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Post by WarioSajak on Nov 6, 2016 22:09:08 GMT -5
I don't normally start show discussions around here, but given this is a brand-new daytime network game show -- only the second since Caesars Challenge ended in '94 -- I thought it deserved a bit of attention. Save to Win, which debuted yesterday (11/5/16), airs Saturdays at 11:30 AM Eastern as part of Litton Entertainment's " One Magnificent Morning" block on The CW. Hosted by Pat Neely, it's also rather obviously sponsored by Family Dollar. I'll post my thoughts on the show later, but I'm curious what you folks think of this one.
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Post by addemup on Nov 14, 2016 22:22:24 GMT -5
Not really much of a game there and obviously done on the cheap, but at least it's cool to see a game show still using the eggcrate scoring display in 2016.
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Post by WarioSajak on Nov 15, 2016 1:42:11 GMT -5
Agreed on all counts. Also, the title has literally zero to do with the gameplay (unless it's "you win if you save up 15 items in your cart"). At least the second episode doesn't have players that feel like they came out of Central Casting.
Anyway, my thoughts on the show, mainly copied from my posts at The Game Show Forum: * The host seems to be trying too hard to be chummy with the players. My brother saw the second episode and said he didn't seem like he wanted to be there, * Theme music is meh, set's okay (the Eggcrate displays were a nice surprise), and the sound effects are serviceable if not particularly standing out. * The grocery cart podiums make sense thematically, but I think it would've been a nice touch if the assistant put the items into the carts for each correct answer. Saying "you have x items in your cart" doesn't really make sense if the items only appear pretty much everywhere else. * "Let's go shopping!" *doors in back split open to reveal endgame* ...wow, that felt familiar. * All the blatant pluggery feels like a less subtle version of JD Roberto's Shop 'Til You Drop (which, if you've never seen the latter...be thankful; there's about 35 or so episodes on YouTube if you're really curious). * The credits mention that contestants are paid an "honorarium" (per Google, "a payment given for professional services that are rendered nominally without charge") to appear on the show, but are still held to eligibility requirements for any money won (which, thanks to the format, is either $5,000 or between $1,050-$1,950). I'm...not sure how to feel about that.
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Post by WarioSajak on Nov 20, 2016 14:17:24 GMT -5
So Episode 3, "Give Me Some Sugar!" (yes, these things have titles; in this case, it's based on a lame comment the lame host made because the couples each kissed at one point), has aired...and boy, this isn't a good sign. No right answers were given until the "smell-touch-taste" round, although even there some dumb guesses were made.
Probably the worst moment for me was a question early on about the old Scrubbing Bubbles commercials, which asked what one of the voices also did: Homer Simpson or Tigger (the answer being Tigger, referring to Paul Winchell). The wrong answer was given, and the wife of the yellow team said (and I swear I'm not joking with this)...
"What's a Tigger?"
*headdesk*
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Post by Frank on Dec 20, 2016 15:50:34 GMT -5
I smell a Patrick Wayne award coming
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Post by WarioSajak on Dec 20, 2016 18:47:03 GMT -5
Might as well give a few thoughts since I completely forgot about this show... Episode 4 ("Holiday Shopping") has the set decorated for Christmas, which admittedly is a nice touch...except it doesn't carry over into Episode 5 ("Competition's My Middle Name"). No, it doesn't make any sense to me either, and it's kinda stupid to pretty much air your Christmas show just after Thanksgiving. It seems the show's been put on hiatus, with no new episodes airing since December 3, but even so I'm pretty much done with this mess: the format remains pretty lame, Pat Neely still sucks, the contestants are still paid honorariums, and nobody's won the $5,000 yet because the "bonus round" is way too short and borderline pointless. (Seriously, this is a network game show in 2016, it shouldn't be this hard to get $5,000.) I smell a Patrick Wayne award coming Hopefully at least a standard Game Show Garbage induction. If anything, I'd put my money on The Wall and/or the American version of Divided being eventual Wayney nominations.
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Post by WarioSajak on Jan 24, 2017 1:09:32 GMT -5
So the show returned on January 14...and it's still just as bad as ever, though it seems even Pat's getting tired of the $5,000 not being won (he's obviously faking enthusiasm near the end of Episode 7). And yes, the contestants are still being paid honorariums.
As for the titles, Episodes 6 and 7 are "Peppermint Patty" and "Tough Enough", respectively, the latter because it's stuntmen versus cancer survivors. According to TV Guide's website, Episode 8 will be "Mother Knows Best?", with mother-child teams (though the children will probably still be adults).
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Post by WarioSajak on Feb 7, 2017 2:58:14 GMT -5
I'm now using TVmaze for the episode titles and airdates.
Episode 8 ("Mother Knows Best?"): Well, as I suspected, the children are both adults.
First team is a mother and daughter who go on about how they love to shop at Family Dollar, mainly because it helps them make care packages for the military. Second team is a mother and son who "came from Minnesota to Save To Win" (rather than "to be on Save To Win", which wouldn't have felt near as forced).
Episode 9 ("Who's the Boss?"): First team is an employee and boss of...something (Pat talks to them for barely 10 seconds, though I suspect it was cut down in post). Second team is a married couple, with the husband introducing "my boss-I mean my wife." Geddit? We have a work boss, and a domestic boss! Oh, my sides are splitting-no, wait, no they're not.
I keep giving the show chances, but it keeps leaving me bored. The contestants still get honorariums, it's pretty clear there's no studio audience, and the $5,000 remains unclaimed.
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Post by WarioSajak on Feb 24, 2017 0:21:19 GMT -5
Something I didn't realize until now: Pat's opening line is "Welcome to the show where smart shopping leads to money in your pocket." Okay, but where does that apply given this format?
Also, based on a couple of recent uploads, the show uses seasonal numbering ("109", for instance).
Episode 10 ("It's a Little Buttery"): *fweet* It's Save To Win's landmark 10th episode (even though it took them 15 weeks to get there)!
The first question asked for the name of the Kellogg's Corn Flakes rooster mascot, the choices being Randall and Cornelius. Well, for one I didn't know the rooster had a name, but the team went with Randall, figuring Cornelius was too obvious (and probably thinking "Randall the Rooster" made thematic sense given Frosted Flakes' mascot Tony the Tiger). While the rooster's name is in fact Cornelius, I'm not gonna fault them for missing that one.
Episode 11 ("It's Gre-r-reat!"): Well, right off the bat I can tell today's episode is rather obviously sponsored by Kellogg's...
First team is a set of identical twins. Second team...well, we actually get zero info out of them. It's obvious there was some bantering cut from both teams' interviews.
Tony the Tiger shows up for a question about Frosted Flakes and again for the endgame, though the costume looks a bit lackluster.
And still no $5,000 wins yet.
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Post by WarioSajak on Mar 22, 2017 21:23:57 GMT -5
It seems the show's on hiatus again, with no new episodes airing since March 4. On a positive note, Pat seems to be growing a bit as host.
Episode 12 ("Take Your Daughter To A Game Show Day"): One team is mother-daughter (they're also friends and business partners), the other is father-daughter.
"I raised Julie as a single dad, and she got her allowance based on the savings we would get shopping at Family Dollar." "Every dollar he saved came to me for my allowance. Cha-ching!"
...I swear, these people can't be legit contestants. And that "Cha-ching!" felt (and sounded) forced.
Episode 13 ("Movie Night"): First team is a set of twin brothers, one of whom makes a joke that gets a clearly-forced laugh out of Mariana. Second team is a pair of females who are best friends and roommates.
And no, still no $5,000 wins yet.
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Post by WarioSajak on Jun 3, 2017 23:55:51 GMT -5
Given there were no new episodes since March 4, I figured this was just a 13-and-out season (if not series) that had a five-week hiatus partway through. Yeah, turns out they were on an eight-week hiatus, making me realize they're doing an intentional pattern (so far it's "five new/five repeat, eight new/eight repeat").
Episode 14 (Don't Mess With Texas): First team is a pair of best friends from Texas, and their interview feels like it was edited from multiple takes. Second team is a pair of friends as well, though the male runs on-set in a rather goofy manner (and not in a fun way), and he acts a lot like he's...well, an actor trying to be "quirky".
Good lord these people feel like they were pulled from Central Casting...
Episode 15 (Sure Feels Like a Popsicle): First team is a set of twin sisters who happen to be married to brothers. Second team is a young couple who've been dating for two years. Seriously, that's all we get about these people.
The next two episodes have no players.
Episode 16 (Best Of): "Highlights of some of the best and funniest moments."
...Waitasec, this show had highlights? And they're divided by round, preceded by Pat explaining the rules for each given round, making this feel remarkably like an aired Sales Tape.
I'm starting to think this show's outright disingenuous. Why? Because when Pat mentions the $5,000 part of the endgame, they show a celebration clip with the winning team from Episode 13...except what they show isn't what happened in the actual episode. The board in the celebration clip shows they picked 8 and 12 (the preceding clips showed $900 with the former), whereas in the aired episode they picked 16 and 4 (worth $700 and $1,000 respectively) from the exact same layout. The endgame board doesn't cycle colors after the result of any episode - in all 15 aired endgames, the selected products' backgrounds turn white if their amounts don't match.
Episode 17 (Recipe for a Game Show): While billed as a behind-the-scenes look at the show, this really only takes up the first third. Aside from time-lapse footage of the set construction, there's no insight into how the show is made (they focus on just Episode 1) or commentary from anybody except Pat.
Why? Because we gotta shove in highlights and recipe stuff, of course!
*sigh*
That seems to be it for now - no new episodes have aired since May 20, though Family Dollar's YouTube channel uploaded Episodes 16-17 publicly on May 5. I'll give my final thoughts on the season in the next post.
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Post by gameshowfan on Jun 24, 2017 16:43:01 GMT -5
Also, the title has literally zero to do with the gameplay (unless it's "you win if you save up 15 items in your cart"). Yeah, I don't know what the title's supposed to mean, really, in relation to the show. The bonus round is also a big letdown for me (just a random "pick a product" and hope you get lucky...whoopee! Other than that, it's an OK show. And I realize a huge portion of it is just advertising for Family Dollar...but hey, it's a game show, and I kind of like the variety of games (other than the lazy, slapped-together bonus round), so I watch it sometimes.
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Post by gameshowfan on Jun 24, 2017 16:46:30 GMT -5
Tony the Tiger shows up for a question about Frosted Flakes and again for the endgame, though the costume looks a bit lackluster. Also noticed on the description for this ep., it said "Watch one of your favorite cereals come to life as a fury favorite visits the store" (should have said furry). As a newspaper proofreader, this made me chuckle and shake my head at the same time. It wasn't fixed when the ep. reran, either.
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Post by WarioSajak on Sept 22, 2018 18:25:36 GMT -5
I'll give my final thoughts on the season in the next post. [FrenchNarrator] Fifteen Months Later[/FrenchNarrator] Good lord, I'd completely forgotten I'd written said wrap-up post a long time ago. Sorry for the massive bump, but I made the above promise and I'd prefer not to have unfinished business if I can help it. ===== The last episode of Save to Win aired on September 30, 2017, having been in repeats since May 27. Visitors to Game Show Garbage found the show so terrible that it won the 2016-17 Patrick Wayne Award. But as for me... My Thoughts on Save to Win:The show had promise early on: it was a new daytime network game show, and it was actually officially available online so anyone could watch it and give their thoughts on it. Yes, the first episode saw me criticising more than I commended, but I chalked it up to probably being an aired pilot with a first-time host. Let them get out their first-time jitters, and they'll do fine. Well, that sure as hell didn't happen! Week after week, I saw the same problems. Nothing changed or improved, and after a while I stopped caring about the gameplay outside the straight-out-of-a-lottery-game-show "endgame". The host was annoying, the players were annoying, the gameplay was dull, and the editing was sometimes pretty haphazard. The reason for my long gaps between posts was partly because I was dealing with some sickness, but also because I had to convince myself to even load up the videos, if only because I don't like having unfinished business. The idea of a "behind the scenes" episode actually sounded interesting, if only to see how they'd try to make excuses for their crappy show. Nope, it's a quarter-assed effort, with two-thirds of the runtime dedicated to irrelevant "highlight" clips and some even-more-irrelevant recipes. In the end, I get the feeling Save to Win was only ever meant to be played by certain handpicked people. Why else would there be: * A distinct lack of Contestant Plugs, both on-air and online? * A mention during every credit roll of contestants being paid honorariums? * Litton Entertainment's synopsis and Pat Neely's intro saying the show involves things like "smart shopping" and players testing their "purchasing prowess" whereas the format never even so much as mentions product prices? * Contestants making nonsensical and/or blatantly ass-kissing remarks like the ones I mentioned from Episodes 8 and 12? This was an infomercial for Family Dollar and stuff carried by Family Dollar, all dressed up as a crappy game show. That's it. I'd normally say "I'm sure the actual gameplay isn't scripted, otherwise they'd be running afoul of that little law from 1960.", but those aforementioned clips in Episode 16 left implications that I really don't like. The sad thing is that this really could've been decent had some effort been put into stuff other than just the set...
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