Die 100,000 Mark Show 2022

Tonight saw the return of Die 100,000 Mark Show to RTL. Old currency. Old host. (Largely) old games. It actually had roughly the same amount of content as the old 90 minute show, but incredibly despite being twice as long (three hours) it wasn’t until towards the end I was feeling the length a bit.

I don’t think it gets off to a good start – it immediately looks and feels quite a bit cheaper than the 90s original (there are plenty of eps on Youtube now, but you can read a write up of an episode here) although thankfully it kept the banging theme music. The original made out to be the most spectacular show on television – this clearly was not going to be the case in 2022. Similarly to the original it opens with an eliminatory obstacle course which hit many of the same beats as the original but not in *quite* the same way, and unexpectedly with a lengthy explanation video for everyone who doesn’t know how an obstacle course works, presumably. Clearly that was how it was going to stretch to three hours, but no this did not continue.

The show got rather better after that – a slightly dull meet the contestants true/false quiz followed by the first quite old school game, the human pinball machine, where one contestant acting as a “spring” had to pull themselves forward and let themselves go to launch a pinball into play, whilst their teammate had to simultaneously press buttons to keep the ball in play whilst sorting out a stripped and rearranged picture on a video wall for two and a half minutes, played three times and somehow worked. The rest of the show largely featured buzzer quizzes or physical set design that by the standards of the 90s show probably have the lowest budget necessary for it to work, but the games were certainly solid enough – many of them retreads as it is. Other places where you could see the stretch was the lack of physical bidding round replaced by both couples performing the task as a time trial.

There were also a couple of fun twists – the winning couple could choose to add a (expensive) car to their potential winnings if they also gave up their earnt money before the final, and the first game of the final came with a choice of condition – the lower the time limit they chose, the more false cylinders would be removed at the end. Disappointingly the Hot Wire was now a five minute (plus any time left over from game one) job, losing all the moving obstacles, pace and shouting that made it compelling almost thirty years ago. And the wait between entering the code and revealing whether it was correct or not felt like five minutes.

I’m not entirely sure awarding all prizemoney in Deutschemarks really added anything (basically halve to covert to Euro. I hope contestants don’t have to pay a conversion fee). Ulla Kock um Brink was very good though, if she hasn’t really done much television in about twenty years you wouldn’t have known it.

Four shows have been recorded and will be going out in due course – not weekly.

For no other reason than it makes me laugh, here’s the original intro to De 100,000 Gulden Show, the Dutch show Die 100,000 Mark Show was based on.

Here is most of the very first edition which comes before they learned what pace was, or a well thought out finale. Still, though.