More RTL Plus

About a year ago, unofficial Bother’s Bar German correspondent Nico W alerted us to new German digital channel RTL Plus and its idea of making new episodes of classic gameshows and rather cleverly using the same adapted set for all of them. We wrote about the new version of Jeopardy here. These still seem to be in production.

The other night we watched the new version of Der Preis ist Heiss which has just launched, apparently to decent numbers. It was quite interesting.

• They’ve got some of the music from the US show, and it’s gold and glittery everywhere. However quite clearly the set has also been built with a Geh Aufs Ganze/Let’s Make A Deal revival in mind seeing as it’s dominated by three large round doors in the background.
• Prize levels were interesting. In the main the range probably not all that different to what was on offer in the UK in the 80s – lots of small items, occasionally a major prize would be in the low thousands.
• It seems a real shame not much has gone into the game set ups really, largely it’s functional things bought on standard plinths.
• There were a couple of interesting things though. They seemed to have made an effort for their version of Cliffhanger although for whatever reason each of the three items has been given a range of about €30, and the mountain climber has 30 steps instead of twenty-five. It did feel like you could go down the middle each time and win but I may be wrong on that.
• They played a game with no US equivalent I don’t think called Ratselcent. Four products (worth €x.xx) and four prices. The contestant seemed to have two goes to put the prices in the right place next to the right product, correct placements locked in place. If they solve this bit of the puzzle, they must then select which column reading downwards was the four figure price of the major prize on offer (a nice table/bar thing) in order to win it.
• The Showcase Showdown is only one spin of the wheel. Don’t know if there’s a prize for landing on 100. Like in the US they spin after each half so there’s two players for the Showcase Final (or the Superpreis as they call it here)
• Showcase is quite fun, they’ve put some effort into making it feel like a bit of a comedy sketch. Both contestants bid on the same showcase, and if my understanding is correct not only do they have to be nearest they’ve got to be within €1000 without going over. This was a five figure showcase so that feels quite challenging.

So some fun ideas but can’t escape looking a bit cheap. If you are able to use the dark arts, you can find it on tvnow.de although be aware the catch-up service can put the ads in quite unusual places. You don’t have to be registered for free shows, which most of RTL Plus seems to fall under.