Having caught four episodes so far, my analysis is... it's pretty average.
- The first three rounds are just the same thing repeated aside from DOUBLING! and TRIPLING!!! the points — but that's more or less the same thing Feud does.
- John Michael Higgins is probably the weakest part of the show, he doesn't really seem to have any enthusiasm or personality.
- I don't really feel the show is cheap — the flat $1,000 for failing at the bonus round is (slightly) more than the
minimum you get if you don't win Fast Money, and the grand prize is $3,750 per player as opposed to $4,000 per player on Feud — not really that big a difference. I guess you could argue it should be more since there's no returning champions and no car at stake, but... it seems fine for a cable show.
- The bonus round format is good, and if nothing else I like that the whole team participates in it, unlike Feud.
Perhaps Feud should enforce a strike each time a team member shouts an answer when it isn't their turn, but I'm surprised in its long history I've never seen a situation where this has happened.
There is a rule that if somebody gives multiple answers or answers when it's not their turn, those answer(s) can't be given by anyone else on the team during the round (but can still be used by the opponents to steal). I know it's come up at least a couple of times, but it's really rare. I can see it happening a lot more often on America Says because of the rapid-fire format, so it's good they have a rule in place for that.