Review: 'Greed' Is Creepy

Leave it to Fox to figure out a way to make giving away money annoying and creepy.

After the instant success of ABC's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?," nearly every network jumped on the gameshow bandwagon. Some, like NBC, have opted to rework classic gameshows. Fox debuted its contribution to the genre on Thursday, a quasi-original offering called "Greed."

Viewers of Millionaire are going to find Greed vaguely familiar. A host (in this case, veteran Chuck Whollery), asks questions with each right answer getting the contestant closer to the ultimate prize (in this case, two million dollars).

But while Millionaire's rules can be explained in ten seconds, the rules of Greed are complicated and often unsettling.

The show begins with six contestants, who are asked one question, such as "How many hours in a lifetime does a woman cry?" The person closest to the right answer becomes the "leader" of the group, and the person who is farthest away leaves the show.

This is where Greed begins to go wrong. A great part of Millionaire's success is due to the fact that it's easy to root for contestants. They're one-on-one with host Regis Philbin, and as they answer the questions, their distinct personalities begin to emerge.

But the producers of Greed (i.e. Dick Clark Productions), take the opposite approach. They've created a show that fosters the worst in people, and manages to make nearly every contestant either unpleasant or forgettable.

In this show, the contestants compete not only against the questions, but against each other. The group leader ultimately decides whether or not the entire group continues after each question, and unlike Millionaire, there's no safety valve. One wrong question, and you lose it all. And more than once on Thursday, the leader went on long after the rest of the group wanted to continue. And lost it all for everyone.

Even worse, the show pits contestants against each other. After each round, one contestant is chosen randomly and told that, if they challenge another contestant of their choosing to a one question duel, they'll get $10,000. Win or lose. You win, you get the other person's money and keep playing. You lose, you leave with nothing.

All of this I'm sure sounded great in a production meeting. "Hey, let's really show how greedy people can be." Unfortunately, the result of all of this is that it makes nearly everyone seem like a jerk. At best. Even worse, with such a big group of contestants, it's tough for viewers to develop that bond with contestants. You can't root for someone you barely know. Or learn to despise.

In the end, Greed is just the latest of a number of missteps this season from the Fox Network.

Sadly, I don't think it'll be the last.