One of a quiz-show host's tasks is to say the same things over and over, throughout each show and show after show, and make it all sound fresh and interesting.
There are deviations to that primary requirement.
The nature of the questions vary and the contestants have different names.
But overall it's a case of Groundhog Day writ large.
If I had a dollar for each time I've heard Chris Tarrant (UK Millionaire) say, "you trust this audience?" or recite the help options, I'd be poolside in the Bahamas right now.
So, it takes a special kind of person to create a "thrills and spills" atmosphere from the repetitive and mundane.
Jason Gunn manages this nightly.
He has an arsenal of suspenseful intonations for merely observing the wheel's pointer clacking towards the less than princely sum of $50.
He also manages to constantly express various forms of surprise and delight when a letter of the alphabet enjoys success on the board.
Which all leads me to the choice of Mike Hosking to host New Zealand's Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?
I watched Hosking's debut last Tuesday.
Apart from occasional moments when it appeared someone had jabbed him in the kidneys with a sharp stick to gee him up a little, what I saw was a man displaced from his natural waters.
A man who, having been yanked from the warm seat of current affairs and the semi-probing interview, finds himself earning a crust by coaxing a distinctly un-bright contestant through a $500 question for a frustrating 10 minutes.
I recalled his days as a co-host of Breakfast when, had he been faced with a colleague who had no idea the Government had recently purchased a fleet of BMWs, would have dispensed sarcasm on a trowel.
Mike Hosking has a high opinion of himself - no bad thing.
He's knowledgeable and knows it.
In his past career he has berated, and been disdainful of interviewees who either dithered and blustered or didn't know their gluteus maximus from their synovial joint capsule.
Whether or not he's mellowed in that regard, I don't know.
But I get the uncomfortable feeling that whilst he's in the Millionaire hot-seat, ostensibly cajoling and reminding, his thoughts are actually along the lines of, "for pity's sake, were you born in a barn?", or "stiff upper lip Hosking - it's paying the mortgage".
Yes, he was a strange choice indeed.
What is required for such a role is transparent affability, chattiness, and a genuine connectedness with folk.
Okay, there's a million bucks at stake but when push comes to shove Millionaire's just another tinpot game show revolving round people and personalities. Mastermind it ain't.
If they ever made a second series do you know who I'd audition for host? The ebullient Jim Hickey, that's who.
Mind you, he's a fidgety little beggar - they'd have to strap him in the seat.
- Lois Davey
