TV Review: Spell-Mageddon

By Nathan Young on August 1, 2013

This is one of those shows that makes me wonder what ABC Family and Disney was thinking? Take your average spelling bee, and notch it up to include painful obstacles, all while spelling a word. That’s Spell-Mageddon! I am going to talk about the first episode below.

Spell-Mageddon is hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro, which I thought he did a good job hosting, I just wished it was a different game show than this one! The beginning of Spell-Mageddon begins with seven contestants. They had to navigate a short obstacle course which gets harder after each round. The first contestant to buzz in gets to spell a word from the proctor. This women is in a small booth above the audience with her identity hidden. And yes, it sounds like an official spelling bee. You can also spell along when the words pop-up on the screen.

In the second round, the six remaining contestants had to spell words one at a time. The contestants had to endure some very annoying obstacles like a shocking floor, water dumped on their heads, water spraying from their microphones, and even smoke. I felt bad for these players being embarrassed on national television all for a spelling bee. After two players got two strikes, they were off to the loser’s lounge.

The next round featured each player being dumped into a dunking booth filled with icy cold water. The players had 60 seconds to spell as many words correct as they can. Each time a word was misspelled, they got water dumped on their heads. Watching these players try their hardest to spell words and hearing the proctor say the words was painful to watch. Two more players with the lowest scores were sent off to the loser’s lounge. Then the audience got to vote one player back into the game. One player got a second chance by embarrassing themselves the most.

The next round featured the splash chamber. The chamber features many hoses to water down each player and even a guy touching the contestants in some interesting ways. The first player with three strikes was eliminated. Then it was time for the final round and the two players were dressed nicely! The final challenge was called sensory overload. The chamber had strobe lights, TV’s, many speakers, and lots of flashing lights. It’s almost enough to give someone a stroke! Both players had 60 seconds to spell as many words as they can right, and one player won $10,000 at the end.

I thought Spell-Mageddon was a crazy attempt to do a spelling bee. The obstacles were very distracting and some of the contestants really hated them. And I thought some of the obstacles were torture! You also had a hard time hearing the words being spelled because the contestants were screaming loudly. Yes, ABC Family tried to jazz up the spelling bee because it can be boring to watch. But Spell-Mageddon was a very poor attempt to make the spelling bee hip and cool. It won’t be long before Spell-Mageddon is cancelled and off of the ABC Family schedule.

All images copyright from ABC Family.