Review: Name That Tune

 

On a night when most networks decided to air live news coverage due to the events unfolding in our nation's capital, FOX went ahead with it's planned schedule, which included the long awaited revival of Name That Tune. I say long awaited, because several pilots have been shot for potential revivals in the past, and networks continued to pass on the format, which after watching Wednesday's episode, I can see why. 

For starters, the show was actually taped in Sydney, Australia, which is why there's full audience and no social distancing. The show is hosted by Jane Krakowski and the band leader is Randy Jackson. The show is an hour long and contains two self-contained half hour games. 

In my opinion, Jane was an okay host. She did not bring a lot of personality to the show and a lot of what she said seemed scripted/fake. But besides that, the show as rather boring. The first round is simple. Pick a category. They play a song from that category and the first contestant to buzz in correctly with the title wins the money. Each song is worth more money than the previous.

The second round is the famous Bid-A-Note. The concept is great, but given that they give you a clue to the song, it can be rather easy to guess the song in just one or two notes potentially. The final round is the bonus round called the Golden Medley. That's simple, identify seven songs in 30 seconds and win $100,000. If you don't, you get $10,000 per correct song. The top prize is more than $100,000 because the $100,000 is added to whatever money you already won. 

While the show doesn't seem to drag out, gameplan seemed rather short with just 4-5 songs per round. It seems like the show could have actually benefited from being designed as an hour long format. 

I wasn't alive during the previous versions of the show, so I don't have a lot of knowledge about the game play, but for me, the show just didn't seem exciting. Jane needs more personality. Randy was fine. The set looks great. Very flashy, lots of LED lighting and a cool video floor as well. 

I will tune in for at least another week or two, as sometimes it takes a few episodes for a show to settle in, but compared to the many other reboots, this one seems to fall flat. Beat Shazam is definitely the superior musical game show The ratings were solid for the first episode at 0.7 with 3 million viewers. We will see if that holds in the coming weeks. Share your thoughts in the comments.