The Weakest Link - promoted as TV's meanest quiz show - was a soft touch in its first outing on TV One this week.
Its host, actor-journalist Louise Wallace, promises much tougher shows, though she was thrilled to be vilified by callers to Auckland talkback radio yesterday.
"That was a really soft
show ... if people think that was brutal they've got another thing coming," she said.
The show would improve once contestants realised how to play properly, she promised.
"What people in New Zealand tend to do is the old tall-poppy thing - they vote off the strongest link. That happens a lot and I rip into them."
But the programme is already a hit with viewers, out-rating Holmes which screens before it on TV One. It attracted 670,000 viewers, and rated slightly above last week's programmes in the same slot, Money Doctor and Jamie Oliver's Pukka Tukka.
Based on hit shows in Britain, the United States, and Australia, Wallace plays a stern, redhead quiz mistress taunting players about their general knowledge.
Contestants answer questions for money, voting off the "weakest link" after each round. The last one standing can win up to $20,000 - depending on the number of correct answers. On the first night the final prize was about $5500.
"If you are thinking about the money, rather than revenge, it is a team game, until the end," Wallace said.
TVNZ spokesman Glen Sowry said it received only "a few calls" in response to the show, but this was normal with a new programme.
Dr Gabrielle Maxwell, psychologist and senior research fellow in criminology at Victoria, had not seen the show but believed its theme was commonplace. "We are so far down the individualistic, competitive track ... this is just another example of it. It's the message that if you compete and you succeed, good on you, and to hell with everybody else. It's become a national pastime."
- NZPA
