It’s Holly

The dance routine was like the choreography from first day of high school freshman cheerleading tryouts - it was the easy routine they gave they fat girl who they automatically assumed couldn’t do a full russian split, but considered she might be a good, solid base for the pyramid.

I’ve never seen a game show with so many rules or steps to answer ONE question. What happened to good ol’ Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Regis: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Contestant: To get to the other side, final answer.
Regis: That is correct for $500. ::applause and crazy blue strobe lights::

Show Me The Money, on the other hand, goes through the following steps.

1. Enter dancers, doing above described routine. (Note: Shatner freely calls on the girls (oh SHIT! Did I mention it’s hosted by William Shatner? Yeah. the Shatner.) to do dances by saying somethign like “Show me the money dancers, let’s break him off with a Navy salute!”, to which said dancers go through 15-20 seconds of high school musical and end with a prompt hand salute. Sharp, bitches! Sharp!!

2. Question is asked. Not the full question, just the first 3 or so words of the sentence. For example “Which Paula…” would be what the contestant sees, then they have to pick A, B, or C, which corresponds with the second half of the question. Confused yet? Yeah, it took me a few rounds, too. So the contestant picks a letter, and for example would get “…is a judge on American Idol?”. Keep in mind that the letters are no indication of difficulty of a question - it’s completely “random” - or as random as you can get for a scripted “reality” show starring the Shatner. Now, the contestant has the option to pass on this question and select another letter, or answer it. You get two passes per question. Since you can’t see the second half of the question until you pick the letter, if you pass twice you have to answer the last option.

3. Question is answered. How much is this answer worth, though? NOW the contestant picks one of the Show Me The Money dancers (yes, the have more than one role!). Each dancer corresponds to a dollar amount, which will be revealed when the contestant picks her name. It ranges from 20K to 250K and there are 13 girls. So 12 are actual dollar amounts and one is a “Killer Card”, which resembles a yellow yield sign with the silhouette of a pole dancer. If the contestant gets the Killer Card, the game is automatically over.

4. After dollar amount (if they didn’t get the Killer Card) is revealed, the answer is also revealed, but not without enduring a painful 3 minute commercial intermission. (The suspense is totally killing me by now, damn you Shatner and your suspenseful ways!). After the commercial, they reveal the correct answer. Now, whatever dollar amount they picked from which ever dancer gets added to the pot (if correct) or subtracted from the pot (if incorrect). Yes, a player can go negative!

5. Repeat steps 1-4. The only way to actually END the game is to get the Killer card or complete 5 correct answers or 5 incorrect answers. What?! Yeah, I said that too. Each contestant gets 5 “+” bars and 5 “-” bar, each one corresponding to a correct or incorrect answer, respectively. To finish the game, you have to get 5 of all + or all -. So the amount of money in the pot is determined by right or wrong answers. Answering wrong up to 4 times just subtracts money from the pot, answering wrong once doesn’t end the game. After 5 of all + or all -, the winner takes home the pot (if they’re not negative).

(Side note: the only thing that could possibly make this game SUPER AWESOME is if when the contestant is negative, they actually have to PAY that money back to ABC. Not only would Show Me The Money be televised as a game show, but the next hour would be Show Me The Money with Judge Mathis: Contestant Pay Back, the actual court proceedings of ABC suing former contestants for the money owed - the dancers as the jury. Then I’d watch and be completely obsessed).

I also realized that for a good 15 minutes, I was watching this show in Menu mode. For those of you fortunate enough to have 600+ channels on digital cable, you know when you pull up the menu and you end up watching a tv show in the little preview window on the top right. Obviously I was looking for something better to watch, but the Shat pulled me in.