New game show needs more genuine enthusiasm

RODRIGUEZ. Hosts “Don’t Lose The Money.”

After years in the performing biz, actor-singer Tom Rodriguez added a new sideline to his biodata last Monday, Sept. 22 when he made his debut as game show host on GMA 7’s new late-morning show, “Don’t Lose The Money.”

We caught the program’s premiere telecast and saw that Tom did fairly well, but not strikingly so, at his new sideline. So, the more dynamic likes of Edu Manzano need not lose any sleep over the arrival of this new compere.

If Tom wants to do better and register more strongly as a game show host, he should stop relying so much on his good looks and “killer” dimples, and add genuine energy and excitement to his performance.

A little more genuine enthusiasm would also be welcome, since this particular game show banks so much on one team sequentially trying to make more money than its competition in an increasingly more difficult series of tasks involving money, and the score could drastically change from challenge to challenge, if the contestants don’t do their absolute best at each task.

First challenge

Last Monday, the contestants, stars and starlets of GMA teleseryes, were, like the show’s host, only fairly diverting during the first challenge. So, we can say that the new show had a relatively perfunctory and sometimes even tepid start.

Happily, things perked up when the subsequent challenges were introduced, because they required the contestants to work harder for their team to come out on top.

Particularly dodgy was the requirement for them to individually transport, via a pair of chopsticks, a wad of paper money from the shaky little platform on which it perched, to a common receptacle.

The task required both adroitness and a keen sense of balance and timing, and some contestants failed to make the grade, thus dragging down their team’s total score.

The most difficult test of all involved the transfer of wads of cash from one big box to another that each team member “wore” as some sort of exoskeleton, then the receiving box would be transported to the goal, a bin where the team’s total “take” would then be counted.

The difficulty of sliding wads of cash from one big box to another made this test the dodgiest proposition by far, but also the most impressive and exciting, so the game show ended “up” in terms of viewers’ excitement and involvement, rather than  “down.”

That conclusion made the show’s first telecast an interesting  and sometimes even exciting viewing proposition. But, what will happen when, weeks from now, the show’s tests shall have become all too familiar to the show’s regular viewers? Will new tests and props be added to sustain the audience’s interest and excitement?

We certainly hope so—and we also wish that both host and contestants up the ante in terms of genuine involvement and excitement, so viewers will get affected and “infected” by their enthusiasm!