Summertime blues

Summer tryout It's Worth What tanked in its second outing last night. That brought to mind all the summer game shows which have come and gone over the past decade or so. Some of the shows have lasted pretty well, like Wipeout. Most of them have flamed out, though, and maybe Cedric's effort will join that undistinguished list.

Of course, the summer game show of all time, or at least recent times on American broadcast TV, was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. When Regis and his money tree debuted on August 16, 1999, game shows in broadcast prime time had been extinct for oh so many years. The fifties scandals and a general prejudice against the genre had banished big-money prime time shows seemingly forever.

But never underestimate the power of a good format. The Brit import smashed through The Nielsen Company and became the phenom to end all game show phenoms. A nasty fall followed a few years later, though the syndie version has survived to this day. More importantly, the show led to a resurgence in broadcast game shows, as networks stopped turning up their noses at the genre.

Will any other summer game show ever catch fire like Millionaire? Oh, maybe, one of these decades. Sadly for Mr. Kyles, it doesn't look like It's Worth What will turn the trick.