The Chamber (game show)

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The Chamber
The Chamber logo.png
Genre Game show
Directed byDon Weiner
Presented byRick Schwartz
ComposerDave Russo [1]
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes6 [2] (3 unaired)
Production
Executive producers
Producers
  • R. A. Clark [1]
  • Cindy Clark [1]
Production locations Hollywood Center Studios, Los Angeles
Running timeapprox. 44 minutes
Production company Dick Clark Productions [2]
Original release
Network Fox
ReleaseJanuary 13 (2002-01-13) –
January 25, 2002 (2002-01-25)

The Chamber is an American game show that aired on Fox in January 2002. The show featured contestants answering questions while strapped into a torture chamber, in which they were exposed to either very hot or very cold temperatures alongside other environmental extremes, such as high winds or simulated earthquakes. [1] [3] Sportscaster Rick Schwartz hosted the show. After only three of its six taped episodes were aired, the series was cancelled due to low ratings and controversy over the show's content. [3]

Contents

Gameplay

Pre-game faceoff

To begin, two contestants (always one male and one female) were given a category by host Rick Schwartz. The contestants went back and forth, providing a single answer that fit the category, until one person either gave an incorrect answer, duplicated an answer, or took too much time. At that moment, the opponent could score a point by giving one more right answer. [1] The first to score two points in this way moved on to the main game. [1]

Main game

Before entering the Chamber, the contestant was offered a $500 buyout to leave the game. To begin, the contestant was strapped into a chair, arms raised over the head. During the pre-game setup, a computer would choose whether the contestant would play against the "hot" or "cold" chamber. [4]

Rules

Each player's goal was to answer as many questions, and to last in the chamber as long as possible. The player would be said to have won if they remained in the chamber, correctly answering questions through all seven rounds. Otherwise, the game could end in any of the following ways: [4]

As each round began, one minute was put on the clock and questions were asked to the player, each worth $1,000 if answered correctly. If the game ended for any of the aforementioned reasons above, the money was cut in half. If the player beat the level, the game would go into stop down mode for ten seconds, allowing Schwartz to check the contestant's status, after which the conditions inside would intensify. The maximum amount of questions was not stated, but with six questions per level and seven levels, the potential top prize would be $126,000.

Conditions

If the winner could also manage to answer 25 questions or more correctly, the total winnings would be tripled. Additionally, that environment would be retired, and something new created. It was reported that plans for future chambers centered around themes such as water, electric (shock) or insects; Bill Carter of The New York Times wrote that the latter may have involved "500 flies" released into the chamber. [2] [5] Only two variants of the chamber were depicted on the episodes that aired: a "hot" chamber and a "cold" chamber.

ChamberChamber-specific features [2] Features of both chambers [2] [4] [6]
Hot
  • Internal temperature beginning at 110 °F (43 °C) and increasing toward a maximum of 150 °F (66 °C).
  • Movement of the chair beginning at the second level; first back and forth, then up and down, then 270 degree rotations, and complete circles.
  • Jets shooting flames around the contestant.
  • Wind gusts of 40 miles per hour (64 km/h).
  • Air cannons periodically blasting toward the contestant with up to 140 miles per hour (230 km/h) winds.
  • Simulated earthquakes, increasing in intensity.
  • Electrodes contracting the player's muscles.
  • Oxygen levels gradually descending to 70%.
Cold
  • Internal temperature beginning at 30 °F (−1 °C) and decreasing toward a minimum of −20 °F (−29 °C).
  • Contestant occasionally sprayed with water, causing ice to form on their body.

Show format

For the first two aired episodes, there were three games played per hour. For the final episode, a fourth game was added to fill out the time. A male voice (Tony Rodgers) asked the questions, and a female voice (Karly Rothenberg) would let contestants and viewers know when the Chamber was transitioning into higher levels and shutting down. However, on the last-aired episode, Schwartz asked the questions as well as conducting interviews during the down time.

Production

The series was developed by Mike Darnell, then head of alternative programming at Fox, in conjunction with Dick Clark Productions. [2] Darnell claimed he was inspired by Fear Factor , which had debuted on NBC in 2001, and wanted The Chamber to emphasize the "visceral" effects the game had on the contestants, telling Bill Carter of The New York Times, "I want to hear if they are in pain or suffering". [5] Preston Beckman, a fellow Fox executive, believed Darnell conceived and produced the show with the intent of leading viewers to wonder if "Fox might actually kill someone on television". [7] : 108 

The producers of the ABC game show The Chair , which also premiered in early 2002 and had previously been pitched to Darnell at Fox, [8] sued over alleged similarities between the two programs, including contestants answering trivia questions in a high-stress environment with their vital signs monitored throughout. Fox countersued, claiming that the ABC program had sent producers to "spy on the set" of The Chamber. [6] [9] In a 2007 book, Carter reports that Darnell did in fact conceive the show as a response to The Chair, and that The Chamber was rushed into production in November 2001 after ABC beat out Fox for the rights to the other show. [7] : 106–107 

The Chamber began taping at Hollywood Center Studios in late December 2001. [10] [7] : 106  Sportscaster Matt Vasgersian was initially chosen to host, but objected to the show's content and quit, walking off set "in disgust" during a rehearsal. [5] He was replaced by Rick Schwartz, a sports radio host in Los Angeles. [10] During production, an incident occurred when the chamber malfunctioned and briefly left a contestant trapped inside the hot chamber, with crew members unable to either release them from the set or turn off the heating effects for "some moments," though they were freed without injury. Gail Berman, then the president of Fox, was on set at the time and greatly disturbed by the event. [7] : 108–109 

Being produced in parallel with The Chair, ABC and Fox competed to get their respective shows on the air first, with The Chamber ultimately premiering on Sunday, January 13, 2002, two days before The Chair. [11]

Reception

The Chamber received negative reviews, with Carter reporting that the show caused "a critical outcry over subjecting people to what appeared to be torture for the entertainment of television viewers". [3] The Baltimore Sun 's Kevin Cowherd called the show "a sordid, putrid mess". [2] In Variety , Phil Gallo described it as "a prototype for the joy-free gameshow". [1]

The series premiered to around ten million viewers in the United States, performing best among younger audiences, but viewership had declined to 5.6 million by the third episode, when it had been moved to Friday nights. [3] [5] It was cancelled as Fox executives concluded that its declining viewership made it hard to justify continuing a show "that was generating so much hostile reaction". [3]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Gallo, Phil (January 14, 2002). "The Chamber". Variety . Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Cowherd, Kevin (January 24, 2002). "Contestants on Fox's 'The Chamber' aren't its only victims". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved March 16, 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Carter, Bill (January 29, 2002). "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Fox TV Pulls 'The Chamber,' A Reality Show (Published 2002)" . The New York Times. p. C8. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 24, 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 Morrill, Jenny (November 12, 2015). "The Game Show That Could Have Killed Its Contestants". Mental Floss . Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Carter, Bill (January 21, 2002). "Fire, Alligators, Maybe 500 Flies: Stay Tuned" . The New York Times . p. C1. Retrieved September 7, 2021.
  6. 1 2 Chocano, Carina (January 31, 2002). "Beat me! Shock me!". Salon.com . Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Carter, Bill (2007). Desperate Networks. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN   9780767927864.
  8. ↑ Bauder, David (January 13, 2002). "Fox and ABC doing battle over game shows that seem almost identical". Racine Journal Times . Associated Press . Retrieved September 8, 2021.
  9. ↑ Owen, Rob (January 14, 2002). "Tuned In: Networks play 'sue you' game over 'Chamber' and 'Chair'". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  10. 1 2 Hoffarth, Tom (March 31, 2018). "Catching up with Matt Vasgersian: Even more Q&A where that came from — his no-Twitter policy, 'The Chamber' fiasco and Boo Radley's house in Universal Studios". Tom Hoffarth's The Drill. Retrieved September 8, 2021.
  11. ↑ Adalian, Josef (January 10, 2002). "Fox moves up 'Chamber'". Variety . Retrieved September 8, 2021.
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