Monetary Steps

By the way here is my view of the newly revised syndicated version of Millionaire in short: AWESOME!!!!

Sounds and music: Michael Davies is the MAN! He must have had a really good idea of what effects he wanted to convey, which the Strachan Brothers composed perfectly. A nice mix of the Supermillionaire sound effects with new cues. I LOVE the overall theme music used at the opening and closing of the show and incorporates the ticking time clock. Nice cue to introduce the time clock at the beginning of the questions (is it a harp?) and it is indeed pretty cool to hear the traditional question level music in the background WITH the ticking!

Visual: LOVE what I am seeing with keeping the traditional typeface for the questions but changing up the graphics for a fresh look! All of the graphics just look so sleek but not annoying visually or cheesy. The opening visual into the show is pretty nice with the ticking numbers leading into the New York skyline with the show title. Also like that there are more camera angles being used to show off the set (like in Supermillionaire). I hope also that, perhaps, when a contestant reaches the million dollar question that they use that sweeping camera around the contestant and host (like Supermillionaire when a contestant reached "the next dimension" or the $100,000 level) for dramatic effect to show how rare and how meaningful the occasion is. I hope that as the season goes on that Davies incorporates more of the feeling of Supermillionaire in general visually because it really was a stunning production to see when it was on.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=38H2QllyRi4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGea6eR10eQ

Gameplay: I again LOVE what Davies did to the show for this season because even as a loyal Millionaire viewer I just thought that the 50-50 and Switch the Question lifelines really did not help the contestants at all as far as strategy. Now with being able to see the categories of the questions beforehand, contestants can actually plan as to what questions they think they will have trouble with and use their lifelines accordingly. I think the added timer is a generous and fair counter to the question categories and lifelines (including the new Ask the Expert and having the Double Dip). As a matter of fact I believe that the timer will help contestants more than it will hurt them because...
1) it can focus them onto the question more and cut down on the sometimes unnecessary contestant/host commentary, which prevents more contestants from having a chance at the hot seat and slows down the game
2) quicker responses to the questions is rewarding because that's banked time for the million dollar question if reached
3) the amount of specific time for a question keys in on the difficulty of the question, should hint you to the right answer and gives you a general idea of how much you should think about a question before answering correctly (obviously why 15 seconds is used instead of 30 seconds for each of the first 5 questions, for example).

In regards to the lifelines, revising the look and feel of the Phone A Friend is pretty nice with having the friend pictures. The Ask the Audience survey graphic is pretty nice and is close to the UK Millionaire graphic showing the up and down randomness of the bars on the graph before showing the true results. Double Dip is the same feel as it was used in Supermillionaire and I believe will be a lot more beneficial than the 50-50 ever was, even though of course its been such a significant part of the show since its inception. Finally I think the Ask the Expert is a great replacement to the Switch the Question and once contestants and viewers see that this lifeline is indeed helpful (i.e. the experts consistently answer correctly) it will prove to be a very beneficial lifeline. The show should stick to having the same expert for a whole week for consistency and to develop conversation for the host/contestant ("Well Bill Nye has gotten every single question that has been given to him all this week so he has GOT to be reliable!").

Oh yeah, like the on-deck circle for upcoming contestants! Sorry if this all sounds burdensome to read but I am just excited at what was done for Millionaire and I'm looking forward to see this season!

I have all of the new 2008 Millionaire music. Just send me a PM and we can work something out.

I have some of it, but most of it is not in master quality. I have the £500-£1000 question music, the £50,000 win, opening theme (edited around host enterance cue), and the into and out of commercial cues which both don't sound very good.

Just send me a PM. Anybody else can send me one too for any Millionaire cue!