The Singing Bee - 7/10

Cafe Society
21

NBC and Fox are owned by two different companies. This is just a case of attempting to mooch off the competition- kind of like how all of the networks tried doing game shows after Who Wants To Be A Millionaire became a hit.

22

Didn’t see the Singing Bee–and probably won’t because it’s on a network that comes in very poorly on my tv.

Did see Don’t Forget the Lyrics and enjoyed it. I’m not sure that I’ll make watching it a priority, and I wish someone would design a new game show not based on the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire Format”, but I enjoyed singing along with the contestant on songs I more or less knew.

I’d much rather hear someone sing who can sing (and who knows the tune) than who can’t. Besides, she’s the first contestant–I don’t find picking someone to be on the first episode to air who will do really well a bad thing.

I do wish that the next new game show to air would be more based on the Jeopardy model than the Millionaire model. Remember–more questions, better. Giving contestants helps, annoying and time consuming. Making big issues of “If you Stop now, you take home 25K, but if you keep going you could get a Million Dollars” or “If you get this wrong, you lose everything”–really, really annoying and time consuming.

23

I thought “The Singing Bee” was a train wreck - horrible, yet I could not turn away. I like that the order you were picked in could determine your fate (grossly unfair), the bee costume solid gold dancers, and the fact that the early contestants didn’t even get asked their names. The host was horrible. I will probably watch in order to point and laugh.

I actually enjoyed Don’t Forget The Lyrics - sure, the progressively harder questions with the 3 “life-lines” has been done to death, but Wayne Brady is a great host, the contestant was cute as a button, and it was a competition I could play along with at home. DFTL was miles better than TSB.

I am not surprised TSB got good 1st night ratings. It was new and different during a particularly dry summer season. I doubt people will stick around, though.