Buzzerblog are reporting that it looks like The Cube US has been greenlit.
This is great news, except in this instance I think the more I see of Minute to Win It, the more of a party-spoiler it seems to be, and when it comes to this sort of thing the first to air tends to be the successful one.
I wouldn’t underestimate any show that has Neil Patrick Harris on it.
It’s a sort-of “Regis Factor” in play…people will tune in to see him because he’s familiar and well-liked, and oh wow, this game is really slick too.
Minute To Win It might be first, but NBC has lots of bad habits which will certainly hurt the show in due time. The two-hour elongated unnecessary premiere will be strike one.
Great news, though a shame CBS couldn’t get the pilot to air first. Either way though it’s good news I guess – if Minute to Win It flops, serves them rights. If it succeeds, the bandwagon is in place for CBS to jump on.
I fear the cube loses in both ways..
If MTWI is a sucess then the cube looks like a copycat and gets slated
If MTWI is a failure then CBS will most prob get scared by having such a similar show and could reduce its chances of making to air
Yes this, basically – outside of genre fandom, I think people will take one look at The Cube and go “oh, it’s exactly the same as Minute to Win It” and switch off. What most surprised me about some of the videos is that many of the games seem very similar even, it doesn’t really matter if it’s balancing perspex rods or golf balls.
I’d like to be wrong, whilst I don’t think The Cube is quite as all that as everyone seems to think, it certainly deserves a fair crack, but I’m not sure it’s going to get one.
The promos for Minute To Win It are great – and as much as I love The Cube and as much as ‘Minute…’ ripped it off wholesale; it has the potential to be a better show.
Before I get burned at the stake. Here’s why;
The challenges are more tangible. It’s much easier to imagine how easy/difficult pulling all of the tissues out of a tissue box with one hand is because we know what pulling out one tissue feels like. The games on The Cube to be more abstract and things that I’ve never tried/thought about before.
The ‘Minute’ keeps things pacey. It means you don’t have massively drawn out games (like the ‘Construction’ on The Cube that could take for however long the contestant wants to take)
Stylistically, I think The Cube is brilliant – but it could also be divisive. It’s futuristic, cold, stark. Quite ‘male’. The ‘Minute’ set seems more neutral and inclusive.
Surely the whole point of the cube is that the games looked simple, but they weren’t because you havn’t done it before? Like everyone’s thrown a ball, but no-one’s thrown a ball so it stays on top of a platform etc.
It seems to me that Minute is a cross between Cube and ‘The Moment of Truth’ (with Cilla Black. Anyone remember that?) with the practice element and all that.
There have been a number of instances here in the US where networks fight each other to get to air, just for neither show to gain any traction at all and disappear quickly.
However, it’s usually FOX trying to beat the other networks to the air. There may be more to this one.