Winning Lines

Host: Dick Clark
Premiere: January 8, 2000

Premise: Celador brings another game across the pond. Can you beat 48 other players to a million bucks?

Rules: The game begins with 49 players. They are all asked a question with an answer of 1-99. The one who answers right and first moves on to round two. This is repeated five times, for six Finalists. The second number of those finalists is noted, as home viewers can win money if their phone number has the ID numbers in it.

An example would be:
Take the number of pounds in a ton, and subtract the year John Kennedy became president. What's left? Players race to type in 40. Whomever does moves to the round of six.

Round two: All players who have advanced this far get $1000 no matter what. A question is asked, but this time, the answer is one of the numbers owned by a player. Whoever buzzes in first tries to answer. If correct, the player who owned the number is out, unless it belongs to the buzzer. If wrong, the buzzer is out. If no one buzzes (which happened on the lost episode), the player whose number it was is out.

Perhaps another example:
The players are 03, 17, 23, 29, 37, 42. The question is "On What day of March does Saint Patrick's day fall?" If number 17 buzzed in and said "17", he would be safe. If 03 buzzed and said "23", 03 would be out. If 42 buzzed and said "17," 17 would be out. Whew.

This continues until just one is left, who wins $2500, and then comes...

The Wonderwall!

Bonus Round: The Wonderwall is the champion's chance at the million bucks. The Wonderwall is three projection screens holding 49 answers to questions. The player answers as many as possible in three minutes. Each one adds money. If the player is wrong or doesn't answer in fifteen seconds, a strike is given. Three strikes and the player is Bankrupt. The player may also passs twice at any time. to answer, the player must find the answer and locate it by number i.e., 47, Ethiopia. Additionally, if the time runs out, the player loses all accumulated winnings. To the right of the player is the BAIL OUT button. If pressed before time runs out or three strikes are given, all money won is protected, and the game ends. The Bail Out Button pulsates neon red when there are less than fifteen seconds or two strikes on the player.

$1 million
$500,000
$400,000
$300,000
$200,000
$100,000
$90,000
$80,000
$70,000
$60,000
$50,000
$40,000
$30,000
$25,000
$20,000
$15,000
$10,000
$7,500
$5,000
$2,500

Winners List

Catherine Rahm	$502,500	Bailed out with :02 and a pit stop left
Mike McKay	$402,500
Randy Pitler	$205,000
Hope Holm	$102,500
Ahmad Bateman	$92,500
Lara Kierlin	$72,500
Crystal Rose	$52,500
Efren Bojorquez	$42,500
David Wilson	$27,500
Vanessa Whitney	$27,500
Jennifer Caird	$2,500	Only loss of series

The Lost Episode: Twelve episodes of "Winning Lines" were produced. Eleven were shown. The one missing show has Efren Bojorquez winning the $40,000 on the Wall. Since this isn't a lot of money compared to the top prize, he wasn't too happy. Since the show had big wins, and one crushing defeat, his may have been the last show, but since the program was cancelled... Conspiracy?

Travis' Review

CAST: Dick Clark comes out of retirement again and does a wonderful job keeping the game moving, and making his way through the convoluted rules. His tendency to talk during the "thinking time" at the Wonderwall got on my nerves just a bit.

SET: Exactly what do you do with 49 contestants? Put them in a huge bandstand type set piece, each with scratch paper, cup of water, and keypad for their answers. Lots of neon blue and pink contrasts with the dark blue and black of the background. The Wonderwall staging area looked very cool, with the three projection screens, rotating chair, and so forth.

GAMEPLAY: Most game show fans agree that this was one of the most exciting bonus games in all of television history, especially on the premiere night, where the winner turned $100,000 into $500,000 in the space of thirty seconds. Unfortunately, the rest of the game drags like a tuna net. The first round is there merely to choose the six contestants who move on, and to give the home players something to do as they check their phone number against the winners numbers.

The "Round of Six" game (known as "Looking out for Number One" in England) is one of the most intricate elimination games I've ever seen. You wouldn't know it reading the rules, but it goes by rather quickly. Inexplicably, there's a commercial break after the final winner is found, then we come back for a chat session with Dick and the winner, asking what he'll do with the money, then hyping "the most exciting three minutes in television." Too bad the rest of the show wasn't as exciting.

MUSIC: Very similar to Millionaire in the feel, but not intrusive at all.

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