phone a friend

When you think about, the "Phone-A-Friend" lifeline on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire has always been lame.

In theory it sounds good: if you don't know the answer you call a friend to see if they know. You even get to choose a few friends for your list so you can have people with different specialties/knowledge. So why did it fail so often? Friends that contestants called either got the question wrong, weren't that sure of the answer at all (forcing the contestant to use another lifeline to narrow it down more, like 50/50), or they couldn't even get their answer out before time ran out and the call was cut off. It always made me nervous.

Notice I used the past tense there. "Phone-A-Friend" is being dropped from the show.

I don't usually watch Who Wants To Be A Millionaire after my local news in the afternoon. After the news is over I usually switch to another channel, but this week they're having a "TV Week," (though it could be a repeat week since it's summer, not sure) so I've been watching every day. And I have to tell you, these contestants don't know much about television.

I don't say this as a guy who writes about television for a living, I'm talking about as a television fan. The questions have been remarkably easy, especially in the early rounds, even up to $25,000, and the players are just failing miserably. Even with the lifelines the show offers! That's inexcusable. Of course, the audience hasn't always been a help either. They screwed over one contestant by saying that Eliza Dushku's show was called Tru Colors and not Tru Calling.