The Million Second Quiz

The one, most important, basic rule about any game show is this: it should have very basic rules. There shouldn't be any questions about the questions; there should be no confusion for the audience regarding how the game is played.

Secondly, game shows should have good pacing. That means the show shouldn't lag or move too quickly for a viewer to follow.

Last, a good game show engages the viewer best if they can play along with the contestant. That could be anything from choosing the strategy to succeed, to giving correct responses for the win.

The most successful, enduring and popular games have all three of these things: Simple Rules, Good Pacing and Ability For a Viewer to Play Along. Stick a pin in that.

Television and Game Shows have had a love affair throughout their mutual existence (with the exception of the infamous "Quiz Show Scandals" of 1957 and 58, which brought about major changes and reform in how producers and TV networks handled their games).

This particular wave of the game show craze began in earnest in 1999 with "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" That show became a phenomenon and launched a bunch of other "big money" games by nearly every network, with none of them as successful as "Millionaire."

Then there were the "torture" games - where a contestant had to endure physical issues to win cash. The reality game, "Survivor" was the first high profile version of this type of game.

At some point, someone thought of combining those two types of games and making it into a kind of hybrid, so, as an example, you had a show called "The Chamber," where a contestant was required to answer trivia questions in either a super heated or below freezing room.

That's where this program comes in.

In 2013, "The Million Second Quiz" was advertised as one of the biggest money giveaways in television history. There was a suggestion that someone could win twelve million dollars, or possibly more! And, the whole thing was going to be live on camera, something no game show had done in decades.

A call was put out for trivia experts and I was one of the people recruited to be a potential contestant.

To be sure, they needed a lot of players; the quiz, as the show's name implies, was to last a Million Seconds, or roughly 11 days. It was a game show that once it began, continued until the time was up, 24/7. Sleep depravation was an actual factor in this game, which was the "torture" element of the game.

The player in control of the game was seated in what was called "The Money Chair." When you were in The Money Chair, your butt was earning ten dollars a second, every second. However you had a line of challengers to face you in what they called "bouts." Bouts were timed, one-on-one matches of trivia questions, loser goes back to the contestant pool, winner gets to sit in The Money Chair.

For the record, there were short breaks between each bout, so contestants weren't continually answering questions, and could take time for a bathroom break or to grab a snack.

Got it so far?

The rules of the game changed during the prime time show. That's when Ryan Seacrest stepped in and hosted the program. During the NBC telecast portion of the show, additional rules happened, including the ability to pass a question to your opponent and making them answer it for double the value of the question, or having that contestant pass the question back to the original contestant for four times the value.

Still with me?

If you were one of the top four earners on the show, you got to move into what they called "Winner's Row," an actual residence with a kitchen and bedroom that the top Money Chair players were living in during the game, as they awaited to see if anyone could challenge or catch them. The top four contestants were supposed to have kept the cash they earned at the end of the Million Seconds.

And you could watch a lot of what was happening when the show wasn't being broadcast on the show's website, which had cameras located in the contestant pool, on the set, and in other places.

That's the abbreviated version of how the game is played! Next, let's move on to the show's Emcee.

It's no Seacrest... er secret that Ryan wanted to pattern his life after one of his heroes: Dick Clark. He hosted radio shows, singing competitions, he even got to insert himself into the annual "New Year's Rockin' Eve" program after awhile. But being a game show host was part of that package too, as Mr. Clark hosted "Pyramid" for years.

During the show's "off-hours," an announcer would read the questions and the players would give their responses. Like I said, this game never stopped.

And New York played a part because some contestants in searches across the country got flown here to play the game. An enormous, open-air rooftop set called "The Hourglass" was the location (it was right near the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, so you got some midtown skyline views). In fact, New York weather also played a part as a major set of thunderstorms passed through during one of the prime time shows, forcing the producers to use their emergency indoor studio.

Remember those three rules of a good game show? "The Million Second Quiz" barely had one of them: ability for a viewer to play along. And, in fact, that's how they were getting more contestants. The show's website would record the answers you gave, if you registered your name and email. The problem was the site crashed, leaving a lot of angry trivia players wondering if they would even get a chance.

I hope I'm allowed to share my story with this program... I got to sit in The Money Chair. I had been waiting around for almost 24 hours before I got called to play a bout. It must have been about 8am, the next day. I didn't get to be on the glittering Hourglass set or even their shiny indoor set. I was in a little room with a canvas director's chair as The Money Chair, and with Playstation 3 controllers to buzz in with the correct answers! This, a supposed big money NBC game!

I knocked off one of the "Top 4" players and won the Chair, then started earning my own money from zero dollars.

I got close to making it to Winner's row and at least having a reprieve, but I only earned about $92,000 before losing in a tiebreak to another challenger, who likely wasn't awake for as long as I was. If you didn't earn as much as the lowest of the 4 "Winner's Row" contestants, you went back to zero and had the opportunity to go back into the contestant pool.

So, I was on the show without actually being "on" the telecast. I never even got to meet Ryan Seacrest. An announcer read my stack of questions, though he congratulated me on how well I did, based on how little sleep I had.

In the end, the ratings for "MSQ" were terrible, and it was a rare game where fewer people watched the final episode than the premiere. Of all of the prime time multimillion dollar game shows in TV history, second by second, this might have been the biggest flop of them all.

Seacrest, out!