Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The latest tear-jerker

kw: popular culture, tv shows, game shows

Last evening my wife and I watched ABC's new game show You Deserve It, mainly out of curiosity. My friends know I need three hankies at a two-hanky movie, so I kept a box of tissues handy in anticipation: the trailers showed plenty of tearful moments, and I figured I'd follow suit. I did. (My wife, on the other hand, is puzzled why I cry when I am happy or touched.)

A young woman won more than $110,000 on behalf of a friend, a young widow who has fallen on hard times. She had her own family there to support her, though they were not allowed to help her with the clues. It works like this: at each level you start with an amount of potential winnings, such as $50,000. You have to buy clues, and the amounts are random. You hope for low cost clues. If you buy every clue, you wind up with nothing. This contestant did pretty well. If you were to buy no clues, you could win more than $450,000. She did well to win about a quarter of that.

Because of the surprise factor involved, I reckon that all the episodes for this season have been taped already. ABC is trolling for more contestants, and I expect they'll get enough ratings for this show to continue for a few more seasons. Its first episode was warm-hearted enough, as we enter the holiday season, to keep plenty of viewers tearfully happy through the end of the year at least.

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