The premise of Million Dollar Money Drop is interesting. A telegenic couple is brought out--usually a married couple but frequently two friends--and introduced as "America's newest millionaires." They're presented with $1,000,000.00 in twenty dollar bills wrapped in $20,000.00 bundles. They give their little story and are told that the million dollars is theirs, but in order to take it home, they have to answer a series of some eight multiple choice questions. They must place all of their money on answers, and leave at least one answer, or "drop zone" empty.
After time has expired, tension is raised until the drop zones under incorrect answers are released, and the money falls down into fifteen-foot-deep chambers. At the last question is either "A" or "B", and the contestants must risk all their money.
I love game shows. I've been watching Jeopardy my entire life, and I religiously follow shows like Top Chef and So You Think You Can Dance. Even shows like Cash Cab have their appeal. But there's a difference between Million Dollar Money Drop and these other programs: contestants cannot win money, they can only lose it.
It's an important distinction. On a traditional game show, the viewer audience is always on the side of the contestant, or a contestant. We are cheering for them to win the game. At our worst moments, we may be cheering for an opponent to lose, but the viewer always has a champion. What Million Dollar Money Drop has occasioned is the game show that's entirely voyeuristic. The home viewer may have the answer to the question (or believe they do), but after the minute or 75 seconds for answering the question has elapsed, the audience is treated to an interminable amount of time watching the contestants squirm over their lack of knowledge on some general question. America's newest millionaires never occupy that rarefied air for long.
Last night presented a common example: a young married couple, the husband a Marine who met his bride at a "Welcome Back from Iraq" party, were faced with the question of who appears on the U.S. dime: John F. Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Frankin Roosevelt, or Benjamin Franklin. They decided to put all their money on Thomas Jefferson. In the 60 seconds provided, the audience is treated to the frequently aimless ramblings of the contestants while they pile money on this or that drop zone. This young couple (two kids at home who "miss their daddy very much when he's away on deployment") put all their money on Thomas Jefferson.
Anyone who has a dime in their pocket already knows the answer. But the producers throw the program to commercial while we consider their sealed fate. The program's host then keeps the couple in suspense for two minutes or more after the return. When their answer is revealed to be false, their new fortune--all of it--falls away from sight in the blink of an eye. What the viewer is left with is the embrace of a couple who watched literally years of income disappear.
FOX has a reputation of course for game shows that push the edges of decency. Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire was the beginning, but more insidious and loathsome was Moment of Truth, where a contestant was forced to answer uncomfortable questions about their past live in front of family, friends, and co-workers. But this is different.
In a show like Deal or No Deal, there is always the opportunity for the contestant to win more than is available to her. The offer from the "Banker" is always less than what's still available to them on the board. Only in Million Dollar Money Drop can the contestants only lose.
It's good that Million Dollar Money Drop isn't a hit, and likely to disappear from our television sets and consciousnesses as soon as the regular FOX schedule returns after the Super Bowl. But it may present a threshold that Americans have crossed. In this weak economy we are happy to watch others lose even more than we have in the blink of an eye. That's entertainment
