Quiz Show - Plot

Plot

From a secure bank vault, the answers to Twenty One, a popular primetime quiz television show, are sent into a television studio as studio producers Dan Enright (David Paymer) and Albert Freedman (Hank Azaria) watch from the control booth. The evening's main attraction is Queens resident Herbert Stempel (John Turturro), the reigning champion, who answers question after question. However, both the network and the corporate sponsor of the program, a supplementary tonic called Geritol, find that Stempel's approval ratings are beginning to level out, meaning the show would benefit from new talent.

Enright and Freedman find a new contestant in Columbia University instructor Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), son of the renowned poet and intellectual Mark Van Doren (Paul Scofield) and the novelist Dorothy Van Doren (Elizabeth Wilson). The producers subtly offer to rig the show for him but Van Doren uprightly refuses. Enright soon treats Stempel to dinner at an upscale restaurant, where he breaks the news that Stempel must lose in order to boost flagging ratings. Stempel begrudgingly agrees, only on the condition that he remains on television, threatening to reveal the true reason of his success: the answers had been provided for him.

Stempel and Van Doren face each other in Twenty One, where the match comes down to a predetermined question regarding Marty, the 1955 winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. Despite knowing the correct film, Stempel gives the wrong answer, allowing Van Doren to get a question he previously answered while in Enright's offices; he provides the winning response.

In the weeks that follow, Van Doren's winning streak makes him a national celebrity. Buckling under the new pressure, he begins to let the producers directly give him the answers instead of researching for them himself. Meanwhile, Stempel, having lost his financial prize winnings to a fleeting bookie, begins threatening legal action against the NBC network after weeks go by without his return to television. He is shown going into the office of New York County District Attorney Frank Hogan.

Richard N. "Dick" Goodwin (Rob Morrow), a young Congressional lawyer from Harvard Law, becomes intrigued when he reads that the Grand Jury's findings from Hogan's proceedings are sealed. He travels to New York to investigate rumors of rigged quiz shows. Visiting a number of contestants, including Stempel and Van Doren, he begins to suspect Twenty One is indeed a fixed operation. However, Stempel is a volatile personality and nobody else seems to corroborate that the show is rigged. Goodwin enjoys the company of Van Doren, who invites him to social gatherings, and doubts a man of Van Doren's background and intellect would be involved in the hoax.

Stempel desperately confesses to being in on the fix himself, and further insists that if he got the answers in advance, Van Doren did as well. This wins Stempel an angry tell-off from his wife, who believed in him. With the evidence mounting, Van Doren deliberately loses, but is rewarded with a sizable contract from NBC to appear as a special correspondent on the Today show.

Meanwhile, Goodwin proceeds with the hearings before the House Committee for Legislative Oversight, with extended proof of the show's corruption. Goodwin strongly advises Van Doren to avoid making any public statements supporting the show. If he agrees to this, Goodwin promises not to call Van Doren to appear before the Congressional committee. However, at the prompting of the NBC network head, Van Doren issues a statement reaffirming his trust in the honesty of the quiz show.

Stempel testifies before Congress and, while doing so, implicates Van Doren, forcing Goodwin to call him in as a witness. Van Doren goes before Congress and publicly admits his role in the conspiracy. At first, Congress is very impressed with him, but one Congressman from New York is unimpressed and puts Van Doren in his place, turning the tide against him. Afterward, he is informed by reporters of his firing from Today as well as the university's decision to ask for his resignation.

Goodwin believes he is on the verge of a victory against Geritol and the network, but instead realizes that Enright and Freedman will not turn in their bosses and jeopardize their own futures in television; he silently watches the producers' testimony, vindicating the sponsors and the network from any wrongdoing.