Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.
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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is TMP Television Edition - Game Shows
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The Weakest Link (2000 - 2017)
The original British The Weakest Link of course. This was shown on one of the BBC channels and unfortunately the show has ended after the host retired. The game has nine contestants taking turns answering questions within a time limit and at the end of each round the contestants vote the weakest contestamt out of the game. I love this quiz show. The questions come at a rapid fire speed with contestants having to answer quickly and correctly because how much the eventual winner gets depend on how many correct answers they all answer without breaking the chain of correct answers in each round. So basically this game show has very little pointless chatting. And it's quite funny too with the sharp snarky remarks the host usually makes at the contestants trying to unnerve them after each round.
Jeopardy! (1984 - )
The original American Jeopardy. While I've known about this game show for a long time since it is often reference in pop culture, I never knew it is a quiz show because I don't think this was ever shown on the local channels at least ever since I started watching game shows and I started young. Perhaps they used to show it in the 80s and maybe it didn't quite catch possibly because local audiences didn't really have that much fun trying to play along and answer questions that are so clearly geared towards American and Canadian contestants/audiences. So anyway I finally got to see it when Netflix started streaming it about two years ago and it was mostly the special tournaments, how I wish they would show whole seasons. This has now become my absolute favourite game show. Like the Weakest Link this too goes through the clues very quickly. I love the wordplay often used in the clues. It is so much fun and challenging. Seriously where else can I use my completely useless general knowledge, only for quiz shows such as this of course...Jeopardy makes me feels smart which is not often. And I'm always astonished when I get the answers correctly and none of the contestants do. They don't have picture clues often but there was once a WWII picture clue where they had to identify a historical figure, it was obviously Patton, I think there was even a tank in it and if I remember correctly none of the contestants buzzed in, no one even tried...I was so surprised. Anyway my favourite categories are literature, world history, TV, movies and general pop culture. Bad categories for me are American geography, American politics and worst is American sports, I know absolutely nothing about American football or baseball.
I grew up watching game shows like Wheel of Fortune and The Price is Right since they get a lot of airtime on the local channels and they are simple enough for a kid to play along. But the ones I really love now are the quiz show ones, the ones that are challenging and preferably with little pointless chatting...I'm looking at you Who Wants to be a Millionaire...I mean just answer the question already, you either know the answer or don't...don't ponder over it for 5 minutes. Unfortunately the local channels don't really show a lot of these quiz shows because I'm guessing most of them are American and British quiz shows where the questions are very much geared towards their American and British contestants and audiences, so local audiences here don't really have that much fun playing along. Hence most of the great quiz shows can only be seen on cable TV and now Netflix. Here are my favourites:
The Chase (2009 - )
The original British The Chase of course. We used to get UK's ITV channel here but the cable operator have since stop airing the channel which is a pity so I have yet to see the newer seasons. The game is basically contestants competing against a professional quizzer "the chaser" who tries to prevent them from getting the cash prize. Contestants are given answer options so in that regard it is little like Who Wants to be a Millionaire and it is quite chatty too but overall I would say less annoying. The only minus I would say is that sometimes I think the Chaser is not trying hard enough since they have less stakes.The Weakest Link (2000 - 2017)
The original British The Weakest Link of course. This was shown on one of the BBC channels and unfortunately the show has ended after the host retired. The game has nine contestants taking turns answering questions within a time limit and at the end of each round the contestants vote the weakest contestamt out of the game. I love this quiz show. The questions come at a rapid fire speed with contestants having to answer quickly and correctly because how much the eventual winner gets depend on how many correct answers they all answer without breaking the chain of correct answers in each round. So basically this game show has very little pointless chatting. And it's quite funny too with the sharp snarky remarks the host usually makes at the contestants trying to unnerve them after each round.
Jeopardy! (1984 - )
The original American Jeopardy. While I've known about this game show for a long time since it is often reference in pop culture, I never knew it is a quiz show because I don't think this was ever shown on the local channels at least ever since I started watching game shows and I started young. Perhaps they used to show it in the 80s and maybe it didn't quite catch possibly because local audiences didn't really have that much fun trying to play along and answer questions that are so clearly geared towards American and Canadian contestants/audiences. So anyway I finally got to see it when Netflix started streaming it about two years ago and it was mostly the special tournaments, how I wish they would show whole seasons. This has now become my absolute favourite game show. Like the Weakest Link this too goes through the clues very quickly. I love the wordplay often used in the clues. It is so much fun and challenging. Seriously where else can I use my completely useless general knowledge, only for quiz shows such as this of course...Jeopardy makes me feels smart which is not often. And I'm always astonished when I get the answers correctly and none of the contestants do. They don't have picture clues often but there was once a WWII picture clue where they had to identify a historical figure, it was obviously Patton, I think there was even a tank in it and if I remember correctly none of the contestants buzzed in, no one even tried...I was so surprised. Anyway my favourite categories are literature, world history, TV, movies and general pop culture. Bad categories for me are American geography, American politics and worst is American sports, I know absolutely nothing about American football or baseball.
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Jeopardy! is the only I've heard of but I've never watched it.
ReplyDeleteIf it's on Netflix, you should give it a try.
DeleteWe match with The Weakest Link. It's probably my favourite of all time. So good, so entertaining. Just amazing! Wouldn't work without the original host in my opinion, she was amazing!
ReplyDeleteThe original host is amazing, but I do wish they tried to get a new host...you know maybe have guest hosts, before Anne Robinson had fully retired so they got a feel who worked best as a replacement.
DeleteI didn’t even hear about your first pick but I did like The Weakest Link but it didn’t last long here on regular tv. Jeopardy is a great show that so many watch and who doesn’t love Alex Trebek a great Canadian. I suck at anything sports or if they do puns or science. I am shocked no one knew Patton.
ReplyDeleteWas there a Canadian Weakest Link? I knew there was an American version which was very short lived.
DeleteOh yes the homophones Jeopardy categories are fun.
I'm loving all the non-US game shows popping up this week! I love Jeopardy and use to play along at home. I'd keep track of how much money I won and lost. LOL
ReplyDeleteI've never tried keeping track of the money. I didn't think there was much time to. Especially with the Tournament of Champions games where the contestants go through all the questions very quickly.
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