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christaylor-95624
Reviews
Bank Balance (2021)
Feels like a series long pilot.
The premise is solid, stacking gold bars on a precarious board while Gordon Ramsay tries to antagonize and psych out the stressed contestants.
But every element in the show doesnt hold up (much like the board).
The rules of the game are way to convoluted and although you can get a sense of it eventually, it seems even the contestants get confused, or just plain forget what they're doing.
I honestly wonder if they told the contestants the rules ten minutes before they go on. Any sensible person would realise, if you have to put every stack on the board over the course of game, you should NEVER put a small stack on the safest spots on the board. Because all that means is you've forced a large stack to go in the worst space for it.
Yet I was amazed how many teams made baffling choices that defied logic, and how many times a contestant would get a correct answer and forget they then had to place a stack, wasting valuable seconds, all while Gordon is shouting "Quick! Place a stack!" If enough contestants are forgetting what the rules are, something has gone very wrong somewhere. And I'm not going to be one of those jerks who blame 'stupid' contestants, I think the show was just poorly explained to its participants.
The biggest let down though is Gordon himself. I love his other shows but he is not good here. A great host can make or break a game show but Gordon feels like the key selling point of the show, but also a complete waste at the same time.
I assume they were going for a 'rile up the teams, make them feel stupid' kind of thing. Like Anne Robinson perhaps. This would make sense given his character. But it feels half hearted. Merely telling contestants to make faster decisions, or an odd chuckle here and there.
Even if he went full Gordon it dont think it would work either. This show is 'Contestants VS Board', not 'Contestants VS Board and host'. This needs a host who appears on the player's side, like Bradley Walsh.
Add to that you have WAY too much chat between questions which ruins the pacing.
The show is trying desperately to have this, intense, on the edge of your seat feel. But with confused contestants, bad pacing and a host who feels out of place, this show needs some serious reworking should a second season ever get greenlit.
Stranger Things: Chapter Seven: The Lost Sister (2017)
What was the intention with this episode??
Either this was a testing of the waters on a potential spin off in the future, a rushed inclusion to bring the number of episodes up to 9, or the writers genuinely thought this episode was necessary for season 2.
Whichever it is, this didn't work. On the episodes own merits it is fine. Not great, but fine. But the issue isnt the episode's quality in of itself, it is the mere existence of it. What was the point of this episode?
I have never in my life seen an episode of a show like this before. It isn't simply a filler episode to bulk out the season, it is worse than that. It is a complete distraction and shift from the actual plot. Nowhere in this episode is the plot of the show addressed or even mentioned, if it weren't for El (who's performance is still one of the highlights so there is that at least) you might not have realised you were watching Stranger Things. I guess it tries to grow El's character a little more but to what end? She seems exactly the same for the rest of the season so there is nothing here that impacts the story in any way.
At the beginning of each episode, they are referred to as chapters, including this one. This suggests that this is part of the story, but it isnt. You can skip it and you wont have missed anything at all.
This is such a strange episode. Its issues stem not simply from it's actual quality, but from what it is in the first place. It shouldn't have been forced into the second half of the season.
If this was indeed intended to set up a spin off, or a future main plot, I very much doubt they will now follow through with it seeing as how loathed it is. Therefore it will forever be a strange and confusing inclusion into an otherwise good show.