“Make that a double!”
Those were Nikki Bella’s first words as the host of the new celebrity game show, Barmageddon, which pits celebrity guests competing against one another in wacky versions of bar games.
But if the premiere episode – which aired on the USA Network immediately after NXT on Tuesday night – is any indication, you’ll need something even stronger than a double to make this show watchable. Maybe a triple. Or a keg.
The premise of the show (thin as it may be) is that two celebrities – typically country singers, as the show is based out of Nashville, Tennessee at the bar owned by singer Blake Shelton (The Voice) – pair up with two losers who publicly embarrassed themselves on social media, and compete in exaggerated variations of games typically played in bars.
There are five different games played, with the team that wins the most games crowned as the episode’s winner. But, in order to avoid a shortened contest if a team wins three straight games, the loser of each round has the option to even things up by spinning the Wheel of Redemption (which is more like a Wheel of Re-Dumb-tion, but I digress). That spin will either earn you a point, thereby tying that round, or require the team to face a punishment to tie it up. There are only three spins available per show. I didn’t do the math to figure out if that would guarantee that five games would definitely be played every week, because it doesn’t matter to me, because I’m not watching this show again.
This week’s celebrities were country singers Kane Brown and Blake Shelton (the show was apparently his idea, and it takes place at his bar in Nashville, Tennessee). Their respective partners were some doofus named Stefano who cried when a catfish got lodged into his back, and a ditz named Chisa who fell off a log and into a creek. Millennials, apparently, are idiots.
Oh, this is as good as a time to mention that they also dug up Carson Daly from obscurity to throw in some commentary here and there with Nikki or to join in the games when the teams needed a third player.
As host, Nikki’s role was primarily to explain each game and announce the winners. She threw in some commentary during each game, but like her wrestling skills, her words were minimal and pretty inconsequential.
As for the games:
- Blake and Chisa won the first game, Beer Bombs, which was beer pong with giant balls and cups. The losers spun the wheel and had to drink a nasty shot to tie it up.
- The second game was King Pong, where each player tried to hit ping pong balls into cups using giant paddles, some of which had holes in them. Kane and Stefano won, and Blake’s team had to gargle a nasty shot for 30 seconds to tie it up.
- Game number three was Cornhole (or as most people call it, a Bean Bag Toss, because Beavis and Butthead kind of ruined the term ‘Cornhole’ for everyone, just like Nikki Bella ruined watching wrestling every time she was in the ring) but using an air cannon. Team Blake won, and the losers had to eat a hot wing to tie it up.
- The fourth game was a spin on Win, Lose, or Draw, where the player had a pool cue with a piece of chalk at the end, and they had to recreate a picture that their partner had to guess. The “clever” writers came up with the name “Just the Tip” for this game, undoubtedly giggling like school kids at the time with the “clever” innuendo. Team Kane won. As all the punishments were gone, Blake had no chance to tie it up. So, the score going into the final game was 4-3 Team Kane.
- The last game was a Darts game where they had to throw darts at balloons, and behind some balloons was a picture. The pictures made up a phrase, and to win, you had to guess the phrase. Kane’s team won the game and the episode.
For the trouble of giving up his dignity for an hour, Stefano was awarded with a new fishing pole, in honour of the dumb stunt that got him on the show in the first place.
Overall, Barmageddon isn’t particularly funny or entertaining, unless you like the idea of celebrities doing silly things for an hour. The highlight of the premiere was probably the snippets of Blake Shelton singing “Margaritaville” that bookended the show (clips of future episodes include performances by Gwen Stefani and Sheryl Crow), begging the question, why not just do an hour-long broadcast of their concerts, which would definitely be more entertaining?
For wrestling fans who tuned in to see Nikki Bella, well, she wasn’t awful in her role as host – so a step up from her wrestling. But the role wasn’t really that big, and she could have been replaced by pretty much anyone else and it wouldn’t have made a difference. That said, they may want to check out the upcoming episode in which WWE superstar Sasha Banks will be a competitor, since it’s not like they can see her on an actual wrestling show any time soon. I won’t check it out – sadly, there’s not enough doubles in the world.
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