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Reviews: It's Worth What & Family Brainsurge
Originally posted: July 22, 2011
Text by: Cyndi
Seidelman
The game show world was busy cranking out a
couple new shows for us to enjoy over the summer while the stalwards are
on vacation and GSN giving us a new series of Baggage and Lingo to tide
us over until they run out of new episodes and air the remaining 65
episodes from The Newlywed Game's 5th Season in September, probably in
conjunction with either a new show or more episodes of either Catch 21,
1 Vs. 100, Lingo or maybe even something new. But NBC and Nickelodeon
decided to air two new game shows in It's Worth What and Family
Brainsurge. Here are the reviews for both new shows. Have any questions about the site? Submit them to us
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be sure to answer them to the very best of our ability. (c) 2009-2017 - A CQS Production.
It's Worth What?: The short explanation for this show is that it takes
the Price Is Right, and instead of using current items, they use
artifacts and have them priced, then have the team of two who have
connections about as flimsy as the ones on Lingo or from the last 2
series of Bullseye UK Flavor play games either directly on the Price Is
Right or on other Goodson/Todman properties, to make money and
potentially win up to $1,000,000. The game itself is solid, but
uninspired at the same time, especially when they're all just variants
on a theme, mainly from Price's One Right Price or Double Prices games.
However, the game itself does have some flaws, mainly they could fall on
Cedric himself. He's a good comedian, but his schtick on the show gets
old fast, especially him creating the worst catchphrase in current game
show history with "Are You Sure-Sure that's what you want to go with?"
He does seem to care, but the audience at the end of the show doesn't.
Since when they toss to break after a game, Cedric and the contestants
yell It's Worth What, in the same vein as Break the Bank 85 when Joe
Farago was hosting. The bonus round is a weird variant on TPIR's Step Up
Bonus game mixed with Poker Game. However, there are positives in the
fact that there are no stupid cliffhanger commercial breaks that plague
most primetime game shows, and even some daytime shows like Don't Forget
the Lyrics and 1 Vs. 100. And the set looks really good, so that's a
plus. Aside from that, I don't see this show lasting beyond the summer.
If it does, I'll be shocked.
Grade: C
Family Brainsurge: If you know how Brainsurge works, you know how Family
Brainsurge works. They didn't change up any of the rules and that's a
good thing. However, they did shrink the amount of teams from 6 to 5.
Which isn't that bad, since there are now 10 people up on stage now.
Jeff Suthpen is still his great self as the host, however the names of
the rounds have finally been given names instead of just Level 1, 2, and
3. Now, Level 1 is called Braintease, Level 2 is called Brainfart and
Level 3 appropriately enough is called Braintrip. I also like the fact
that the prizes have also received an upgrade as well. Instead of Slime
Buckets and a video game, the departing contestants get a Digital Camera
& Printer, Ping Pong tables, among other stuff that would normally be
given away in the bonus round. The trips at the end are bigger and
better as well, instead of trips to like San Diego and Las Vegas, we get
trips to Orlando, the Caribbean among other fun items for the 4x4 and
5x5. Even though the announcing is a non-factor on the show, I think the
switching to John Cramer is a good one. This is one of my favorite game
shows currently on the air and it's appointment viewing.
Grade: A