Temptation (2007 American game show)

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2007 TV series or program

Temptation
Genre	Game show
Presented by	Rossi Morreale
Narrated by	Rolonda Watts
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	170
Production
Executive producer	Ginger Simpson
Producer	FremantleMedia North America/20th Television
Production locations	Los Angeles, California
Running time	~20 minutes
Original release
Network	Syndication
Release	September 10, 2007 – May 23, 2008
Related
Temptation (1967-1968)

Temptation: The New Sale of the Century was a television game show loosely based on both the original Australian and American Sale of the Century plus the current Australian remake, also called Temptation, the show began airing in syndication starting September 10, 2007, with the last first-run episode airing on May 23, 2008. Reruns continued until September 5, 2008.

In July 2008, Temptation was canceled due to extremely low ratings - it had the lowest ratings of any game show of the 2007-2008 television season. It was replaced by Trivial Pursuit: America Plays on most stations.

Temptation was hosted by Rossi Morreale, produced by FremantleMedia North America, and syndicated by 20th Television. Former talk show host Rolonda Watts served as the announcer.

Owned-and-operated stations of MyNetworkTV were among the stations carrying the show, as was the former WTBS Atlanta, which is currently known as Peachtree TV. MyNetworkTV carried two previews of the show featuring several American Idol alumni on September 5, 2007 in primetime.

Before the show premiered, the writers went on strike because FremantleMedia refused to recognize the Writers Guild of America, west as the writers' chosen labor representative.

Some markets including WWOR-TV in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut area, and KTXH in the Houston area were airing two episodes per day. The second episode aired was from later in the season. This was determined by the noticeably shorter intro, and Watts referenced "Temptation dollars" in the "Shopper's Paradise" round. She referenced the price of the prizes as dollars in earlier episodes.

Front Game

The game was played in two rounds, each broken down into several parts. Three contestants, one a returning champion, started the game with 20 points (referred to in-game as "Temptation dollars"). The host explained the rules:

First, I'm going to start you off each with 20 "Temptation dollars". Now, we're going to play a series of games to help you win some more shopping cash. Periodically, I'm going to try to tempt whoever's in the lead into spending that cash on some incredible bargains. Now, do you resist that temptation and keep the lead, or do you give in and take the guaranteed prize? But it all comes down to one thing: Whoever has the most cash at the end of the show wins, and gets to go to "Shopper's Paradise" for the "Shopping Spree of a Lifetime".

Round 1

This round was broken down into three parts — a Speedround, an "Instant Bargain", and the "Fame Game":

"Speedround" — Morreale asked a series of rapid-fire pop culture questions over 30 seconds; correct answers were worth $5 while incorrect responses lost $5.

Instant Bargain — The leader after the initial Speedround was offered a chance to spend some of his/her "Temptation dollars" to purchase a prize at a discount. Played just like the original Sale of the Century Instant Bargains, the host often offered extra incentives (e.g., reducing the price, offering cash, pulling out additional Cheap Tickets if the prize was a pair of them) to entice the contestant; however, if two or all three contestants were tied, a Dutch auction was frequently conducted. The only stylistic difference was that instead of the host saying "Going once... going twice..." the player was placed on a five-second "Shop Clock".

Fame Game — The host read clues leading to a famous person, place, thing, etc. One major difference from the 1980s Sale of the Century round was that, on the monitor behind the host, letters filled in a puzzle one at a time. For a correct answer, the contestant won $15.

Round 2

After the first commercial break, the second round consisted of "Knock-Off", a second Instant Bargain, a second Speedround, "Instant Cash", and one final Speedround.

Knock Off — Similar to the 1980s game show Wipeout, a category was announced and 12 possible answers were shown; nine answers were correct while three were wrong. Each contestant, in turn, selected one of the answers. A correct answer turned gold and was worth cash (four $2 answers, three $5 answers, a $10 answer, and a $15 answer; Some boards had two $3 answers replacing two worth $2). An incorrect answer was noted in red and eliminated that contestant for the remainder of that round. Play continued until the last correct answer was found or all three players had been eliminated. In general, the less obvious an answer was, the more it was worth.

Instant Bargain — This was played as before, usually for a slightly more expensive prize.

"Speedround" #2 — Two answers were given before the start of the round, both usually with a similar theme (e.g., "Winger or Gunslinger". where contestants had to identify the films as starring Debra Winger; or Westerns, which were sometimes called Gunslingers). Questions were based around the two possible answers. Once again, the speed round lasted for 30 seconds, and questions were worth $5 up or down.

"Instant Cash" — Based on the Sale of the Century round, the leader at that point was offered a chance at a cash jackpot which began at $500 and rose by that amount until it was claimed or reached $5,000; at that point it was frozen until claimed. To play, the contestant had to give up his/her entire lead over the second-place opponent; also as before, if two or more contestants were tied, a Dutch auction was conducted (it usually started at the difference between the tied players and third place). If he/she opted to play, the host showed the contestant three colored wallets (red, white, and brown), one of which had contained the jackpot and the other two $100. This was a carryover from the 1980s version of Sale of the Century, except the players chose 1 of 3 boxes and the jackpot started at $1,000 and went up that much with no limit.

"Speedround" #3 — After a second commercial break, a final 30-second round of questions was played but this time, each correct answers were worth $10; incorrect answers lost that amount.

The contestant with the highest score was the champion and advanced to the "Shopper's Paradise" round, for the "Shopping Spree of a Lifetime". If two or more contestants were tied, then, instead of a Dutch auction, a tiebreaker question was announced. The contestant who had the right answer earned $10 and became the champion. If not, the opponent won $10 and became the champion.

The losers kept any cash and prizes won during the main game; unlike the earlier incarnations of Sale of the Century, no contestants received their score in cash. Any player who had not won any prizes up to the end of the game received unacknowledged parting gifts.

Shopper's Paradise

The end game was played in two parts:

Super Knock Off — This was nearly identical to the main game round, except six answers were correct and six answers were wrong. Correct choices netted the contestant anywhere from $25 to $100 in "Temptation dollars". Four answers were worth $25, one was worth $50, and one was worth $100 (for a cumulative maximum of $250). The contestant stopped at any time, as a wrong answer ended the game and forfeited any cash accumulated during that round.

Shopper's Paradise — Almost the same in concept as the original "shopping" format from the 1970s Sale of the Century, the contestant was shown five prizes, each in ascending value, at greatly reduced prices; the most expensive prize was usually a car, but sometimes an expensive trip was offered instead. After all five prizes were announced, the contestant was given time (one last commercial break, which included promotional consideration credits) to ponder whether he/she wanted to buy a prize (as long as there was enough money available), or bank it and return on the next show to try to buy one of the more expensive items. In the event that a contestant did not have enough "Temptation dollars" to buy the least expensive prize, they were offered the chance to either buy a Croton diamond watch with their winnings or return to the next show. If the five-day contestant does not have enough money to buy the top prize, then he/she goes shopping and has to think on what to buy during one last commercial break. The prizes alter each week.

Unlike the 1980s version of Sale of the Century, for reasons unexplained, there was no opportunity to buy all the on-stage prizes nor receive a cash jackpot for accumulating a high amount of "Temptation dollars"; as such, buying all the prizes (or even more than one prize, should the contestant have enough to buy the first two, for example) was impossible.

A contestant continued as champion until he/she purchased one of the prizes from "Shopper's Paradise", had enough money to purchase the top prize, or was defeated. Unlike previous versions of the show, there was a five-day limit on Temptation: if the contestant was a five-time champion, they had to buy a prize from "Shopper's Paradise" after Super Knock Off, as they were retired afterwards.

Temptation Tournament

From November 19-21, 2007, and again from November 26-28, Temptation aired two 3-day tournaments where three former contestants returned and played for the entire tournament. The contestants were different for each of the two tournaments. Rules remained pretty much the same for each tournament, except that contestants started each game with 30 "Temptation dollars". The winner of each game played Super Knock Off. The winner of day 1 and 2 played Super Knock Off, but did not go to "Shopper's Paradise". In day 3, a special 10% off coupon was presented for the contestant in the lead for the second Instant Bargain if the contestant accepted the bargain. Only the winner of day 3 went to "Shopper's Paradise". One contestant bought $10,000 and the other bought a 10-day trip to Thailand.

Shop-at-home Temptation offers

Before commercial breaks, offers for products at discounted prices were advertised. These items were purchased online at the show's official site. The offers were separate items, but later became generic "60% off retail" plug offers.

Differences In The First Episodes

In the very first episodes of Temptation (aired March 3-7, 2008), the games worked a little differently. They were: "Speedround" #1, the first "Instant Bargain", the Fame Game, then "Speedround" #2.

After the first commercial break there was "Knock-Off", then the second "Instant Bargain", then a second Fame Game worth $25, then "Instant Cash", and then the final "Speedround".

Also, the price tags at "Shopper's Paradise" were white instead of orange, and the host actually showed the winning contestant around "Shopper's Paradise" while the announcer described the prizes.

Grand Champions

There were five contestants that went all the way to the top grand prize on the show (a car in all cases), and four won it. Three contestants who won the grand prize were male and only one was female. The only other female contestant went all the way but failed to win the car.

Ratings

With the exception of the preview episode, which rated 0.8, Temptation wasn't rated above 0.5 in the Nielsen rating system, making it the lowest rated game show on broadcast television that year. The next lowest rated game show, Merv Griffin's Crosswords, maintained a 0.8-1.0 share.

Although the final first-run episode of Temptation aired on June 13, 2008, the show's official cancellation was not announced until July 29, 2008.