The Showcase Showdown, most definitely. You win your way on stage by pricing well, you win a nice prize by pricing well, you win a fabulous showcase of prizes by pricing well, so naturally you get to that showcase by… spinning a big wheel?
Whisper it, but I often fast-forward through the Connecting Walls. First two rounds: a new idea every minute and a bit. Final round: a new idea (expressed in four different ways) every, I don’t know, thirty seconds. Connecting Walls: take a look when they come up, realise “no, I won’t be able to get that, or get more than one of that”, FFWD until the wall gets solved to find out what the ideas were. I’d also argue the Connecting Wall is more iconic than Missing Vowels, because of the existence of sites like Puzzgrid and the Connecting Wall night. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst iconic round, but it’s my least favourite part of the show – a show I happily vote for in the Golden Five every year. (Or, at least, when I remember to vote.)
I would enjoy ROHoG more if Answer Smash was an occasional round just like every other, not a fixture, so put me down for that. (The correct answer is probably Blamieren oder Kassieren, though.)
They’ve fixed the balance a bit since the early series. We were watching some of the early episodes recently (before they got removed from IQ), and the missing vowels round was much longer than it is today. A team could easily get 15 points against a weaker team.
Just to clarify, I was not in any way implying that I think the Bid a Note round is *good* – just that it is an iconic round and, I’d argue, more fondly remembered overall. As for the Melody Roulette, while I personally would have welcomed its return, I can conceive of several reasons why they chose not to; and I do believe what they did instead worked and made for a somewhat fairer show.
I know it’s all rubbish but the actual formatting of the keys, money offer and boxes on Take Your Pick is so shit when you strip out all the chat and gags. Especially the totally pointless money bit. I did think it was the most entertaining of all the Epics in series 1 however.
Here’s a list of the responses on Twitter, not in any specific order and with no additional commentage (it’s fair to say I don’t agree with all of them):
* This will be fun to watch. To commit a game show nerd sin: I’d say the Wonderwall from Winning Lines (US and UK). People *love* it. I don’t think it’s held up well and if it was as highly regarded as it is, we’d have seen something similar again. https://youtube.com/watch?v=eb_04DhuNB0
* I was just about to say something like pounds for points on bullseye because the scoring barely dents in a trailing behind player. But maybe bid-a-note, yeah.
* Cliffhanger in The Price is Right!
* I was always intrigued with successful contestants going through to the “first round proper” in Going for Gold! So the first round wasn’t really the first round at all and effectively round 2 was actually the “first round proper” 🙂
* Plinko too.
* My least favourite was the brief fashion started by the awful Shafted, but adopted later for Golden Balls and the actually quite good The Bank Job, of having a final round where you can steal the winnings by being an arsehole.
* Face the Dragon from Tic Tac Dough.
* Tie the Leader in Chain Letters in which a poor player can potentially sneak a win over someone who plays well with a couple of lucky guesses, one to tie, one to win.
* The connecting wall on Only Connect. Far and away the worst round on the show and incredibly boring to watch.
* The Wipeout Zone, or at least with the UK rules of skipping the obstacle after failing. Might as well have been 50m swimming race.
* The Gold Run. If it worked that you only earned your cash if you make it across instead of that getting you a bonus prize, that would add some risk and reward of taking a longer route.
* Cash or Trash in The Bank Job (which spoiled an otherwise solid quiz game).
* It feels blasphemous, but the Countdown Conundrum isn’t great as a showpiece finale.
* Supermatch Game from Blankety Blank…Astonished face
* I was never a huge fan of the flight simulator on The Krypton Factor :O
* Oh, actually, the UK implementation of the Wheel of Fortune finale, where everybody picks the same letters.
* Does bonus question of UC counts as a round? It rarely matters, most matches are decided by who got most starters and for some reason they think inaudible whispering makes good telly. It takes a pandemic for them to start talking aloud.
* Atlaspheres, The Survivor Auction (especially once it became a proxy “buy an Immunity challenge win” round), that big slippy slide thing from Ant And Dec’s Celebrity Jungle.
* The spot everything on the video round in Krypton Factor. Just get to the plane landing!
* Barrier from The Cube. Box 23 from Deal or No Deal (iconic may be pushing it a bit, here…)
The Eliminator from Gladiators – 0.5 seconds per point scored barely made a difference (especially if the scores were very low), making the five events beforehand rather pointless. Also, there were NO GLADIATORS at all!
Also, the “Big Inflatable Gunge Slide” from the final of Run the Risk, because everything’s better with Slippery Slides!
Agree. Three in ten is a totally horiffic way to treat a winner, and hand out the stocking filler of a prize.
Might not be so bad if it was like the ‘shot for the money’ round in Pointless, where you are given a choice of three popular beat combos, and choose one from those.
That would reduce the sometime helpless flailing around and Sir Ken offering mumbled words of sympathy for ten long seconds.
Cliffhanger from The Price is Right!
The Showcase Showdown, most definitely. You win your way on stage by pricing well, you win a nice prize by pricing well, you win a fabulous showcase of prizes by pricing well, so naturally you get to that showcase by… spinning a big wheel?
Missing vowels round in Only Connect.
Gives away too many points and isn’t really about connections. I think a team can be terrible in the main part, and good at this and sneak a win.
Whisper it, but I often fast-forward through the Connecting Walls. First two rounds: a new idea every minute and a bit. Final round: a new idea (expressed in four different ways) every, I don’t know, thirty seconds. Connecting Walls: take a look when they come up, realise “no, I won’t be able to get that, or get more than one of that”, FFWD until the wall gets solved to find out what the ideas were. I’d also argue the Connecting Wall is more iconic than Missing Vowels, because of the existence of sites like Puzzgrid and the Connecting Wall night. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst iconic round, but it’s my least favourite part of the show – a show I happily vote for in the Golden Five every year. (Or, at least, when I remember to vote.)
I would enjoy ROHoG more if Answer Smash was an occasional round just like every other, not a fixture, so put me down for that. (The correct answer is probably Blamieren oder Kassieren, though.)
They’ve fixed the balance a bit since the early series. We were watching some of the early episodes recently (before they got removed from IQ), and the missing vowels round was much longer than it is today. A team could easily get 15 points against a weaker team.
OMG, an IQTV viewer!
Otherwise I basically agree with Chris. Which is a shame because the guy who writes the walls is a great guy.
I agree- frankly I watch the first 2 rounds in full, glance at the walls, and skip to see who wins unless it’s close…
I will go through the responses on Twitter and add them here in due course.
Just to clarify, I was not in any way implying that I think the Bid a Note round is *good* – just that it is an iconic round and, I’d argue, more fondly remembered overall. As for the Melody Roulette, while I personally would have welcomed its return, I can conceive of several reasons why they chose not to; and I do believe what they did instead worked and made for a somewhat fairer show.
Yes, fair, you might have been caught in the crossfire here.
I know it’s all rubbish but the actual formatting of the keys, money offer and boxes on Take Your Pick is so shit when you strip out all the chat and gags. Especially the totally pointless money bit. I did think it was the most entertaining of all the Epics in series 1 however.
However, if you add the chat & gags back in, and remove the keys, you have Deal or No Deal
It’s definitely the one that surprised me the most in watchability.
Here’s a list of the responses on Twitter, not in any specific order and with no additional commentage (it’s fair to say I don’t agree with all of them):
* This will be fun to watch. To commit a game show nerd sin: I’d say the Wonderwall from Winning Lines (US and UK). People *love* it. I don’t think it’s held up well and if it was as highly regarded as it is, we’d have seen something similar again. https://youtube.com/watch?v=eb_04DhuNB0
* I was just about to say something like pounds for points on bullseye because the scoring barely dents in a trailing behind player. But maybe bid-a-note, yeah.
* Cliffhanger in The Price is Right!
* I was always intrigued with successful contestants going through to the “first round proper” in Going for Gold! So the first round wasn’t really the first round at all and effectively round 2 was actually the “first round proper” 🙂
* Plinko too.
* My least favourite was the brief fashion started by the awful Shafted, but adopted later for Golden Balls and the actually quite good The Bank Job, of having a final round where you can steal the winnings by being an arsehole.
* Face the Dragon from Tic Tac Dough.
* Tie the Leader in Chain Letters in which a poor player can potentially sneak a win over someone who plays well with a couple of lucky guesses, one to tie, one to win.
* The connecting wall on Only Connect. Far and away the worst round on the show and incredibly boring to watch.
* The Wipeout Zone, or at least with the UK rules of skipping the obstacle after failing. Might as well have been 50m swimming race.
* The Gold Run. If it worked that you only earned your cash if you make it across instead of that getting you a bonus prize, that would add some risk and reward of taking a longer route.
* Cash or Trash in The Bank Job (which spoiled an otherwise solid quiz game).
* It feels blasphemous, but the Countdown Conundrum isn’t great as a showpiece finale.
* Supermatch Game from Blankety Blank…Astonished face
* I was never a huge fan of the flight simulator on The Krypton Factor :O
* Oh, actually, the UK implementation of the Wheel of Fortune finale, where everybody picks the same letters.
* Does bonus question of UC counts as a round? It rarely matters, most matches are decided by who got most starters and for some reason they think inaudible whispering makes good telly. It takes a pandemic for them to start talking aloud.
* Atlaspheres, The Survivor Auction (especially once it became a proxy “buy an Immunity challenge win” round), that big slippy slide thing from Ant And Dec’s Celebrity Jungle.
* The spot everything on the video round in Krypton Factor. Just get to the plane landing!
* Barrier from The Cube. Box 23 from Deal or No Deal (iconic may be pushing it a bit, here…)
The first contestant’s round/5 questions on Beat The Chasers. Their performance doesn’t seem to have much of a bearing on the offers.
The Eliminator from Gladiators – 0.5 seconds per point scored barely made a difference (especially if the scores were very low), making the five events beforehand rather pointless. Also, there were NO GLADIATORS at all!
Also, the “Big Inflatable Gunge Slide” from the final of Run the Risk, because everything’s better with Slippery Slides!
A bit late to this one but Popmaster fits the bill.
Agree. Three in ten is a totally horiffic way to treat a winner, and hand out the stocking filler of a prize.
Might not be so bad if it was like the ‘shot for the money’ round in Pointless, where you are given a choice of three popular beat combos, and choose one from those.
That would reduce the sometime helpless flailing around and Sir Ken offering mumbled words of sympathy for ten long seconds.