Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

I have watched Who Wants To Be a Millionaire since it first started in 1998 and is now usually shown only on Saturday evenings and is one of the very few things worth watching on Saturdays. The problem is that it usually clashes with the only decent Saturday evening programme, Casualty. What I normally do is set the video for Millionaire and watch it another evening.

Chris Tarrent has hosted it from the start and his catchphrases like "We don't want to give that" have become very well known.

Four people have won £1 million since it started and no doubt there will be more millionaires in the future.

When visiting my grandmother my wife and I watch this show! My wife and grandmother find the show intriguing . Myself, I get bored half way through the show. All the um's and the contestant talking to himself becomes tedious. Just make a decision already! Like Homer says boring! I like the faster paced contestants, who stick with a decision. At least the viewers would not have to wait until tomorrow to see the results. The final sound to signify the end has to be redone. It has got to be the most annoying sound. Do they do that on purpose? the first questions are so easy and anyone that uses a life line on those questions should not even be on the show. My wife gets so mad when they do that. My grandmother can hardly wait to see the next winner. It is like a soap opera for her. 6 or 7/10

Without doubt one of the greatest quiz shows of all time unfortunately ultimately spoilt by a combination of over-exposure, ITV's obsession with celebrity versions of every game show they have, and constant fiddling with the format in the final years. First reducing the number of questions from 15 to 12 smacked of dumbing down. Changing the amounts to win made some of the steps drastically uneven. Dumping the Fastest Finger Round in favour of off-screen auditions because it was thought older people were at a disadvantage robbed the show of the chance selection of contestant. Then finally, and in total contradiction to the earlier change, the introduction of time limits in the very next series which, more than any Fastest Finger, penalised the older contestants. In the end, it was these "improvements" and Chris Tarrant's increasingly irritating habits - the sharp intake of breath seemingly after every sentence, the repetitive "jokes" about people looking "frightened to death" - which killed the show off. That, and the suspicion that some contestants may not have been selected entirely at random as claimed. With the benefit of re-runs on "Challenge", it's surprising how many "randomly selected" contestants were veterans of other quiz shows. If you're not convinced, ask yourself how it was Charles Ingram followed not only his wife and brother-in-law into the hot seat but how he and his wife had featured in a married couples' special some months earlier. Maybe a change of host and a return to the old format would have been advisable. Who knows? Can I 'phone a friend?

When WWTBAM was first broadcast in Britian it was the main talking point in the country . What a brilliant but simple idea for a TV quiz , answer 15 consecutive multiple choice questions with the difficulty in questions going up alongside the money . The nation started copying Chris Tarrant`s catchphrases: " Phone a friend , 50-50 " etc and what a quiz master Tarrant was as he continually put the contestants off :

Nervous contestant : I think it`s B Chris . I`ll play . B

Tarrant : You sure ? You`ll lose 15, 000 pound if you`re wrong . You`ve still got two lifelines left . 15,000 pound . You`ll loose that . Two lifelines you can use them if you want

Then the nervous contestant would waste his last two life lines

Tarrant : Final answer ? The correct answer is B . So you were right all along

Cut to nervous contestant who`s just realised Tarrant has cost him his last two lifelines .

Yeah this was a great show as was its format of being on 8 consecutive nights then off air for about 6 weeks then on for another 8 consecutive nights but then ITV decided to put on 3 times a week from late Summer to late Spring WWTBAM never seemed to off the screens which meant a lot of people including myself became very fed up with it . The producers vainly tried to spice it up with charity editions and couples editions before switching to showing only one episode a week , but too late they`d milked the idea for what it was worth and that`s what killed the show along with Tarrant spending too much time talking to the contestants and it`s only a matter of time before it`s cancelled for good

R.I.P WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE

I'm not going to talk about what the rules are for this show. Everyone knows it's about answering fifteen questions correctly to win £1,000,000.

This has been going in the UK since 1998 and it has spread all over the world. It is presented by the charismatic Chris Tarrant who has a great rapport with the contestants and provides plenty of entertainment. There have been some wonderful contestants over time. Some of them have been reckless gamblers, some of them have been cautious and some of them have just been damn strange.

I like the show because it's not easy. People really have to work for their money. The first few questions are easy but after, that, they are really hard.

There's several puzzling things about the show though. Why are the audience so stupid when a contestant 'Asks The Audience?' Why does 50/50 always leave the least obvious answers? And, why when Chris Tarrant phones the contestants friend, is the phone never engaged?

It is now 2003 and the show has been running for nearly five years. And it's set to get bigger thanks to the notorious 'Millionaire Fraud Trial' where British Army Major Charles Ingram, his wife and another contestant were found by a jury to be guilty of cheating to get to the million. Whether they did cheat or not will be debated for years to come? What we can be certain of is that the publicity arising from the trial will ensure Millionaire's continued success for years.