Weekdays, 5pm,
ITV
Sports journalist Sean Fletcher hosts a new quiz for everybody to moan about in the The Chase slot for the next fortnight and here is is holding a question card, if I’m responsible for the resurgence of hosts holding question cards in promo shots then I am a happy man.
Apparently it’s a quiz inspired by the bleep test, although it sounds more like that tennis-esque game from Pressure Pad writ large – six contestants face off answering questions whilst the virtual Rebound Bar travels back and forth across the studio, answering correctly reverses it back towards your opponent faster. If it reaches your end you lose.
It sounds like a no-nonsense quickfire format from the blurb, but people don’t watch formats they watch shows and will this one be the first since Tipping Point in that slot that a respectable amount will want to watch? It’s starting from a low base of about a million that Freeze Out bequeathed it, it should only need a modest rise from that to be considered worth bothering with again I’d have thought.
Love this! Looking at it from a quiz/questions fan more than a gameplay fan, this has a lot of good elements.
Love the variety of rounds from quickfire questions on a theme (thus meaning more questions can be asked per show) to interesting multiple choice questions (nice variety of mechanisms for the questions to be asked – I particularly like the round in which the answer options are revealed first, followed by the just keyword for the questions)
Nice to see ITV not being stingy with prize money – money belonging to eliminated contestants is passed on to those who remain.
A few thoughts that might improve it in my eyes:
Casting – both contestants and host were a little awkward. This may improve as time goes on, or may be a result of dodgy editing, but slightly detracted from an otherwise warm and friendly feeling to the show
Fairness – In round 4, the score from the previous round dictates the size of their advantage, but they are ranked rather than given a scaled head start, so in the case of today’s show, the one person who drastically underperformed relative to the other two who were relatively close in score was not given a disadvantage which reflected his poor performance.
Question difficulty – I like the idea of the Playing for Time-style ‘the faster you answer, the more you score’ mechanic, and the idea of the questions all being a ‘which of these is the most…’, or ‘which was first…’ comparison, needing you to draw on lots of bits of information is a nice one, because it stops contestants expecting correct answer and then hitting it straight away, but most of these questions would have been guesses to these contestants even without the pressure of having to answer quickly – easier questions test both speed and knowledge in this case, rather than harder ones which test speed and luck!
In short though, I would enjoy watching a longer series of this much more than Tipping Point – more playalong value, just due to simple thing like managing to even display the quickfire questions and, in my opinion, it’s time for something new to ITV daytime.
First episode complete, now time for the complete format rundown as usual.
Yep, that time again.
6 players attempt to beat the Rebound bar to win thousands of pounds in cash.
Before I give a rundown, I’ll explain what the set looks like. Think half of a neon blue skateboard ramp with a desk at either side of it.
Round 1 is Fast Cash. There are 3 questions, each worth anything up to £1,000. The contestants are shown a question as the bar moves away from them. They have the time it takes from when the bar Rebounds and makes its way back towards them to lock in one of 4 answers. The faster they answer, the more money they get for a correct answer as the money counts down the closer the bar gets to them. After the 3 questions, we are shown a leaderboard of how much money each player has so far.
Round 2 is Head To Head. Starting with the player with the most amount of money, they choose one of the 5 remaining players to challenge. They make their way to opposite sides of the runway with a white line separating them in the middle. Each player is then spotted 3 lives. The player who brought through the most money is in control and gets to pick one of 2 categories (for example, Addition or Division). Sean explains what’s involved in the question (either sums, anagrams or sentences with a word missing), then the bar will then move towards the player who was challenged until they give an answer. If it’s correct, the bar will move in the opposite direction and gradually get faster. This carries on until a player gets a question wrong or the bar reaches their end of the runway, costing them a life. The only rule is that you can only give an answer when the bar is in your half of the runway. This carries on until one player loses all their lives, knocking them out of the game and giving up any money they won in the Fast Cash round to the winner. This is repeated until 3 players are eliminated.
Round 3 is another round of Fast Cash, again with each question worth up to £1,000, but with 5 questions instead of 3.
Round 4 is Stop The Bar. The runway is divided up into 3 lanes (one for each player) and the idea is to answer questions correctly so that your bar doesn’t reach you and eliminate you from the game. The trailing player starts with their bar 6 seconds closer to them, the 2nd place player starts with their bar 3 seconds closer to them, and the leading player’s bar doesn’t move at all. On each question, the players are shown 3 answers (for example, A: Woodstock, B: Glastonbury, C: Bestival), the bars start moving towards them and a short clue is shown (in this case, Snoopy’s Sidekick). The players lock in their answers to stop the bars, and anyone who is wrong has their bar move 3 seconds closer towards them. The first 2 players to have their bar reach them are eliminated from the game, leaving one player left to win the entire pot in the Final, which today was £7,598
In the final, named Beat The Bar, the player must answer 15 questions separated into 3 blocks of 5. They are shown 6 categories of which 3 must be chosen. They are of standard quiz fare such as Science and Nature, Sport, Music, History and so on. As the player is answering the questions, the bar is moving towards them. Once it has reached the end of the runway, it will then turn red and chase the player. If the bar reaches them, the game ends and they leave with nothing. If the player can answer all 15 questions before the bar can catch them, they leave with the entire pot. There’s no gamble involved for each set of 5 the player completes which makes a refreshing change.
This game borrows from other shows, I feel. The Fast Cash rounds are a bit like the Cash Countdown round from the Nick Weir/Mark Curry era of Catchphrase, the Head To Head round felt like the Battle questions from 500 Questions or that one round from Pressure Pad whose name escapes me, and the final round was a scaled-down version of Breakaway without the Breakaway track.
The Pressure Pad round you were looking for was Deadline.
Just to clarify, are all the remaining three players’ totals combined to make the final jackpot for the winner to play for in the final Beat the Bar round or does the winner only play for what they earned?
Everyone’s money is combined
Perfect, thanks for the clarification. So therefore, contestants could win just a shade over £30,000 if they’re smart enough and fast enough.
The theoretical maximum is £33,000 (all six players get all three questions right in the first Fast Cash round at £1,000 each = £18k; then all the remaining three getting all five right at £1,000 each in the second = £15k – total £33k) – but as this would require pinpoint timing on each question to buzz at the very millisecond the answers appear, that’s fairly impossible to achieve. £30,000 seems a more realistic expectation of the highest jackpot achievable.
(Yes, I worked this out while watching the very first episode…)
This was far more stop and start than I was hoping. The Fast Cash round distinctly feels like padding. Lovely set, but I don’t think they make the most of the principle.
Game of two halves for me – first half was brilliant as the bar really seemed to be always on the verge of knocking contestant out but the second faltered as the bar just didn’t feel threatening enough.
The Fast Cash element worked well enough, but too much chatter in revealing the answers. Loved the Head to Head – strongest round of the show and really quickfire, something we don’t seem much of now on quiz shows, especially back and forth between contestants. Also allowed for tactical play and a bit of banter – just worked brilliantly IMO.
Stop the Bar felt out of place and the more the show moved away from the “rebound” concept the worse the round was. I think adapting the Fast Cash round but on the buzzer so only the first to answer gets cash would work better here – perhaps reverse the cash trail so it’s a game of chicken and the longer they wait the more cash they get – make it tactical about buzzing in early or holding out for more cash. Alternatively keep the individual bars but have quick fire questions and some sort of nominate system where you’re attempting to rundown your opponents time and knock them out.
The final round too didn’t work for me in the context of the concept of the show – the bar moved far too slow and spent most of the round going the other way rather than rebounding. Again something pacier would work better – maybe an individual version of the head to head where it really is like the bleep test and they have to answer questions in quick succession with three lives and the option to bank after each category (1/4 of prize after first category, 1/2 after second).
I like the staging and concept and Sean Fletcher proved for me that Good Morning Britain are stupid for sidelining him, but really think they need to ensure the bar is always seconds away from potentially eliminating a contestant.
I largely agree that purely from a quickfire question point of view there’s a lot to like here – plenty of variety and well pitched to be parsed and worked out in a few seconds. Based on this alone I would be fine if it became a moderate success.
However there are niggles for me – Fast Cash is some sort of irony and feels more like a 12 Yard Memorial Round and is apparently so good it gets played twice.
I really liked Stop the Bar when it was the final round on Buzz on the Playstation but there’s something well off with the pacing – if people are answering questions for thirty seconds and buzzing in after one and they’re stopping for a chat for five minutes after each question it gets really tiresome. It needs to feel rather more quickfire and tense.
Also it seems really difficult for positions to change, nobody’s going to blind panic until towards the end. I wonder if nicking the “first right answer wins a bonus” idea from Buzz might encourage people to be a bit more reckless.
The head to head rounds are the strongest bit for me as a quiz but, and this applies to Fast Cash as well, there’s something that feels almost imperceptably *imprecise* about the bar which doesn’t feel right in a game that’s time critical. I’m not quite sure what it is – perhaps it just needs to look a bit thinner. Hitting the contestants in Fast Cash with several hundred quid on the clock looks rubbish. Similarly in the head to head round, I get where there’s been an edit because clearly something’s gone wrong (I predict someone not waiting to answer until the bar’s back in their half) but the cutaway during a game that’s meant to be slightly intense is really jarring. I’m not quite sure what to do about it short of throwing the round out, but that’s something that could be gamed if you’re not careful.
I enjoyed the endgame (it’s Sean Fletcher’s Runway!), time will tell if the Bar is too slow or not, at least it’s winnable.
Sean Fletcher seems like a nice guy but I’m not sure he has the gravitas to pull this off right now. He certainly doesn’t come across as owning the show yet.
5/10 for the awkward inter-contestant banter.
I don’t think it quite lives up to the press release promise (I was a bit disappointed it wasn’t more bleep test) and I don’t think it quite hangs together as a production, but the game is fun (I would play it).
I think there’s too much downtime but at least half the show is pretty good (and unlike Freeze Out, doesn’t save the good bits until everyone’s switched off). I reckon 1.2-1.3m is possible – not a Chase replacement, but they’re not looking for Chase replacements, just something solid they can drop in elsewhere, and I fancy this show’s chances over Freeze Out’s.
The show it reminds me most of is Breakaway.
One of the next daytime quiz shows that ITV should try is one that would be hosted by Mark Labbett and its first series should have 20, 30, or 40 episodes rather than just 10. I think fans of The Chase like me would love to see one of the Chasers host their own game show, preferably Mark since he’s regarded to be the best of them all.
But let me add this: if the bar in the duels was simply replaced by contestants answering alternately within 2 seconds, the game would be just the same. The bar adds virtually nothing. It moves too fast to build up any kind of ‘time advantage’ and the rule that you can’t answer in the other half kills off any hope of that anyway.
Also, I’d allow them to try more than one answer because then at least your ‘lead’ actually counts for something if you don’t know the answer outright.
As mentioned above, overall this feels like it could have had a lot more tension in it than it currently has.
It’s a good visual devise in the head to head round though and also adds a bit of tactics a clock might not as the faster you answer your question the less time your opponent has as the bar returns to their half quicker.
Pretty much of the same opinion as yesterday but one thing to add – while stealing your defeated opponents money makes sense in the first round it doesn’t in the final round as the final prize will always be the same anyway.
I really do think the Beat the Bar round needs a much more tactical element so the contestants are playing against each other rather than just against time. Individual questions with the bar coming towards you until you answer correctly and then nominate and opponent to answer next would work best IMO. Also annoys me how thin the middle bar looks in the overhead shot.
I am surprised that the final round didn’t offer bailouts after every 5 questions.
It wasn’t too bad…you get the right set of players someone could end up playing for 15 grand easy. Interesting they don’t do bailouts though- though with the timing so long as you’ve completed the 2nd set by the time the bar starts back most people would go for it anyway. You could probably do a show just based around the head to heads that would work- 8 players per show, first round is best of 5, 2nd round best of 7 , final best of 9-each right answer adds cash to the pot, winner take all, no endgame required.
You’d have to play for way lower stakes then, I’d be quite surprised if the prize budget goes to 8k an episode.
The Link 0.82m (14.3%)
Pointless 3.06m (27.0%)
Two Tribes 1.00m (6.7%)
Eggheads 1.11m (6.9%)
University Challenge 2.74m (13.0%)
Only Connect 2.22m (10.3%)
Guess This House 0.64m (10.0%)
Dickinson’s Real Deal 0.72m (12.2%)
Tipping Point 1.08m (17.0%)
Hello Campers 0.62m (8.1%)
Rebound 1.14m (10.6%)
Countdown 0.30m (5.2%)
Fifteen to One 0.23m (3.6%)
French Collection 0.45m (5.9%)
Couples Come Dine With Me 0.76m (7.1%)
Thanks Paul!
Paul, I’m aware no-one other than me cares, but what kind of numbers is Hive Minds doing now? Or is it too few to count?
Oh I think there’s a few of us Ratings Nerds about. Numbers! Stats! Yay!
Anything for Bargain Hunt please?
Last week’s Hive Minds (11th August) got 221,000 (1.1%)
Yesterday’s Bargain Hunt got 1,713,000 (28.6%)
I think the issue with this show going forward may be tone – I’m not sure that as host Sean Fletcher has struck the right one. On Tuesday’s episode, he didn’t really commiserate with the losing contestant in the final round – running through all the questions she got wrong wasn’t great. I think they are going for a ruthless Weakest link vibe but he cant carry this off…
I think The Chase and Pointless get this right – especially Bradley ability to be on the contestants side.
Personally, in the Fast Cash rounds I’d do all the questions and then all the answers. Slashing away the chat gives the opportunity to add tension and make tedious filler gripping.
I’m not a fan of Sean Fletcher. As someone up above said, he never sounds sad that they’ve lost a player.
He comes across a bit ‘procedure’, it’s something that suits certain shows, I think this one requires someone who can own the stage a bit more.
I can’t work out how much I like the endgame, it ticks lots of boxes but I’m not sure if it’s actually exciting, or not exciting until towards the end anyway. It doesn’t really feel like you’re going to get close finishes, you kind of know if they’re going to win about halfway through the second segment. I will keep watching to see if there’s a trend. Pretty decent amount of money given away thus far though.
Much prefer himn to the likes of Ben Shepherd or Mark Durden Smith and I quite like his matter of fact approach – his kind of passive disapproval works so much better than an Anne Robinson type approach.
Opinion on Day 4 pretty much the same as day one – really like the Head to Head rounds but feel the format loses something in the last half hour. I do like the idea in the final 3 round where you have to pretty much work out the question as well as the answer but just don’t think the final two rounds work as well as they should.
Would definately like to see it get a second shot though, and actually wouldn’t be against Freeze Out returning too. After all what is the point in doing a pilot series if they don’t address the problems, make tweaks and then test them out on the audience again.
Because if people tuned out in the first place, they’re hardly going to tune back in again to sample the changes are they? Everyone knows Freeze Out is the rubbish quiz on ice with the rubbish ref and they’re going to know as soon as they see the table to turn over.
The idea that you can’t judge the worth of a show in ten episodes is bollocks – you certainly can in primetime and daily is no different. Successful shows at the very least look like they’re capable of holding an audience through the run, shows don’t tend to divebomb then pick up speed.
Three episodes in how’s this doing? I’ve just seen a rating for Pointless yesterday for 3.35m and 26%, which is a higher figure and lower share than Monday which suggests rivals are doing alright.
Tuesday: 1,148,000 (9.8%)
Wednesday: 1,354,000 (11.0%)
Thanks Paul!
I’m thinking if they tweaked the endgame a little it would flow better- instead of doing 5 correct in one category, stop, pick another category, etc., keep the category board, but tell them to pick three- and they would be asked questions in only those categories in the order they picked one at a time (so the first question would be in category 1, the 2nd in category 2, the 3rd in category 3, the 4th back in category 1, etc.) Then it would be a straight get 15 correct before the bar bounces back and tags you.
A few wrinkles that may not have been noted.
1) The only way to put money in the game is in the “Fast Cash” round. Every other round is about tugging that money into someone’s pot, or taking it out of the studio.
2) The bulk of the game is not a straightforward Q&A. Almost half is taken up by visual clues in “Head to Head”, and “Stop the Bar” asks players to write their own question from a word or two.
3) They do seem to be plucking bagfuls of low-hanging fruit when setting questions in “Head to Head”.
4) “Beat the Bar” sounds like the sort of challenge Brig would run here.
Love the ideas, impressed with the show. Sean hasn’t yet got to grips with game show host traditions, and he doesn’t yet have the character to subvert it.
Also, I don’t know if you’d consider it a wrinkle, but the fact that during the Head-to-Head both the questions get harder AND the bar gets faster, making things more difficult twice as fast.
Yes, and I think that’s my main bugbear. It gets so fast that the time you have to answer is virtually zero so the bar position is effectively pointless – it just becomes a slanging match of two people answering questions as soon as they see them.
If the answers are a few words long, sometimes they have hardly enough time to say it before the bar is very nearly at their feet.
I pity the poor question writers who have to do 20-odd examples for each duel and yet most of them might not be used. Especially galling for the photo researchers.
The playoff round seems to have some lag issues as it appears contestants are pressing the button yet their bar keeps moving for a little while more. That might explain some of the surprised expressions we’ve seen this week. It also night explain why Sean goes a bit Anne Robinson at this point, rather unexpectedly.
I think this show gets a lot right, but with a few tweaks it could be a lot better.
I have just seen one episode, but I wonder whether it could be done in a more light-hearted way. As someone pointed out, it seems like sending someone home is a joy, which seems mean to me.
I think the reason why I like Bradley Walsh is his way of not always taking things too seriously (maybe sometimes faked, but that doesn’t matter). I would love a joke about how all the money is in the Jackpot in the end anyway and how all this “Kill a player off to take his money” seems ridiculous if it is about 13£ (I know, some pounds might make the difference, but we all know that it won’t in this format with 6/3 seconds penalty in the semi-final).
All in all I think this year is better than last year in the quality of game shows. The Link wouldn’t come on top of this 2015’s new shows, I think.
In today’s Biology volley, where the category was “body parts,” it sure looks like there was an edit just before the anagram WOBEL and Said gave the answer BOWEL. I’d wager that the question setter had a completely different answer in mind, and they couldn’t possibly have judged the unexpected answer instantly.
I suspect that too, it hadn’t crossed my mind that elbow and bowel are anagrams of other.
This is where the phrase ‘couldn’t tell your arse from your elbow’ comes from.
(It isn’t.)
I was waiting for the LEMON/MELON problem to come up in the “anagrams of fruit” round we had this week, though I guess that one is better-known.
According to the overnights Rebound did 1.05m and 9.2% yesterday…
Does that include +1/HD?
If so that’s quite a *rebound* Ahahaha.
I’ve been thinking (dangerous, I know!). In the ‘Stop The Bar’ round, would it be better if instead of having the bars move towards you in the event of a wrong answer, what if they moved BACK a bit for a CORRECT answer instead? At the moment, it seems like if you’re the poor sap who banked the least amount of money, you haven’t got a hope in hell of going through to the Final unless by some disasterously bad luck on the part of the other contestants, they get a lot of questions wrong. At least this way, it balances the game somewhat and gives the 2nd and 3rd place players a way to get back into the game. And yes, I AM aware that it would lengthen out the round, but if they cut some of the banter that they normally have on this show, it could still fit, I think. Thoughts?
Yes, that would certainly fix a problem with this round. If you’ve only got 2 seconds of time left vs. 10 seconds on the other player, as has happened a few times this week, you’ve got zero chance because each question takes up at least a fraction of a second to respond even if you’re ultra-quick and guessing.
I think the ‘drain’ should be quicker anyway, because these “you know it or you don’t” questions they’re using mean that reaction time is currently not that vital compared to the number of questions you get right. So either speed up the bar OR ask questions that require a bit more thought to them rather than a reflex.
Well I did suggest this all here, look: https://www.bothersbar.co.uk/?p=8800&cpage=1#comment-367618
A quick search on Twitter when Rebound is on tells you that Sean Fletcher isn’t connecting with a lot of people at home? I wonder if they will ‘recast’ with someone else if they are asked to do more.
For a first stab at presenting a format like this, he’s doing extremely well and people should ease up a bit, IMHO. The only thing that’s not sitting quite right is the Weakest Link-esque “You’ve been beaten by the bar” moment that’s a bit too brusque but that’s a producer choice.
Well, a rather comedic thing happened on today’s show. Only one person managed to bank any money after the first Fast Cash round, and even then it was only around £650, and the rest had nothing! 😀
An embarrassing episode this afternoon. At least two of today’s contestants have been on other game shows – one had been on Deal or no Deal and Two Tribes and the other I’m sure was from today’s Countdown – and yet only one correct answer in the first round. Possibly the only time Fletcher wasn’t insidious enough…
The suggestion is that this has been doing around 1.2-1.3, never below a 1.1. This would make it the best performer in the Summer Chase Replacement slot since Tipping Point. No doubt helped by the inclement weather, but still.
Those aren’t *fantastic* fantastic numbers, but they suggest there is something there worth working with – it’s held and grown its audience against Pointless. I think it’s on the cusp of an extended second go, possibly in the 4pm Tipping Point rotation slot sometime.
Right, then. Having watched both Freeze Out and Rebound over these past few weeks, I thought I’d give my verdicts.
From a purely gameplay point of view, I would rather have Freeze Out back as it looked the much better game to play. I know there isn’t much you can do with an ice table other than hitting targets, but it was the better gimmick than a moving bar that’s apparently ‘determined’ to catch you. Quite how a bar has determination isn’t clear to me. The biggest caveat though is to get rid of Uriah Rennie. He brought absolutely nothing to the show, and his job could easily be filled by having an off-screen judge relaying Mark information through an earpiece.
With Rebound, it clearly needs a better host. All the comments I’ve seen about Sean are that he states the bleedin’ obvious a lot (“You need to get this question right to bank any money”, or “Get this question wrong and you’re going home”, etc) and can be rather curt towards the players. I don’t get why there needs to be 2 Fast Cash rounds to bank money, I’d probably have just lumped them both into one round rather than splitting it up into two.
In all, I thought Rebound was OK, but I’d rather see Freeze Out get another go.
A viewer has written into UKGS Towers with an interesting observation. The winning question on Thursday’s show was about which city in New Zealand was hit by an earthquake in 2011. The question was intending to ask about Christchurch, but apparently the contestant said Wellington.
It looks like it might have been a retake, since if you Google for it, you do find that Wellington was also hit as an aftershock:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361824/New-Zealand-earthquake-Wellington-hit-country-remembers-Christchurch.html