Noting that the (2) reviews of this show and the comments are worthless--diatribes about racism and homophobia--I decided to provide a serious review of this new game show.
Teams of three compete, one player at a time, to "defuse" bombs by snipping the correct wires. The wires correspond with possible answers to a question, for example "Name the top three automobiles models sold in 2014." As the game progresses, the bombs get bigger, the number of options increases (making it more difficult), and the dollar value of the bombs increases.
If a player fails to defuse a bomb in the allotted time, it explodes, spewing gooey concoctions like grape jelly, turkey gravy or rice pudding. I think the creators of the game thought the timer/bomb aspect would add tension, like bomb defusing sequences in films, where they are trying to beat a clock. It doesn't work here, where the focus is on the messiness, not so much on the countdown.
The questions are worthy of game play. But the food bomb penalties serve to delegitimize this quiz show. Also, unlike the genre-defining "Jeopardy!", they encourage contestants to verbalize their reasons for making their choices, resulting in inane statements like "My wife's hairdresser once lived in Vermont, so I know the answer is 'The Green Mountains'." Other show also do this.
The end result is a quiz show that does not take itself very seriously, dumbing down--like "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader"--for the less than collegiate crowd. In contrast, an example of a game show that effectively uses a timer, see "The Chase".
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