A certain age

Happened to catch one of Lingo's 89 daily reruns today. Love the show but the schedule is a joke. Anyway, the contestants on this episode were all ladies of a certain age.

To be more blunt, the women on one team were in their forties and the ladies on the other team were in their sixties. Or at least that's how it looked to my not-so-gallant eye.

Which shouldn't be a big deal. But it is. Game shows are often so afraid of skewing old that they discriminate almost blindly against older contestants. Yes, I'm obviously biased on this issue. After all, I'm approaching my sixtieth birthday later this year. And I've ranted on age discrimination in game shows before. Lingo is a particular offender in my opinion because longtime host Chuck Woolery got the heave-ho from the new season solely due to his age.

But at least the new season was not afraid to put on a couple contestants from the far side of the almighty 18-49 demo. So maybe I'll cut Lingo a little slack from now on. By the way, the sixty-somethings were hardly shocked by the show's occasionally off-color humor. Some posters on the GSN boards have gotten the vapors because the show sometimes uses words that Queen Victoria might have frowned on.

But the older ladies just laughed off the mildly risque stuff in their episode. Good for them.