Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Review

Overall Rating

This was once a great game show but after all this time I honestly can't watch it anymore. It is just so boring now that every last bit of novelty has been worn away, you are now just left with a tired and uninteresting quiz format.
Initially my reaction to this programme was, 'Wow, a million pounds! no one will win that!' and it was brilliant when Judeth Keppel won the million, but then the fun started to leave the show and before I knew it, it was a chore watching the programme every friday(right day?). TV is supposed to be entertainment so I wanted to turn it off and get on with dinner but the rest of my family still loved it. It was a living hell.
Every episode is exactly the same!: a middle aged accountant or IT consultant is selected via fastest finger. Tarrant makes some forced witty remarks about the guy's wife killing him if he comes away with nothing. Then the guy would just answer the first few silly questions, accompanied by the laughter of the audience as Tarrant reads out the facetious answers. Then the guy comes up against some harder ones, takes the money and then they start the whole thing over with someone else.
It is not entertainment, It is just watching someone conservatively making a living in an extravagantly lit room somewhere. And the only glimpse of variety the show offers is Steve from Swindon walking off with £16,000 and Mark from Birmingham walking on and sitting in the chair.
It is like watching the same 1 hour recording of office CCTV footage every week with your dinner, why would you do that?
And the show is so shameless! they fundamentally changed the format of the show a while ago so they could incorporate a phone in competition to eke a bit more money out of the show. This happens when someone takes the money, instead of being told the answer, Chris Tarrant turns to the camera and says, 'If you would like to win £1000 then simply text the correct answer to this question...' all I can say is, 'Get a life ITV.'
Finally, how insecure do you have to be to write off 1 hour of every week so you can cockily say, 'it's obviously C! this guy is an idiot!' when you know the answer and when you don't; 'I thought it was B!' on hearing the answer on TV after feigning disinterest up until this point. To people who use this programme as a tool to impress their contempories, all anyone can say is 'please don't talk to me or come near me' and 'get a life'. I'm joking of course about the last bit.

Members' Comments onrds1's Review

• Helen of Troy on 9th Mar 2007

  rds1, you are spot on about this show! When it first came out I used to watch it. But after all this time it has become same-o same-o. There has always got to be something better on the other channels as I haven't watched it for some time now, and neither would I want to!

• Anonymous101 on 9th Mar 2007

  I agree, the format has become tired and mundane now, the introduction of couples and celebs put a bit of spark into it, but that interested has sadly diminished too! Although this show continues to be far superior to The Weakest Link, I think they both suffered a similar fate, I suppose all gameshow's do, eventually, take Bob's Full House and Going for Gold for instance. Deal or No Deal is now carries the baton for the most exciting gameshow on tv at the moment, like the predecessors mentioned, Deal or No Deal has that original idea behind it which other gameshow's lack. Brilliant review, could agree more!

• djeva1 on 11th Mar 2007

  Hi rds1, I used to watch this show whenever I was at the house of my family or a friend and used to also enjoy joining in and answering the questions, but at that time, I did not own a tv for 10 years. I lost interest in the show as soon as I moved in with my husband and we had NTL. I would have loved to have watched the show when the Ingrams were on it. My friend saw that show when it happened and he was totally gobsmacked, did you see the same show with the Ingrams 6 years ago?