I was prepared to hate National Bingo Night. And, in reality, it gave me plenty of reasons to hate it:
* The insufferable Aussie host, Ed Sanders. He CAN'T. STOP. YELLING.
* Awful editing, most notably in the whiplash-inducing jump cuts that seemed to crop up every 8 seconds or so.
* The continuation of the "stupid and hyperactive" school of contestants.
* The lack of forethought in trying to build suspense, such as when the host would talk about possible bingoes when, based on the numbers pulled, no one could be even one number away from a bingo.
* NBN "Commissioner" Sunil Narkar. At worst, he's a stereotype. At best, he's the commissioner but is also forced to be a referee and roam the crowd ruling on bingoes. Fay Vincent didn't even get treated this badly!
But it also gave me some reasons to like it:
* It's at least not the same glacial pace as NBC's game shows. This not only helps the hour move along, but it also helps the contestants seem less Ritalin-deprived than their NBC counterparts. At least on National Bingo Night, the screaming fits the overall tone of the show.
* The games were fairly interesting, though too convoluted. I'm thinking here of the game where the contestant had to guess if the ball coming down the chute had a red or black star on it. That was fine, but correct guesses correlated to some sort of wedding set up that the prop department spent at least five bucks to put together.
* NBN "Commissioner" Sunil Narkar, whose call of "no bingo" may be the closest we have to a catch phrase from the 2006-07 TV season. Which is sad.
Really, this seems like something Network 23 would have put on the air on an episode of Max Headroom. Actually, considering that that show was on ABC, they may have gotten the idea for the show from an unused script. It's a loud, obnoxious mess whose only reason for watching - to try to win prizes - is obviated by the ability to get winning numbers off of ABC's website after the show airs. Don't bother.
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