On the venerable prime-time game show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, contestants earned their way toward the titular ton o' cash by answering a series of increasingly difficult multiple-choice questions.
Getting to the million was not easy; few contestants actually achieved the feat.
The new Fox series Million Dollar Money Drop (Mondays at 7 p.m.) comes at the acquisition-of-riches thing from the opposite direction -- everyone who walks onto the stage immediately becomes a millionaire by being handed a huge pile of cash (in neatly stacked $20,000 bundles). But that's when the tricky part starts, as each tandem of contestants is challenged to see how much of it they can hang onto during a white-knuckle sprint through seven multiple-choice puzzlers.
Like Millionaire, the genius of this new Brit-import format lies in its simplicity. But its gut-grabbing and addictive appeal is found in the fact that the money -- and its disappearance -- is right there for contestants and viewers to see.
view full post:How to lose a million, in cash, makes gripping viewing
