Million Dollar Mind Game

Game Show that ran for six shows beginning on October 23, 2011. It's basically an import of the Russian game show What? Where? When?, and the idea is for a six-man team to answer Nintendo Hard questions using lateral thinking and teamwork.

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The following Game Show tropes appear in Million Dollar Mind Game:

• All or Nothing: Four wrong answers ends the team's game and they lose everything.
• Lifelines: Three of 'em. You can switch the question out, change your team's answer, or discuss the answer for another 30 seconds after your original 60 runs out.
  • Also, the team gets a stack of four lives (they're not explicitly called lives, though).
• Personnel:
  • Game Show Host: Vernon Kay.
  • Studio Audience
• Unexpectedly Obscure Answer: Pretty much the point of the game. Good thing you can confer with five of your friends.
• Who Wants to Be Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?: Yep. Lifelines, a money tree, a dark set, and lots of padding. Although that set does kinda look like an upscale European casino. Also, the 60-second shot clock helps to cut down on the padding at least a little.
  • Averted with the original Russian version. Justified because it debuted in 1975, there's no Lifelines, nor a money tree, and the game's played by a team of six "experts" (regular players). Cash prizes are awarded to viewers that submit questions that the panel misses, and the game is played for points (a point to the viewers when the experts miss one, first to 6 wins).

Tropes used in Million Dollar Mind Game include:

• But Thou Must!: Several ways.
  • After each correct answer, the team votes on whether to stay in the game, or cash out. If even one player votes to stay in, the whole team has to play on.
  • If the team misses a question and still has lives remaining, they don't even get to vote.
  • One lifeline allows the team to change the answer given by the captain.
• Downer Ending: A team of video gamers took on the challenge starting in the second aired episode, carrying over into the third. They made it all the way up to $600,000 with one life left. Only one person subsequently voted to stay in, which of course meant that everyone else was forced to risk their shares to play for the Million. They got to see two $1,000,000 questions (they still had their switch), and...well, there's a reason this is labeled as a Downer Ending.
• Four (Wrong Answers) Is Death
• Screwed by the Network: When ABC announced the American version, people got excited because the Russian show was a straight-up logic quiz and this would be kept; indeed, people praised ABC for actually taking a risk, considering most American games were almost everything else other than a straight-up logic quiz.
  • And then ABC went one beyond the Friday Night Death Slot by burying it on Sunday afternoons during football season, where pretty much the only people who watched the show found it by word-of-mouth. Instead, the network gave prime real estate to You Deserve It, built around making money for a deserving person by spending parts of it on vague clues. Basically, ABC didn't actually take a risk.
  • The result of these decisions? The burn-off got better ratings.
• The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: The money tree is $6,000-$12,000-$24,000-$48,000-$72,000-$120,000-$210,000-$360,000-$600,000-$1,000,000. All money amounts are evenly divisible by six, except the top prize.
• Timed Mission: The team is allowed 60 seconds to confer before the team captain for that round must give the team's answer. One lifeline gives another 30 seconds.
• Working Title: The Six, then Six Minds, both eschewed in favor of a really generic one.