pretty much it can be summed up in 4 words: Great Show, Crappy Host. For GSN standards, this has to be one of the best looking sets they've ever done. It's flashy, it's stylish and it's quite fun to look at. In the network version, there was 100 human beings going up against 1 human being all in the same studio. Well, for GSN it's 1 live person going up against 100 people using their webcams and playing in some undisclosed location, which is fine. I mean, the prize budget per each episode is only $50,000 compared to $1,000,000 in the network show. Plus, the big screen that houses them is great to look at too, so that gets a pass as well. The gameplay has the first network season of questioning with the second season payoff structure, so it's the best of both worlds so to speak. Based on looks and gameplay alone, it's probably the best that GSN has done in awhile.
However, that gets flushed down the toilet thanks to the abysmal hosting of Carrie Ann Inaba. She's a great judge on Dancing with the Stars & a decent actress from what I remember her in, mainly as Fook Yu in the third Austin Powers movie. But on the show, she's about as annoying as Carnie Wilson, except with a much hotter body. The way she goes about saying her lines and the usual 1 vs. 100 makes her sound like a total tool-box. What makes it worse is that she says her "Do You want the money or the Mob?" line, but then after 5 or so seconds, she immediately tosses it to commercial without any warning whatsoever. I don't know if that's her fault or the producer's fault, but the way she goes about it, it seems like it's her mess-up. She also doesn't really have a good voice for the game, mainly going about screaming her lines and whatnot or not having any passion for reading the questions. So, what could have been a great flagship for GSN has been thwarted by a horrific host.

Grade: C (Averaged out from an A format & a failure of a host)

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