I've seen phone a friend help alot, but I've also seen it not help. I think the key is to read the question and answers quickly, dispensing of any words that are unneccessary to the actual question. Also, have at least one friend who is sitting by the computer and has good googling skills.
frankly, I think that "ask the audience" is kind of a crap lifeline as well. It's really only useful if you're in the lower-level questions (as the audience generally seems to turn into complete idiots when you hit the first safe point), and if you can't answer the lower-level stuff, honestly, I'm not sure you deserve to be on the show.
I disagree on this. Of course the best use of ask the audience is at the earlier stages, because you couldn't expect everyone to know those tough later questions. But there are plenty of types of questions that a knowledgeable person might just not know. Pop culture questions are great for ask the audience. Take me, for instance. I know quite a bit of trivia and can answer alot of the questions, but I don't watch American Idol, Survivor, or really any reality tv. So questions often come up in the early phase that most people would know but I don't. Hence, ask the audience.
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quantumfootball
15 years ago
I agree that there are lots of people out there who are good at some portions of pop culture trivia, and not knowledgeable in others, and that the ask the audience lifeline is usually really helpful then. The people who are really serious about the show typically have lots of friends who are really knowledgable in other subjects, like the guy who had the classics professor as a lifeline when he didn't know what a Latin word meant. It's just that too many of the contestants either hang out in circles of people with similar knowledge bases, their friends aren't available at the time of the show's taping, or they feel like they owe it to their BFFs to the the phone-a-friends instead of someone who would come through.
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Jake3988
15 years ago
Phone a friend works when the people are smart enough to use google to find the answer.
I can, after reading the question, usually find most answers within about 5 to 10 seconds just using wikipedia or google. (And yes, I usually do hear the keyboard in the background but either they're slow or stupid)
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Tresix
14 years ago
Well, they HAVE dumped "phone a friend" for the very reason that Jake and some others have stated to have them: Google and other Internet resources. They felt that those who had friends with the Internet had an advantage over those who didn't. Maybe I should have read the rules more closely when I tried out back in 2007 to see if your "phone a friend" really couldn't use the Internet. For the most part, I knew most of the answers off the top of my head. I think they should have kept "switch the question" and "50/50" and dumped "ask the expert". Very few of them seems to help and I wonder what were they thinking when used the likes of Gelman from "Live with Regis & Kelly" and Ali Wentworth from the TV show "Head Case". My 9-year-old great-niece would have been a better help!
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