The Million Second Quiz
Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2013 11:22 am
I wish I could have posted about this when it was going on, but did anyone watch The Million Second Quiz on NBC a few weeks ago?
It was a very intriguing and unique event. Pretty complex, but very simply put (not to be confused with briefly put, because even simplified it takes a lot to explain) it was a nonstop 24 hours a day quiz that lasted for one million seconds, or eleven days. The format was a one on one bout with the winner taking over, or remaining in if they were already there, the money chair. The player in the chair accumulated money at $10 a second until they lost a bout. When they lost if their total was one of the top four accumulated in the run of the contest thus far they retired to Winner’s Row, an area on set where the top four players lived until someone pushed them out. This went on nonstop, livestreamed online for people to follow along, until once a night when the show was on tv for an hour. Things were slightly different then, because instead of just head to head bouts there was a new feature, the Winner’s Defense. This was when one of the four people on Winner’s Row had to return to the game to challenge the player currently in the money chair. If they won, they took the chair back and started adding to their total again. If they lost, they were out of the game because the challenger got all their money, and stayed in the chair to continue earning money on top of it. Also new to the time the contest was on tv was a bout against a line jumper. See, the people competing in the bouts are people that simply went down to the set and got in line. As people lost the line moved on and the people moved through. But while this was all going on, there was an app people could download to play along from anywhere in the country. Once a night one of the top players on the app was selected to fly to the set and be a line jumper on the next night’s show, getting to go into a bout without having to wait on set.
There was some more to it, but that’s the main idea. It was really interesting to watch, I’ve never seen anything like it. Now, there were multiple things about the format that made it unfair. Mostly concerning changes in format while the tv slot was on, such as the person in the money chair now getting free breaks for commercials where they continued earning money, and more obviously the Winner’s Defense bout. Here someone who randomly happened to be in the chair during the right hour of the day got a chance to take over all the money one of the top players earned, whereas everyone else playing had to earn everything on their own knowledge and endurance, this person got a huge advantage. Not only did they get all the money, but it was what getting that money did. Because they took the money from one of the top four, that made them become one of the top four. Which makes no sense, because the point of being the Power Player (the member on Winner’s Row who chose which of the four to send to the Winner’s Defense bout) gets diminished that way. The idea should be to send the person you think will lose, so the counter starts over and you get competition out of the way. But since the amount doesn’t clear, it just gets moved to a different person, you don’t actually get any room out of it. And that also makes it increasingly difficult for future players to get into Winner’s Row because the total needed to be in the top four will never go down.
But despite all these obvious flaws, I still enjoyed it very much and it really enthralled me. I’m sure the creators realized these problems as well, but they didn’t care because it didn’t have to be completely fair, it just had to be interesting. It was just a gimmick, a two-week-only attention grabber. The point was the idea: a round-the-clock nationwide event.
It was a very intriguing and unique event. Pretty complex, but very simply put (not to be confused with briefly put, because even simplified it takes a lot to explain) it was a nonstop 24 hours a day quiz that lasted for one million seconds, or eleven days. The format was a one on one bout with the winner taking over, or remaining in if they were already there, the money chair. The player in the chair accumulated money at $10 a second until they lost a bout. When they lost if their total was one of the top four accumulated in the run of the contest thus far they retired to Winner’s Row, an area on set where the top four players lived until someone pushed them out. This went on nonstop, livestreamed online for people to follow along, until once a night when the show was on tv for an hour. Things were slightly different then, because instead of just head to head bouts there was a new feature, the Winner’s Defense. This was when one of the four people on Winner’s Row had to return to the game to challenge the player currently in the money chair. If they won, they took the chair back and started adding to their total again. If they lost, they were out of the game because the challenger got all their money, and stayed in the chair to continue earning money on top of it. Also new to the time the contest was on tv was a bout against a line jumper. See, the people competing in the bouts are people that simply went down to the set and got in line. As people lost the line moved on and the people moved through. But while this was all going on, there was an app people could download to play along from anywhere in the country. Once a night one of the top players on the app was selected to fly to the set and be a line jumper on the next night’s show, getting to go into a bout without having to wait on set.
There was some more to it, but that’s the main idea. It was really interesting to watch, I’ve never seen anything like it. Now, there were multiple things about the format that made it unfair. Mostly concerning changes in format while the tv slot was on, such as the person in the money chair now getting free breaks for commercials where they continued earning money, and more obviously the Winner’s Defense bout. Here someone who randomly happened to be in the chair during the right hour of the day got a chance to take over all the money one of the top players earned, whereas everyone else playing had to earn everything on their own knowledge and endurance, this person got a huge advantage. Not only did they get all the money, but it was what getting that money did. Because they took the money from one of the top four, that made them become one of the top four. Which makes no sense, because the point of being the Power Player (the member on Winner’s Row who chose which of the four to send to the Winner’s Defense bout) gets diminished that way. The idea should be to send the person you think will lose, so the counter starts over and you get competition out of the way. But since the amount doesn’t clear, it just gets moved to a different person, you don’t actually get any room out of it. And that also makes it increasingly difficult for future players to get into Winner’s Row because the total needed to be in the top four will never go down.
But despite all these obvious flaws, I still enjoyed it very much and it really enthralled me. I’m sure the creators realized these problems as well, but they didn’t care because it didn’t have to be completely fair, it just had to be interesting. It was just a gimmick, a two-week-only attention grabber. The point was the idea: a round-the-clock nationwide event.