The Return of 'Millionaire'

Let me take you back to the year 2000, when the first US installment of Who Wants to be a Millionaire became so insanely popular. Unemployment was at a thirty-one-year low, President Clinton was finishing up his second term, no one was thinking about a war in Iraq, and the twin towers were still standing. Yes, a lot has certainly changed since 2000. Unfortunately, Regis Philbin and his ABC cohorts don’t quite seem to get this. The return of Who Wants to be A Millionaire attempts to recreate a phenomenon by using the same methods and ideas—right down to the shiny, lavender tie—that most of the country is now trying to move past.

The problem, largely, is Regis Philbin himself. From the opening one-liners (“I’ve been standing here in the dark for the past five years”) to the mocking of the recession-turned-carnival-worker contestant Brad (Regis: “How long are you going to stay at the carnival and count rabbits?” Awkward and humiliated contestant: “I don’t know…until I find another job…”), Regis shows he just doesn’t get the state of the nation right now. The result can be as mild as a disconnect where there once might have been excitement, but it can also be more catastrophic. Take Brad, for example. When he lost at the $1000-dollar level, he sat stunned and sad in his chair for longer than was comfortable. As he shuffled off the stage to return to his Carnie life, separated from his girlfriend, Regis ushered in the new contestant with only a “too bad about that Brad.” It was a little too sad for millionaire, and it was clearly beyond Regis’s capabilities to understand the shmuck on any level other than “loser contestant.”

But the blame isn’t all on Regis, either. The few changes that have been made to the show’s format only make the disconnect between Millionaire and American audiences at large wider. Instead of spending time talking with or relating to the pesky “average” contestants, the show has tried to bolster itself with a round of “celebrities.” At several times in the broadcast, Regis breaks us away to talk with “Washington correspondent Sam Donaldson” who can help with a question at some point (though he never does, so his presence is entirely pointless). The last seven minutes of the show is entirely devoted to the vapid Katy Perry, who answers a gimme question about her rich, famous friends for charity and tells stories about her cat (all while wearing a shiny dress!). The few new life lines really add nothing to the show, and the contestants’ shortened time limits don’t add pressure so much as choppiness to the overall format.

Not only are these gimmicks completely pointless, but they cut the very drama and tension that the original Millionaire played on so well. Even Meredith Vieira’s syndicated version (of which Regis seemed blissfully unaware for the first half of this broadcast) does a better job here because Vieira emotes, connects, and focuses on the contestants and their stories. This Philbin reincarnation, though, no longer seems to want to tell the story of the contestants attempting to secure a financial future; it wants to distract us from the fact that so many are now in such dire need of this kind of security. The result is a cold, detached, oddly anachronistic, and somehow dishonest hour of television that I won’t likely be watching again.