It's Your Future...I See A Cab Ride

I realized that I haven't talked at all about my new favorite TV show. It's not even on any of the big 4 networks. It's actually on The Discovery Channel. The show is called Cash Cab. Basically, a guy drives around in a cab in New York picking up passengers and asking them trivia questions. For each question they get right, they earn money. If they get three questions wrong before the cab reaches its destination, he pulls over and kicks them out. Basically you can think of it as Taxicab Confessions for nerds. (I should probably point out that there was actually a British version of this first, but I haven't seen it, so we'll just pretend it never happened, ok? Good.)

The host, Ben Bailey, drives these people around but has to ask questions while dealing with New York traffic and making sure not to show any signs of disgust at how incredibly stupid people sometimes are. He does make the occasional face at the camera, but mostly he stays composed. Once people are out of the cab though, there's no reason to be so nice and he will make jokes about the answers that were given, the need to switch to decaf, etc. My favorite comment was after two guys who were obvious nerds and probably could have passed as members of Weezer won a considerable amount of money. They were celebrating on the street after getting out of the cab and as he drove away, the host looked into the camera and said, "It looks like somebody's getting a new Dungeons & Dragons set." You know what, you probably had to see it, so...never mind. The point is that he manages to drive, ask questions and be amusing all at the same time.

The great draw of the show is that these are just random people getting asked general knowledge questions. It's fun and easy to play along. When people miss answers you can get frustrated with how ignorant they are and talk about how you would never have missed such an easy question. Maybe that has to do with why I like it. I can see these people struggle to come up with answers when I can sit at home with no pressure and feel superior because I wouldn't be getting kicked out of the cab into the rain. Is it that simple? Am I really that shallow? Probably, yeah. Now, if you'll excuse me , I'm going to go buy a ticket to New York. I've got a cab to catch.