SOTTO. Hosts cautionary game show.
We had a special birthday dinner at home last Sunday, so we resolutely refrained from watching TV, the better to focus on the celebratory mood of the evening—and the food! But, some people in attendance were talking about the new game show, “The Million Peso Money Drop,” hosted by Vic Sotto, so we peeped into the program “for a few minutes”—and ended up watching it up to its chilling conclusion!
This was the show’s third telecast, and like the first two outings’ contestants, the team of two players last Sunday ended up with zero money to take home – and for taxi fare!
Reputation
Thus, the game show has quickly acquired the cautionary reputation for being an edgy and highly stressful “player-slayer.” —By the way, that’s not a bad reputation for a new program to have, because it intrigues viewers and makes them watch the show from week to week, to see who will be the first team of players to avoid going to the cleaners, and crawling home penniless after being thoroughly worked over by the show!
Alas, to date, no team has enjoyed that upbeat fate.
Last Sunday’s pair was particularly hapless, because the two frazzled women got so unnerved by some of the questions shot at them that they ended up making some confused choices.
At one point, they even “invested” the bulk of their money on one answer—while placing a paltry bunch of bills worth only P25,000 on another. As it turned out, they ended up losing everything after a couple of questions, but we wondered, if they had gone home only with that P25,000 bundle, what they would have done with the “huge” prize?
Prospective contestants are therefore warned: Vic Sotto’s new program is the toughest nut to crack on local TV these days. What makes it such a contestant-crusher? The fact that its questions and topics are so diverse that even well-informed people will be hit by “blank spots” every now and then that will stump them, and lead to the eventful loss of the one million bucks they’re given to play with.
Logically, if you’re stumped, you would divide your pile of money to cover all of the answers most likely to be correct. But, the players become so stressed that logic sometimes flies out of the window, and they end up coming up with some pretty strange choices.
So, to do better in the show, prospective contestants should decide from the get-go to go by this general rule of thumb: If you’re absolutely sure of your answer, bet your whole pile of cash on it. If you’re at all doubtful, pick the likeliest bets and divide your pile between them, with a preference in terms of amount invested for the answer that you’re most confident about.
It hasn’t happened yet, but this safe rather than impulsive strategy could enable you to make at least some money, to mitigate and salve all of the stress and emotional upheavals that you’ve been subjected to!