What’s With All the Picture Identification Game Shows?

Sometime during the last few years the game show gods declared that picture identification quiz shows are the next big thing and we need more. Several have appeared recently, the most recent being Fox’s The Floor which debuted last night.

The Floor sees 81 contestants, each with their own category, stand on 81 squares on a massive floor. The contestant in control chooses a person to challenge that is connected to their square or groups of squares. The two contestants face off in a chess clock battle of picture identification quizzes. The loser goes home and the winner takes their squares. The winner may continue to play or sit out and let the randomizer choose the next player. The person with the most squares at the end of the episode wins $20,000 and the sole survivor at the end of the series takes home a $250,000 prize.

There’s nothing really wrong with The Floor. It’s well produced, Rob Lowe is a good host, the contestants seem likable. It’s just pretty slow and boring. Chess clock shows are notoriously tough to do and keep interesting and this falls victim to that. Mix that with repetitive picture identification quizzing and it moves into background noise territory somewhat quickly. Tournament-style games are also tricky to make compelling since nothing really matters until the final day so what’s the point in keeping up with the proceedings? The $20,000 prize daily somewhat helps but whoever wins that, for the most part, is determined by sheer luck in not being chosen until last. The $250,000 prize is also going to come down to who is lucky enough to not play until the final day.

The Floor worth a quick watch. It’s definitely one of Fox’s better made game shows in a long time. It’s just one to be prepared to fast forward through a lot and to not expect an hour of high octane quizzing. It’s excessively accessible standard quizzing fare that’s well made but just not captivating enough to hold our interest for the long haul.

As mentioned before, there are many picture identification quizzes in the past year. Two have recently debuted in the UK. The first is BBC’s Picture Slam, hosted by Alan Carr.

The second is ITV’s In With a Shout. Sorry for the low quality of the video below, it’s basically all we have of the show online to share.