AdSense to Search

Custom Search

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The Chamber Review

I've wanted to get this off my chest for a long time. I watched it when it premiered, and I was horrified at what was transpiring on the screen before me. Just looking at the faces of every single contestant as they walked away with whatever "prize" payout

One of the many indicators that FOX Entertainment was well on its way to fame for being a platform of pure shit, The Chamber is a take on the hype surrounding 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' and 'The Weakest Link'. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you can do something different that hopefully captures an audience significantly enough. This sounds fine, right?

Wrong. The premise of the show is that the contestant is strapped into a "chamber", a concealed contraption (which looks fucking scary) that pit the contestant against extreme conditions whilst they had to answer progressively difficult questions, just like you'd get in 'Millionaire'. Those conditions are either extreme heat, or extreme cold. In the former, the temperature goes in to the triple digits, fire actually bursts around the contestant, simulated earthquakes rocked the player, foul odors eventually crept in, and they're probably on the fast lane to a heat stroke or mental breakdown in the process. On the other hand, extreme cold sees the player get drenched in cold water, which is then essentially frozen as the temperature drops dramatically, possibly causing hypothermia and frostbite, or both. All of this for roughly 7 minutes a game. God, even water boarding lasted usually 5 to 10 seconds.

There were un-aired episodes that featured three chambers, and just by the sound of them, they all sound just as horrible; electric shock, water torture (most likely akin to water boarding, without a blindfold perhaps), and an insect chamber. Got a fear of bugs crawling all over your face? Prone to getting freakish nightmares of sometimes giant monstrous insects infesting every facet of your unconscious excursions? Then it's good you never had to go through that one yourself.

Let's just get to why that is all just so horrible. It really is the worst part of the show. Each contestant I saw that had to go through with the thing showed absolutely no sign of enjoyment, not even a hint of masochism. All of those things that the chamber was advertised as doing were real, so they put up with conditions that could only have been concocted by a psychopathic, sadistic tyrant. As the game went on for each contestant, the conditions worsened. Yeah, try answering a fucking question that actually makes you have to think thoroughly while you're being burned to a crisp, or frozen in ice-water, all within seconds of each other. There was little fucking around with that machine; it worked quite efficiently in its torturous designs and you had little room for error (you were kicked out .

The biggest insult to the contestants, aside from the inhumane conditions they signed on for (they either had big cajones to accept the almost impossible deal being handed to them, or they were flat-out lied to about what they were going to deal with), was the prize payout. The maximum prize payout of fucking $100,000. Think about that for a second; you're being essentially tortured, the game got harder and harder (the questions weren't exactly a cakewalk, people), and you're distracted by so many factors the least of which being the chamber conditions, and you expect people to walk away happy with one-hundred grand? Fuck you, Dick Clark Productions.

A poor sucker by the name of Scott Brown did beat the game more than anyone else, by answering 20 questions. The minimum to win the grand prize is 25. So they gave him a lousy fucking $20,000 for his troubles. Like the swift branding of justice that a competent and by-the-books judge would hand the most deserving criminal, Brown sued the show because he was hospitalized after getting out of the chamber. Dick Clark Productions did him right, I guess, by giving him $100,000 more.
It's funny that Matt Vasgersian turned down the show out of integrity because the show was so horrendous in design.

A goof even existed in the show as well in the headset the contestants had to wear, because there was no way they could be heard just by talking through the chamber with all that crap attacking his/her body. The headset was so shoddy that it often created a problem for the contestant, and because it was held together by scotch motherfucking tape, it came apart.

This show lasted just a couple of episodes, and god damn, I was disgusted then and I am disgusted now. Fuck the people who came up with it. I won't format this review like my others because it's a TV show that lasted just a couple episodes. I'm just glad I was able to vent.