World o' Game
Million Dollar Password
(2008, US, CBS)

The show opens with a computer graphic representation of the set.

And ends up here with Password in retro electronic style, and Million Dollar in the Millionaire gothic font.

Here's the modern traditional in the round set. Those walkways aren't used for very much.

Here's our host Regis Philbin! OF course, this isn't the first million dollar gameshow he's hosted in the last ten years.

The contestants at their podiums. Each episode features two celebrities who play throughout the entire show. Each show features two games, each played by two different civilian contestants.

Through the magic of editing, we'll actually be using the second of this episode's games for our feature.

Our first celeb is Monique Coleman, star of the High School Musicals.

She's actually a pretty proficient player of the game as it turns out, although a slight lack of knowledge lets her down a bit.

Our second celeb is Damien Fahey, MTV VJ extraordinare.

Handsome, but much better at giving than recieving. Ladies.

The celebs' first job is to introduce their contestant.

There's a bit of Regis chat, but not too much - you get that priviledge if you make it through the elimination game.

Here's the opponent.

The principles of the game of Password are pretty much unchanged in the intervening twenty years, but the rules have changed.

The game begins with the elimination round - two people enter, one goes home. The winner gets to play for a million dollars.

In each round, each player must get their partner to say up to five passwords within a thirty second time limit.

To do this they must give one word (and one word only!) clues. After each clue, the partner must have one guess (and just one) at the word - if they can't think of anything they can just say "clue" to move on. The clue giver must not gesticulate wildly with their hands but can give large hints with clever use of expression, inflection and emphasis. Antonyms are allowed after they were banned in the late seventies. Clues may use bits of the password provided they form a proper unique word in their own right (e.g. "manicure" for "pedicure" is OK in a way that would get thrown out on Pyramid). Any breakage of the rules throws the password out. Regis quickly explains the ruling, we can't quite tell if it's live or added in post.

The passwords in a round are not thematically linked.

It's all going well so far! In round one the celebs give and the civilians recieve. In round two the roles are reversed, now it's the celebs doing the guessing.

To make things fair, the celebrities swap contestants after round two and the game is played as before.

The person with the most points at the end of the four rounds is the winner and gets to play for a million dollars!

The winner will play the million dollar game with the celebrity who got them the most points.

As you can see there are six steps to the million and here the game changes. They must correctly get five passwords at each level within 90 seconds. At level one they must get 5/10. For $25,000 they must get five from nine (this is the "safety level" - if they make it that far they go away with at least $25k), for $50k five from eight and so on until the million dollar level requiring five from five.

They are given a chance to walk away with the cash between levels, and at the $250k level the giver is given the opportunity to see the first five words before they make a decision to continue playing. The words get harder as the money increases.

To prove how exciting and important this bit is, the central stage raises about a foot to reveal an electronic marquee.

The major rule change is that whereas in the elimination game you can give as many clues as required, here you are limited to three clues (represented by the chevrons pointing at each word).

You can pass a word, but you can't come back to it. Those ten bulbs above the word show the contestant's progress. One turns green every time a password is correctly guessed. One disappears from the right for each pass or miss.

He's just won $10,000!

Skipping to $50,000 now and we couldn't let this pass:

"Stop."
"Go."
"Light."
"Sign?"
"Colour..."
"Green. RED!"

Going for $100k now and having just got "inaugruation" he's in a bit of a pickle - 24 seconds left, no passes and just three words to convey "atmosphere".

Unfortunately he doesn't make it and drops back to $25k. But that's still not bad for a night's work!