Tom Bergeron is just not a host when you compare him with Peter Marshall. This is one of the major handicaps this revival of Sqaures has. There are some others too.
The game is basically UN-changed from the old one. The center square does not have a real talent. They tried several, most notably Whoopie Goldberg whose problem is she is a better "straight" comedy person to feed someone else the punch lines as she is poor a delivering punch lines. Goldberg is an Abbott trying to be a Costello but she needs a Costello badly. Bergeron could not fill that bill.
This show almost certainly had too much entrenched competition when it was originally syndicated at night. it could not break the grip of other shows in the time slot. It did not get an easy middle of the day time slot & a lot of practice to get established like Peter Marshall's series did.
Sadly, times had changed when this went on too. Viewers were too sophisticated & the panelists themselves are just not as talented as the ones on the original series.
The game is basically UN-changed from the old one. The center square does not have a real talent. They tried several, most notably Whoopie Goldberg whose problem is she is a better "straight" comedy person to feed someone else the punch lines as she is poor a delivering punch lines. Goldberg is an Abbott trying to be a Costello but she needs a Costello badly. Bergeron could not fill that bill.
This show almost certainly had too much entrenched competition when it was originally syndicated at night. it could not break the grip of other shows in the time slot. It did not get an easy middle of the day time slot & a lot of practice to get established like Peter Marshall's series did.
Sadly, times had changed when this went on too. Viewers were too sophisticated & the panelists themselves are just not as talented as the ones on the original series.