The old classic game Password is back on the air with a new host, Regis Philbin. There are some changes to the format, though, as the creators took some liberties with the game. The biggest change is that the show is an hour long instead of a half hour. Two contestants square off in the first half for the right to play Million Dollar Password, the new bonus game for the show. Another two contestants battle in the second half.
The game features two teams, one contestant and one celebrity on each. One person on the team gives one-word clues to the other, looking for one-word answers. They score points for each correct answer. When playing Classic Password, as they now call it, each team gets the same password to use, and the givers on each team alternate giving clues. This game is now only used as a tiebreaker.
The main game now gives each team 30 seconds to guess five passwords. Each team gets four opportunities to do this, each contestant partnering with each celebrity once each giving and receiving. The problem with this is that it spoils the skill needed to play the game. If you give a bad clue, you can just give another one. The faster your partner responds, the faster you can give another word. If you talk fast enough back and forth, it’s very easy to plan on giving two- or three- word clues, as long as your partner gives an answer between them.
Betty White has reprised her role as a celebrity, and she is very good at this game. She can get people to guess the password with only one clue quite often. Of course, it doesn’t mean as much in the current format because you can just give another.
The bonus round is played with one celebrity, and the contestant who won does not get to choose which celebrity. Instead they automatically choose the celebrity with whom the contestant scored the most points. I think this is particularly daft considering they cut off the second celebrity if your have a winning score. Why not just let the contestant choose?
The bonus round is obviously Regis Philbin’s addition to the game. It reeks of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The contestant plays six rounds, with 1:30 in each round. He can only give three clues for each word, and if he passes a word he can’t come back to it. Each round he must get five passwords correct, but the number of available passes goes down. The dollar values go up, though, and he can choose to stop at each level or keep going.
Round 1 5/10 $10,000
Round 2 5/9 $25,000
Round 3 5/8 $50,000
Round 4 5/7 $100,000
Round 5 5/6 $250,000
Round 6 5/5 $1,000,000
Once the contestant wins Round 2, he is guaranteed the $25,000 no matter what. Otherwise, he loses any money he’s earned if he doesn’t get five right. Additionally, once he gets to round 5, he gets to see the first five passwords of the round before making the decision to go on.
I was happy to see the game keep moving, though. Too many modern game shows like Deal Or No Deal, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and others, like to beat around the bush. They aren’t so much playing the game as hosting a reality game hour, where they drag out every decision and make everything into a big deal. I like how Million Dollar Password just gets in and plays the game.
I don’t like the liberties they took with the rules, though. The importance of getting it right on the first clue is completely gone. With it, I think, goes some of the unique skill that Password required.
June 14th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
There seems to be a misconception that thought, strategy, and quiet are boring. The original Password, which was introduced on Garry Moore’s show, featured two teams (contestant and celebrity) alternating, trying to guess the SAME password. They even went through up to 25 guesses before throwing out a word. It was that thoughtful, quiet, banter that made the game so fun to watch.
All subsequent versions of the game (including Password Plus and Super Password) followed the same concept for the general game, although annoyingly attempted to “speed it up” by limiting guesses to a paltry 4 – 2 for each team.
The only thing I liked about the later versions of the game was the “Alphabetics” bonus game, which added the excitement of guessing 10 words in 60 seconds.
But trying to make the whole game essentially one-on-one (losing the back-and-forth action and strategy) and adding the time pressure of the bonus round to regular play is just too much change. The original fun of the game is gone.
Heck, even the original password featured a hushed golf-type announcer saying “The Password is…” How unexciting by today’s standards!
This version of Password is tantamount to playing golf with bazookas instead of clubs – just to make the game faster. And forget the golf carts – let’s make the players run as fast as possible to get to their next shots. Wouldn’t it be great to add a sprint and shot clock to golf? That would be exciting, wouldn’t it?
But that wouldn’t be golf. And this, my friends, is NOT Password.
One more thought – if the producers think the fast paced music and timers are so critical to the show’s success, I would refer them to the hugely popular myriad of poker television programs now. Maybe that’s why they’re so popular – it is the only remaining game show genre with quiet, strategy, and competition without gimmickry.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I wanted to comment and thank the author, good stuff
August 17th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Don’t even consider choosing his clubs for him. Clubs are so individual and high end clubs do require proper fitting by a professional. Callaway, Ping and Taylor made are amongst the best but Mizuno, Hogan and Adams amongst other are good as well.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Your driver is still oversized with about 10-12 degrees of loft to maximize distance and accuracy. Shaft selections may be the most important component. You want a shaft that matches your swing speed and ball flight requirements. Perhaps a draw bias to help get the drive moving a little more right to left.Your wedges can be reconfigured. A gap wedge or a lob wedge are possibly good additions. If three wedges are your choice you may want to distribute the lofts from your PW to your LW (46, 52, 58 degrees). You may want wedges with less bounce so you can hit them off of tighter lies.