
The daily version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire began its new season yesterday with some changes -- and we have to say, we like 'em.
There are new lifelines, including a chance to get help from a celebrity "expert" instead of just calling your idiot brother-in-law. (Although there are some kinks to be worked out in this area -- such as how to get Bill Nye the Science Guy to stop talking long enough for you to ask him the question.)
But the best part is that the questions now come with a time limit. We used to watch this show with a finger on our TiVo's "30-second skip" button to get past the seemingly interminable periods between the questions and answers, plus all the really dumb early questions and the chatting in between. (The good part was that you could watch the whole show in eight minutes.) But now it moves along twice as fast, zipping through the filler and putting the emphasis where it really belongs: on letting the viewers prove how smart we are just because we know what a tangelo is.
Now, if we could only get Wheel of Fortune to dispense with that "buy a vowel" nonsense....