After a long week (and it was only Tuesday), I was tired enough to get under the covers and curl up with a cat before the sky was dark. Instead of snoozing, though, I turned on the TV and was introduced to ABC’s Downfall.
Oh, it was bad. Really bad.
Contestants stand near a conveyor belt that holds various prizes (refrigerators, cars, dining room sets, etc.). They answer questions to win the items and cash. If they don’t answer in time, the prizes fall off the moving belt and down a 10-story building, crashing to smithereens below. (It’s said the prizes are replicas, but you’d think they’d still be expensive to create!)
This show was so lousy, in fact, I got mad and wondered if it and other inane and wasteful programs are a reason why other countries sometimes dislike us.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Barry Garron reviewed Downfall so well that I’ll quote him, since one cannot improve on perfection:
Bottom Line: [Downfall is] the perfect summer game show for those with arrested entertainment values.
Here's a list of the types of viewers who likely will enjoy Downfall …people under age 5, people over age 5 who are nonetheless entertained by seeing things crash and break, people who are stumped if asked to name a famous toy inspired by the hula, people who are intellectually overmatched by Wipeout, which precedes Downfall.
Considering the fact Downfall has a TV-PG rating and includes questions that few under the age of 20 could answer, ABC is obviously not gearing it toward kids. And that makes me wonder what the network must think of American adults. The network has spent millions of dollars on a show that drops things off a building just to watch them go boom. ABC calls the program “a unique, high-stakes and adrenaline-pumping game show.” I would actually agree with that “adrenaline-pumping” part—because my blood did start to simmer.
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