Match Game

Match Game
CBS
January 15, 1982
Game Show
DVD
C+

And so ends the "Best Of," with an episode that feels off.  Despite Brett drinking, Charles being random, and Betty being sweetly snarky about Richard Dawson, the glory days are clearly over.  Maybe Match Game wasn't supposed to run long enough for "Day O'Connor" to be an answer for "Sandra _____."  (I foolishly thought "Bullock" and then changed to number one answer "Dee.")  Maybe a cable-ready television shouldn't be one of the prizes.  And maybe McLean Stevenson shouldn't be a guest when he has a cold and a career in shambles.  As for the other two guests, you've got the forgettable Melinda O. Fee and the aggressively unfunny Skip Stephenson.  I still played along, obviously, but this is as good a time as any to end this.

Since the DVD has nine years unevenly distributed, I won't grade by season.  But the thirty episodes have a narrow range of C+ to B, with most of those B-.  (The '62 pilot also got a B-.)  I think it's more a matter of great moments than great episodes, since, unlike with a narrative program, the first five minutes might have little to do with the last five minutes on a game show.  This is, by the way, the 500th program of mine to air on CBS.  Other than the last season and a half of McLean's old show, there won't be a lot more.