Like a game show?

Never watch talent contests myself, but NBC's The Voice is getting some good reviews and good ratings. A recurrent theme in the reviews is the "game-showy" nature of the project. Pundits are finally noticing that many competition series are just game shows in drag. Our little genre survives, even if the trappings change a little.

Switching gears to a completely non-game show, Drew Carey's Improv-a-Ganza continues to sputter on GSN. Last Wednesday the show got a measly 251K viewers for its first-run and really crashed in reruns, down to embarrassing 179K and 141K figures. Last Thursday the first-run did even worse with only 215K viewers. Sooner or later the network will have to pull the plug on the repeats, at least. The show just ain't that good or that funny, no matter how much BuzzerBlog's Alex Davis insists to the contrary.

And speaking of GSN, High Stakes Poker has found a new and legal sponsor after the government's asinine crackdown. I still think the show is headed for its finale on the network, which has never been a good demographic fit.