The preteen brainiacs competing on “Genius Junior,” on NBC, give
every indication of fine emotional health, God bless them, and knock on
wood. The mind teems with potent visions of fictional counterparts who
were less adept at handling the quiz-show grind. J. D. Salinger’s Glass
siblings, who starred in a fictional radio quiz show titled “It’s a Wise
Child,” didn’t fare terribly well. Nor did Donnie Smith, the famed
former champion of “What Do Kids Know?,” played with full melancholy by
William H. Macy in the film “Magnolia.” But the nature of “Genius Junior” is to
sweep away the thought of these and other grim precedents—with an
efficiency typical of the most successful contemporary game shows.
The contestants are hugely likable, despite occasional production
missteps that depict otherwise. The introduction segment, in which the
kids cite their bona fides—their Mensa memberships, their bizarrely
capacious memories, their effortless trilingualism—could do without the
stage business of having the kids cross their arms while they switch on
smug grins, as if coached into smarty-pants cuteness. The images of the
kids are aggressively ingratiating, as is the music that punctuates
their feats. Instead of the “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” model of
building suspense with fidgety synths and bludgeoning thumps, “Genius
Junior” offers a jangly guitar as its signature sound, its riffs like a
fanfare heralding a big-tent sideshow.
Your host is Neil Patrick Harris, who looks, in his fancy waistcoat,
like a wonkish ringmaster. Harris is joining a field currently bestrode
by titans such as Steve Harvey, of “Celebrity Family Feud,” on ABC, and
Ellen DeGeneres, whose geniality tames the flavor of “Ellen’s Game of
Games,” also on NBC. Harvey and DeGeneres are in the business of breezy
earnestness, in contrast with the ambience of ABC’s reinvigorated “Match
Game,” in which Alec Baldwin, wisecracking with celebrity panelists,
deploys both the gravity of his voice and the solidity of his ego with
irony, thereby lending weight to throwback kitsch. Harris finds a middle
path: he seems as sincere as a camp counsellor while wincing his own
one-liners, which often partake of the deliberate cheesiness of a dad
joke. His presence constitutes stunt casting, insofar as his stardom
began, in 1989, with his portrayal of the child prodigy Doogie Howser;
in this sense, he arrives at this venue as a nostalgia act unto himself,
despite other evidence of a thriving career.
Crucially, you cannot play along at home with “Genius Junior,” the début
episode of which introduced us to one three-member team called The Dork
Side. A majority of the rounds present proof of the contestants’
faculties of memory: for instance, the kids, having studied an
exhaustive list of an airline’s flight routes, were directed to name
cities where a plane might stop en route from Boise to Rio de Janeiro.
In other instances, they are charged to prove that they’ve memorized the
order in which the fifty-two cards of a shuffled deck randomly fell.
“Genius Junior” is more an exhibition than a competition—“an education
celebration,” Harris says—and this spirit helps it avoid evoking dread.
There is none of the empathetic terror that chills the viewer’s soul
when he watches the Scripps National Spelling Bee, even when “Genius
Junior” tests its players’ orthographic prowess. When this show asks
children to spell words, it requires them do so in reverse, a feat of
agility that is hardly T-N-A-C-I-F-I-N-G-I-S-N-I, to cite a recent example.
The tension picks up a bit in an episode-concluding segment called the
Cortex, which is a kind of rapid-fire cognitive test. The drama is
partly a matter of set design: the kids are situated in an hall-like
recess, the ominous nature of which suggests that any Cortex failure
might result in their being sucked up from a space-station airlock and
into the vacuum of eternity. But the cheerfulness of the proceedings
again dispels dark fantasies; the brainteasers whiz by refreshingly, and
the show hits a sweet spot of wholesome escapism—a stimulating
mindlessness. The viewer may be vegging out in front of the television,
but he will emerge from “Genius Junior” as one of the very healthiest
vegetables. This is beet greens for the soul.
Sourse: newyorker.com
