Drama, intrigues of a game show
THE audience that views the internationally acclaimed TV game show; 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' has been estimated to be in the neighbourhood of 40 million.

At any given time, this is large audience and any person seated on the TV game show to take in questions and provide answers will have the tendency being nervous. The design of the game, which makes the contestants go through several levels before getting a guaranteed sum of money as reward, does not usually allow a contestant to relax.

It is therefore not unusual to see a contestant succumbing to the weight of tension and fear of the uncertainty. The fear of losing sums of money already won at the previous levels costs most of the contestants the courage to forge ahead with good logic and permutations, which often times helps get through to the correct answers.

The first contestant to win N1m on the MTN sponsored TV game show, Sororola Barton, would have won N2m if he had gone ahead to establish his permutation for the correct answer. In the same vein, Toyin Dina, who won N2m, would have won N5m if he had gone ahead with his logical analysis of the options provided for his fourteenth question.

In the case of Ugo Idam, a 32-year old architect who recently contested for the grand prize of N10m, she only stopped at N0.5m but she brought a different perspective to the game show. She utilised the drama strategy, which made her competition very interactive, very entertaining and full of fun. Her composure and homely outlook, added to her witty approaches to questions, gave her away as a very interesting contestant and even Frank Edoho, the presenter of the game show acknowledged her sense of humour.

Idam who wishes to take an MSc in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development scaled through her first seven questions without any hassles. However, her first challenge came with the question, "Which of these months shares its name with a plant?" with January, March, August and May as options. Her response was to use the Call-A-Friend lifeline, which enables her to call anybody she knows for the correct answer. Her father was called but that got her nowhere.

Amidst humorous gestures and homely giggles, she made a quick decision to use another lifeline, 50-50, which reduces the options to two by keeping the correct option and one randomly selected wrong option. Idam had to contend, to no avail, with August and May.

"Now I understand why they asked me not to gamble," she disclosed. When Edoho sought to know why, she said she had something in mind but could not say it. "Something struck a bell and I am thinking that if I am right, I will go ahead but if I am not..., I was advised not to gamble," she muttered as she chose May adding that May Flower was what came to her mind all along. So with May as the correct answer, she hit the N70, 000 level.

Idam was at her best dramatic sense when she took on her ninth question: "In which ocean are the group of Islands called Seychelles?" The options were Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Antarctic Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. In her humorously confused state, Idam regretted having exhausted her lifelines. "This would have a perfect time to use 50-50, but it is gone now," she said adding that the Ask-the-Audience lifeline will not help for that kind of question. However, she went for that option.

As if she saw it, the audience returned with a completely unreliable result: 28 per cent went for Indian, 24 per cent went for Pacific, another 28 per cent went for Antarctic while 20 per cent went for Atlantic. "It is a shame to walk away right now but I guess that is what I may have to do," a pleasantly perplexed Idam said. But instead of letting her go, Edoho urged her on. "Why not gamble for the first time in your life and use it as a moral lesson to gamble or not to gamble," he said.

Meanwhile, Idam thought the answer would be Indian but she was not sure. She thought the Seychelles would be located there. Having been urged to go on, she said, "I won't cry if I lose N70, 000. I will gamble. I won't lose any sleep over it, trust me." With that she chose Indian Ocean as the final answer. But just as the computer recorded that answer, she tried to opt out to possibly consider another option or to walk away much to the chagrin of the audience and Edoho himself. However, Edoho announced that Indian Ocean is the correct answer after he had created sufficient tension in the studio and the entire audience went into an endless bout of excitement.

With N250, 000 secured therefore, she proceeded to take a question that came as a cheap one for her. "Which of these titles of James Bond movie was released in 2006?" Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royal, Man with the Gold Gun, and License to Kill, were the options. While her face was playing around with a pleasant smile, she took Casino Royal as the answer. "If I remember, it was a wonderful movie. And he (the lead actor) was a fine man to look at," she said.

Although Idam could not go beyond half a million, she thrilled the audience with her analysis of the questions and their options. Edoho described her approach as dramatic and that left a comic relief on the audience whenever she got her questions right.