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In a moment, these three players will have
to choice between these three potential partners; three people they
have never met, never spoken to...never even ordered fries from.
Together, these new teammates will move through a world of trust,
knowledge and betrayal. They'll work together to build a "trust
fund" and, ultimately, decide whether to share the money as friends
or fight over it as foes here on...
 SHOW:
Friend Or Foe?
AIR DATES: January 6, 2003 to September 19, 2003
CREATORS: Paul Buccieri, Tim Puntillo, Jenny Daly
PACKAGER:
Buccieri Entertainment; Game Show Network Originals
HOST: Kennedy
WATCH IT HERE:
YouTube
Anyone who has taken SOME form of
psychology or ethics class MUST have heard of the "Prisoner's
Dilemma". Y'know how it goes: two criminals get dragged in for
minor crimes because the police believe one of them committed
murder. They are each, seperately, given a deal to turn on the
other guy. If one takes it, that one goes free and the other
gets life. If neither takes it, they both get one year for
their minors. But if they BOTH turn on one another, they both
get LONGER sentences. Well, now put that into game show
format...only with THREE pairs of "criminals" and, instead of
sentencing, tell them that they can split the money as friends or,
possible, get NO money as foes. That's the basic idea of
"Friend or Foe?", one of the more...surreal GSN originals
HOW WAS IT PLAYED?
PRE-GAME
In Season 1, three "players" look at three "potential partners"
whom they never seen or met before. The host gives a "shady"
fact about each player and partner and then the players pick (in
secret) which partner they want. If all three choose different
partners, this part ends. If two pick one partner and the
third picks another, the "another" goes to the "third" and the "one"
gets to choose which of the two players to team with; the un-picked
partner teams with the other. If all THREE players pick the
same partner, the partner chooses their player and the other two
pick in private again.
In Season 2, this is either done
off-camera or not at all; all the audience see are the teams already
together.
ROUNDS 1 & 2
In Season 1, each team is given
$200 in their "trust funds", a bank they can add to; in Season 2,
they start with nothing. Each team is placed in isolation
chambers so that they can only hear the host talking. The
teams are given four questions per round, each with four possible
answers. They then have 15 seconds to lock in an answer.
The answer is ONLY locked-in when BOTH teammates hold the same
answer button at the same time and, once locked, it cannot be
changed. If they get the answer right, they add money to their
"trust fund" ($500 in Round 1, $1000 in Round 2). There's no
penalty for a wrong answer.
After all four questions have
been asked, the team with the least amount of money in their "trust
fund" are eliminated from the game and go to the Trust Box to see
how they'll divide their winnings. If there's a tie for last,
the team who answered questions right in the slowest amount of time
is eliminated. In Season 2, if the team didn't get ANY
questions right, they were given $200 to take to the Trust Box.
ROUND
3: RIGHT OR WRONG
The last team standing is now given 60 seconds
to answer up to 10 "this-or-that" questions. Once again, the
team had to lock-in by holding the same button at the same time.
A right answer added $500 to the "trust fund" while a wrong answer
earned a "strike". The round ends when a) all ten questions
are asked, b) time expires or c) three strikes are accumulated.
TRUST BOX
Each team takes their "trust fund" to the Trust Box, a
podium where each teammate has a hidden switch. The teammates
are given about 10 seconds to flip their switch to either "Friend"
or "Foe". When time expires, the choices are revealed.
The "trust fund" then goes one of three ways:
1) If both players
choose "Friend", they split the "trust fund" evenly between them,
from as little as $100 to as much as $11,200 apiece.
2) If one
player chose "Friend" and the other chose "Foe", the "Foe" would
take the entire "trust fund" for themselves.
3) If both players
chose "Foe", NEITHER player received ANYTHING.
WHAT WORKED?
The concept was certainly interesting and almost "Weakest
Link"-ish: two people who had never met must work together to build
up their "trust fund" but then may decide to turn on each other to
keep the whole thing. Greed is ALWAYS a good thing to focus on
in a game show, especially how that greed can backfire on you.
I barely remember any winning teams who decided to take the
thousands and split it up; either one grabbed it all or both lost
what they had.
One other thing that worked for me was the
general ambience of the show. It had all the qualities of a
big-money show even though the most one could take home was just
over $22,000. And watching the teams talk over their answers
usually made me wonder who were on the same page and who were in
different libraries altogether. This made the show have a bit
of "Money List" to it as well.
WHAT DIDN'T WORK?
Kennedy would NOT have been on the short list of hosts for this
game. All I knew her as beforehand was an MTV VJ
(y'know,..back when music videos were still popular). I'm sure
she was a comedianne before and after that but...she was SO deadpan
is this show, it was hard to say if she was taking this seriously.
It looked to me like she thought of this like the average Wallmart
employee: a paycheck and nothing more.
Did they HAVE to make
the isolation booths so flippin' HUGE? They could've trimmed a
foot or two off each side to make it more cozy. As it was,
they left a LOT of open space in the studio and that just didn't fly
with me.
One more nitpick: during Round 3, when it got to
below ten seconds, the display showed ":9", ":8", etc., like they
couldn't afford the leading zero. Call me a "numeric Nazi" if
you must but...that's just kindergarten-level time-keeping there.
WOULD IT WORK TODAY?
Would a "Prisoner's Dilemma"-style show fly?
Certainly. GSN would try again with "Divided"...and NBC tried
it in 2012 with "Take It All". But, as neither show really
lasted that long (though "Divided" DID last twice as long as "Friend
or Foe? did), writers will be hard pressed to come up with a unique
way to pull it off. Not saying "impossible"...just maybe
"Infinite Imporbability Drive"-level. It was a good try,
though; props for starting the trend.
NEXT TIME:
Who WAS that bearded man anyway?
Chris Wolvie keeps his friends close and his foes several
hundred miles away if possible. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisWolvie
and e-mail him at chriswolvie@yahoo.com.
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