NBC's 1 VS 100 comes back on January 4th, and they are getting the FOURTH format change in 20 episodes. That's one for every five episodes. And this one is bad. The format is now based on every 10 people you eliminate in a, you guessed it, money chain.

10 Mob Members Eliminated = $1,000
20 Mob Members Eliminated = $5,000
30 Mob Members Eliminated = $10,000
40 Mob Members Eliminated = $25,000
50 Mob Members Eliminated = $50,000
60 Mob Members Eliminated = $75,000
70 Mob Members Eliminated = $100,000
80 Mob Members Eliminated = $250,000
90 Mob Members Eliminated = $500,000
All Mob Members Eliminated = $1,000,000

Funny note about this format: They used this for trial runs in July 2006 but deemed this was not good enough to go to air. They've now gone back to it.

The One can now leave at any moment he or she desires, so the Mob is completely screwed. NBC managed to screw up a good show for a reason I do not know about. It's really a shame too. It's obscenely similar to Millionaire now.

For as much as I looked forward to this show coming back, this is a real shame. They've managed to relatively fix Deal or No Deal with some fun gimmicks while screwing up 1 VS 100. Congratulations, NBC. You truly can never get anything correct.

I will withhold judgment until I see the format in action. It seems like it could create some interesting situations. A common criticism of some of the early formats was that it was pretty easy and pretty well-advised to just get around 100-150K and then walk away - and it happened that way a lot. Allowing people to leave after seeing the question should encourage a little more risk.

But I do share the frustration with getting closer to the Millionaire model. I wish the game shows would be more inventive.

I wish they had actually stolen a little from Greed's format and that is instead of giving them the question, they gave them the category. I wouldn't say the show is screwed though. People on Millionaire go for the money all the time and lose, so I don't think the Mob is going to be that worse off. (Did they really win that much before?) I think having the question will tempt people to go on that would have stopped anyway.