New Game Show: "I Have An Opinion"

"I have an opinion"

In case you missed it, there was a short-lived game show introduced a couple years ago called "I Have An Opinion." Here's how the game worked. 

Like Jeopardy there are three contestants who each stand at a kiosk facing the host. To the left of the host is a table where two experts are seated. The table is at an angle that allows them to face both the players and the audience. 

To the left of this table there is a second table where a panel of three critics is seated.

The game begins with the two experts discussing the pros and cons of a contemporary issue. During the discussion a bell rings whereupon the host asks the contestants, "Do you have an opinion?" 

Contestants who choose to express an opinion push a buzzer and respond, beginning with the phrase "I have an opinion." 

Both the live audience and the viewers at home are given an opportunity to vote on the opinion. Thumbs down means the person gets publicly vilified and humiliated by the critics.

The producers of the show initially created the game as a means to teach the public that every issue is nuanced and nothing is really black and white, the focus being on the experts debating each issue. It was meant to be edutainment. Like most such efforts to educate while entertaining, ratings were in the gutter. 

However, when they noticed that people were re-posting the vilification scenes on social media, the producers rigged the audience reactions so that everyone who expressed an opinion of any kind would get the thumbs down and thus berated, denigrated, belittled and abused. Ratings went through the roof as contestants suffered personal attacks and even threats on their families.

Lawsuits followed after the two or three suicide incidents and one contestant's house was razed. Eventually the only contestants they could get for the show were masochists. This was not quite as much fun as seeing innocents becoming unglued.

Many of the show's reviewers nevertheless called the brutality "magnificent." You can still find fans watching reruns on the two channels that stream it.