Repo me with your best shot

Game show blogger Carrie Grosvenor got introduced to Repo Games, Spike's new repossession game show, by her husband. I got introduced to it by some clips on YouTube. This one, in particular, told me all I needed to know.

I don't want to be uncharitable. But the contestant in the clip wouldn't have given Watson much trouble on Jeopardy. She goofed one gimme question after another. She got Ben Franklin and Bill Clinton mixed up. (Well, they both had active sex lives.) She couldn't pronounce "Japan." She didn't know about Snap, Crackle and Pop in Rice Krispies commercials.

So off went her car. The actual repossession is supposed to make the show edgy and real for the testosterone kids in Spike's audience. But it just made me feel sort of crummy. After all, game shows shouldn't leave contestants worse off than when they started. Game shows are supposed to be fun, aren't they?

The show is competently produced, but I get tired of the shots of the camera crew taping the proceedings. This just looks staged, though it's again intended to make things more "real" (that word again). The hosts are suitably large men who look like they could repo a car or three. Just dodge the bullets when necessary, guys.