New Game Show Puts Contestants in The Chair

ABC premiered their new game show, The Chair, last night (Tuesday). Let me tell you, if you ever forget the name of this show, you can rest assured that host, John McEnroe, will mention it again within the next 30 seconds.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first episode of the show played off of the fact that the goal here is to stay calm, but the host has a reputation that is quite the opposite. He began by saying he has spent his life performing under pressure, so he knows how to stay calm and cool. Then they show clips of some of McEnroe’s greatest tantrum moments, yelling at umpires, etc. I have to admit that McEnroe has always been one of my favorite tennis players, so I was definitely interested to hear about his leap into quite a different arena.

The premise of the show is that players can win up to $250,000 by answering questions that are worth progressively more money. But they also need to keep their heartbeat – which is continuously monitored – under control. While they are asked questions, they sit in what looks like a modified dentist’s chair, reclined back and looking up at a screen and McEnroe, standing at a podium somewhat above them. The chair is in a circle that stands by itself, surrounded by small pilot light type fires (more about them later). McEnroe says the contestants have to get through seven questions, a few surprises, and him, “Not that I make anybody nervous.”

Before coming out, each contestant is monitored for two hours under controlled medical conditions to determine their resting heart rate. They are also tested for the presence of any drugs that might interfere with the reading or keep their heart rates down. Before coming out, they were also given mini-tests, such as having a pen explode in their hands and having a combination fog horn/fire extinguisher blown at them while they are reading Shakespeare, to determine how their heart behaves. It’s unclear if these tests have anything to do with them getting on the show or if it’s just to give information on how they might react.

Before each contestant comes out, we are shown a clip of that person discussing him/herself and how he/she will do in the game. This gives us a feeling for what type of person they are, kind of like the introductions on The Weakest Link. If tonight’s show was any indication, contestants should soon learn not to brag.

Indeed, that is how the first one starts out. He begins by talking about how he can beat The Chair because he’s done all these things and has kept his cool. He comes out and his heart is already racing – as all of them are when first in front of the bright lights and the applause. McEnroe gives him a chance to calm down a bit by talking to him. The contestant says he “believes in” UFOs (I “believe” in UFOs, too – I can definitely agree that there have been some flying objects that are unidentified -- that doesn’t make them alien spacecraft, though). He goes on to say that he investigated a crop circle once (how exciting – corn that has been pushed down by people playing a prank) and thinks it is ridiculous to believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe. (I’d just like to make a side comment here about how idiotic that particular argument is when it comes to UFOs. I agree that we probably aren’t the only intelligent life in the universe [though I have some doubt that people like this guy could properly be called “intelligent”] – but that doesn’t automatically mean that life is visiting us and carving graffiti into our wheat! There is quite a difference between the two.)

For the first question, they take the contestant’s resting heart rate and give them a 60% window. If it goes over that number during a question or a “heartstopper” (more on that below), they start to lose money. Each player begins with $5000, but in the first two questions, they will lose $100 per second when the heart rate goes too high. For each question after, they close the window by 5%, and once they get past the second question, they also start increasing the amount of money lost per second.

The UFO guy gets the first question right for another $5000, and so moves on to the second, which is worth $10,000. He gets that one as well but then is subjected to a “heartstopper” (they really should be called “heartracers” or something like that). It’s a surprise that hits without warning, and lights start flashing around while sparks shower over him. He tries to calm down but can’t and is therefore losing money. McEnroe helpfully adds, “I’d tell you what I do when I relax but I haven’t relaxed in 42 years.”

After losing $3400, UFO guy managed to get his heart rate down, and it’s on to the $15,000 question. This question is a visual one (and the third is visual for every player tonight, so it may always be this way). He is shown a series of pictures and then asked a question about one of them. The problem is that his heartbeat is out of control and he is not allowed to even answer the question until it comes within the allowable range. As he is losing $200 per second, McEnroe continues to talk to him, telling him things like, “If you don’t calm down, you’ll start owing us money.” Of course, having somebody tell you to calm down never works – it just makes things worse. Eventually he gets to $0 and therefore loses. In his post-game interview (like The Weakest Link), he says he just kept looking at his heart rate and would only get more nervous. From here we can take away our first piece of advice for future contestants: Close your eyes. Don’t watch your rate, just concentrate on staying calm.

The second contestant is a woman who is a former police officer and a black belt in Judo. We are informed that she stayed remarkably calm in the pre-tests. She cruises through the first couple questions to the heartstopper. The pilot light type of flames surrounding the chair’s pedestal (which I had mentioned earlier) flare up into a flaming ring while the chair jolts up and down and lights flash around her. She still keeps fairly calm. After answering another question correctly, she is given the option to “stabilize.” This is basically like the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire points where you lock in your winnings. The differences are that she can either use it now or save it for later, and she is stabilized only for blowing a question – apparently if her heart rate goes up and she starts getting penalties applied, that “stabilized” money can be taken away.

This contestant stabilizes now. For the next heartstopper, a question or two later, she has a live alligator lowered in front of her while the chair forces her nearer to it. This again points to a good strategy for heartstoppers, which is coincidentally also the one I mentioned earlier: Close your eyes. They are not going to endanger a contestant (this isn’t Fox’s The Chamber, after all). While there is some noise blaring as well in some of these, at least closing your eyes will take away the flashing lights, fires, live alligators, etc.

As before, when this contestant redlines during a question, McEnroe is seeming to try to calm her down, but only makes things worse. Eventually she blows a question before her heartbeat gives away any of her stabilized money, so she walks away with about $35,000 (the only one in this episode to win anything). As I watched her, I was thinking at some point it may be best just to intentionally blow a question so you can get the amount you’ve stabilized and not worry about losing even that amount by being unable to calm down to the lower level they keep pushing down to.

The third player was oh-so-confident. He had a very high opinion of himself, his abilities, and how sexy he was. He never got his heart rate into the acceptable level and thus was never even allowed to answer the first question. Definitely quite a slam – and a well-deserved one at that.

The fourth was another woman, and another black belt (this one in Tai Kwan Do, not to be confused with Tai Kwan Leap, which urges that idiots like the previous contestant be given a “Boot to the head”). She manages to keep her heart rate very calm, even as the chair around her sparks ad smokes in a heartstopper. But she blows the picture question and walks away with nothing.

And that is the key. It’s not enough to be calm, as the final contestant definitely was. It’s not enough to know the answers, as the first did. A good contestant has to be able to do both. Only one was able to walk away with anything in this first episode.

Certainly new contestants will have the advantage of seeing what’s gone on before them, and be able to develop strategies to remain calm. However, in an interview McEnroe said for now he is trying to help calm the contestants down (though, as we saw, this was actually a bit counterproductive), but if they start getting too smart, his role may change. If he makes them nervous while trying to calm them down, imagine if he was actually trying to keep them nervous!

For his part, McEnroe was a bit stiff in the early going, but loosened up somewhat as the show went on. Hopefully he’ll feel more comfortable in later shows and be able to joke more without it seeming quite so prefabricated.

Of course, the real question is if the show will be on long enough for him to get comfortable. The concept is certainly more enjoyable than The Chamber, but it still may get a bit repetitive after a while. We’ll have to see how they address this. At least for now, I’ll still be watching.

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