Unan1mous -- The Meanest Game Show not from Japan

Fox has been pimping the Hell out of this show and it is finally here. Still high on the euphoria of Kevin Covais's departure from Idol, it started as 9 folks are trotted into bunker we are led to believe lies under the Hollywood Hills (I suspect that it's actually a converted soundstage on a studio lot, perhaps Universal or CBS Television City. I highly doubt that it's actually underground, unless there's a large, abandoned bomb shelter out there somewhere.). They are told that they are competing for One Point Five Million Dollars (pinkies to our mouths as we say that) and that they must unanimously agree on who gets it. If they walk from the show, the money gets cut in half. They can't leave the "bunker".

Now this is, for lack of a better word, brilliant. It's all the stuff we know about group dynamics and dysfunction, thrown into one show. We have a group of people (9) that is probably too large to reach a unanimous decision. But, they are probably small enough for social enforcement. So, you probably won't see a decision unless they can work out a way for it to benefit everyone, but we probably won't see anyone leave, because there are enough people with common purpose to nag them into staying. I see this as fundamentally mean.

It gets meaner though. This show has eliminations, sort of. You don't get voted out of the bunker. You get voted out of the possibility of winning. And it's meaner than that. The eliminations are almost completely random. This week, they put a dirty secret of each contestant into an envelope, and let any old cast member pick three of the nine out. The group would read them, anonymously, and then vote out one of the secrets, without ever knowing who it is. They didn't show the vote this week, but there are two pretty good candidates: The Temp who spent some time in a mental institution and the Preacher/Entrepreneur who declared bankruptcy despite pulling $100K in income. I think the girl who got detained for carrying live ammunition somewhere is probably safe, as it seems like a no big deal kind of situation. I think the Temp is in real trouble, because who wants to live with a mental patient. I wouldn't want a liar who pulls one hundred large to win the money, but I think I could figure that out through the process of the show.

I think, in their wildest dreams, the producers of the show went into this with a vision of 12 Angry Men, the greatest movie about Power, Politics, and Negotiation ever made (I'm talking about the Henry Fonda, 1957, black and white version here). I don't think that's gonna materialize, because its a rare person who can be Juror #8. In fact, it takes the magic of Hollywood to do that.

In their slightly less wild dream, the producers of the show get an outcome like some of the psychology experiments of the 50's, 60's and 70's that they were running out at Stanford and Cal. The kind that good ethics won't allow researchers to run anymore. In fact, at the open of the show, they call it a "great psychological experiment." So it's pretty clear they are thinking of it in those terms. I watched Big Brother simply because I saw it as a superior psychology experiment than Survivor, especially the first season, when America voted them out of the house. So, I guess I'm gonna watch.

Thus far, the funniest character has been the Bible thumping black lady who introduced herself as the owner of an e-business and a minister. She is all cliche, all hypocrisy and all hysterical. She confronts the gay dude (actually, the gay dude brought it out of her, as I recall) by saying that God created Adam & Eve, not Adam & Steve. I guess this belief, that we are all descended from the same two parents, explains a lot of the weirder evangelists. They are all inbred to a pretty spectacular degree.

She also busts out that she believes BIBLE stands for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. I was rolling. Afterall, that's a song by The Genius, The GZA (for white folks, that's pronounced gizzah), of Wu Tang Clan Fame. I guess he found The JZA for a minute or two there. I mean, he is part of the collective mind that came up with this acronym as well: Cash Rules Everything Around Me (yeah, that's CREAM). Any rate, i thought it was funny on a number of levels. When I crank out my Bible Acronym, I prefer: Blinded Information Based on Lack of Evidence. You can believe it if you want to, but don't go pushing it on me like it been proven in double blind clinical trials.

One last thing on the black preacher lady. She opens the show by suggesting that money is the root of all evil (I disagree, thinking that pride and greed are really at the root, money being a tool, like a hammer). Recall that this is someone on a game show with a large monetary prize. Later, she reveals that she manages to support herself with an e-business. Later still, she is revealed to have had an income over One Hundred Large. The richest person I've ever known noted that the JZA said that it's harder for a rich man to get into Heaven than for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle. Since the JZA was talking in a time where women didn't really own anything, I think we can ignore the "man" in there and treat it as "person." I guess there is only so far her belief in the Afterlife of plenty goes. I love it when the loudest religious people turn out to be very hypocritical. Of course, being a loud person on the Bible goes against the JZA's direct command from the Mount of Olives, about praying in the closet and not being like the fakers who shout from the corner. Don't believe me, check Matthew 6:5. Yeah. Throw that in the face of the next overzealous evangelist you meet.

The rest of the cast has some characters as well. There is a professional poker player who is pretty much everything you would expect a professional poker player to be. Not any of this nice and clean for ESPN nonsense. Scuzzy, icky and with a worldview that accepts all of reality as a big poker hand. The gay guy is pretty funny, but only because he fights with the black preacher lady.
There is another young guy who is faking testicular cancer to get the sympathy vote. He got one of eight possible votes, so I guess we don't really care/believe him. The black preacher lady told him he should just pray on it and it will fix itself. I dunno about you, but when weighing my cancer treatment options, I think I'm going to the Siteman Cancer center here in Saint Louis and then praying when that doesn't work. Granted, it's more expensive, but I suspect they have better results.

Any rate, the big question is this: after someone is "eliminated," will they continue to hang around, knowing they can't win? I suspect they will. There could always be a deal cut that would be worth your time. Three days in a bunker for $50K (post tax), that's not a bad paycheck, right?

Any rate, let's summarize: There is an eerie similarity between this show and Saw 2. It is mean on a number of levels and oddly compelling, even though I wouldn't weep if the roof caved in and buried all of them. And maybe that makes it even meaner.