…the new NBC reality/quiz show Dog Eat Dog.
Boy was I surprised. This was billed as being “from the producers of Fear Factor” and I thought, man I’m gonna be sick. Let me be open in saying I’ve seen parts of three or four episodes of FF — and couldn’t stomach the whole thing.
While watching DED, I learned quickly never to judge a book by its cover — or at least never judge a book by the name of its authors. Each round was based on a stunt (bungee-jumping into a huge swimming pool to collect rings), general knowledge (last name of one famous person is the same of the first person of another…such as Steve Martin, Martin Short) or both (treadmill trivia…each wrong answer means you have to run faster).
When the elements of a round are presented, the players vote on who is most likely to fail in conquering said stunt. If the top vote-getter does fail, (s)he goes to the dog pound. If the top vote-getter does succeed, the successor sends one of the people that voted for him/her to the dog pound.
When two are left, they compete in the final stunt (in Monday night’s case, hanging on to a bar suspended over the pool until your opponent can’t hang in there and takes a dive…literally) for the right to earn top dog honors.
The game culminates in a trivia showdown where the top dog tries to outwit members of the dog pound. The winning side (top dog or dog pounds) wins or splits $25,000.
Not *once* was I grossed out. The trivia elements were fun to play along with and the stunts were great to watch.
The problem? The hostess — Brooke Burns. Yes, I know, she used to be a Baywatch babe and all. Still, her hosting skills need work. Whenever a player said “pass” on a question or puzzle, Brooke would always respond “Incorrect” — as if to say the player’s response of “pass” was his/her answer. All Brooke had to say was, “OK, next one” — or something like that.
The pluses? The contestants. Colorful characters! The winner, Skyler, ended up taking the whole can of Cheez-Wiz after not faring so well in one of the early episodes of Whammy!: The All New Press Your Luck. And let’s have a show of hands. Who thought Widow was trying to be a Marilyn Manson wannabe? Actually, he was more along the lines of Marilyn Lite.
Despite the hostess’ ineptitude and borderline creepiness from Widow, this was fun to watch and here’s hoping DED has a good run — maybe even dislodges FF at 8pm/7 Central (a guy can hope, right?).
Doug’s rating: (insert 3 Wheel of Fortune bells here) A E I 1/2 — three and a half vowels out of five. Would’ve been four if Brooke hadn’t kept on saying “Incorrect.”
And yes, I know, I’ve exceed the quota on parentheses.