Saturdays, 9:10pm,
ITV1
TV’s biggest comedy double act – Romesh and his mum Shanthi, put celebs and their parents to the test in a quiz to win money for their chosen charities.
The celebs will answer the questions, their parents will be making bets on what and how much their kids know. Will they let their parents down? The winning team get the chance to double their bank in the endgame. Romesh’s mum will be keeping score and making sure her son does a good job.
Having the host’s mum as scorekeeper isn’t quite original, it’s something they played with on the US revival of To Tell The Truth not that long ago and they got six years out of it. We’ve quite enjoyed watching this relationship play out during BBC2’s The Ranganation across the last few years so it will be interesting to see how it fares in quiz form. It’s good of ITV to put this on in the few weeks Romesh wouldn’t be hosting The Weakest Link on the other side.
Watched it? Let us know what you think in the comments.
I felt the show got off to a very slow start with only two questions answered before the first add break It did pick up towards the end though. I think Alison Hammond made it watchable last night with the digs she kept having at her son and her infectious laugh couldn’t help but join in with her! The format reminds me slightly of who dares wins a Saturday night quiz show which used to be shown on BBC1 and from the second part where they have to name things in a category it seemed much like Family Fortunes. It didn’t feel to me like anything remotely different or smart from ITV although I did find it funny and it did get the idea of comedy across with the banter between each team, as a quiz show it felt very below par because they’ve kind of taken formats and thrown them into a new show which has been renamed. It doesn’t feel like they want to give much money away either because unlike other Saturday night shows where they can give out over £100,000 here they are giving out less than £10,000 and it’s for charity as well, I’m very much on the fence with it I did engage with some parts more than others it didn’t strike me as a complete success though.
How did the first episode rate please ?
The questions were alright but the rest of it was just forgettable.
RR did as good as he could, but his mum felt so out of place and forgotten for most of it.
Perfectly fine, if a bit slow. Went in expecting more Newlywed Game, was pleasantly surprised to find a decent little quiz in there. Romesh’s mum pretty out of place and it was painful how fast they forgot about her, if they’ll insist on having her around it would be nice if she could somehow contribute the gameplay a little more. Overall might be stronger with another idea in there to replace the open list round, but surprisingly I can see myself watching it again.
Found it surprisingly enjoyable – an enjoyable way to pass an hour with a decent quiz in there for the most part.
Think they needed to reverse the roles for one round though and the endgame was pretty underwhelming and felt like a different fornat (Impossible rather than Pointless) whilst the prize levels seems really low.
I’m a bit reluctant to call something “a 7/10 banger” after just one episode but this was a pretty easy watch. I don’t think it had many original ideas – maybe round 3 – the questions were Pointless Head-to-head style, Who Dares Wins list style, Wipeout right at the end. Quiz auctions aren’t new. Competing with your parents has been done at least in Don’t Blow The Inheritance (and in a more Mr and Mrs style in Big Star’s Little Star). Hosting with your mum in To Tell The Truth in the US. BUT. But. the elements have been mixed with some care, not much stands out in the way of being hugely irritating, and the quiz elements are decent.
I would suggest that the wrong answer/timeout thing is *a bit weird* though, might be more easily explained if there was a timing bar down the side, “you can make as many guesses as you like but you’ve got to give a correct answer to reset the clock,” something like that. Also mayyybeee £500 an answer in round three is a bit high, that’s more than you get for a list in round one, but it’s not my money. The losers’ money not going to charity feels a bit cheap, you’re not fooling me with your creative not-mentioning-it.
I thought it was “jolly” more than “hilarious”, Romesh off-the-cuff usually funnier than his scripted bits, one or two big laughs. His Mum didn’t really add much to the proceedings beyond the first ten minutes. I thought mixing up whether the celeb was the parent or the child worked a out much more interestingly than I anticipated.
First ep was ITV’s strongest performer last night at 1.8m overnight which is not a huge huge number, but feels decent for a new show with little real support before it.
Agree the time out thing was just odd – a wrong answer is much simpler to follow, with perhaps the caveat they can have one wrong guess.
What is the complete format rundown which will determine what the maximum top prize is for charity?
Three teams of two consisting of an adult child and their parent play, one of each team will be a celebrity.
In Round 1 a screen of 12 questions based on a category will be shown, each question in the Pointless head-to-head style (e.g. a list of scandals and the initials of the politician involved – name the politician, or here are some common phrases which feature a part of the body with the body part removed, complete the phrases). Parents will bid on how many they think their child can answer auction fashion (i.e. a parent will announce a bid, the next parent in line must increase it or drop out). The child is sat a few foot behind the parent so can’t influence their bids but the audience can see their reactions. The last remaining parent can’t increase the bid for more money once everyone else has dropped out.
If at any point a parent says an answer to a question whilst talking out their bids, they’re fined £100 for each answer and that possible answer is removed from play.
The child of the top bid must go down and try to complete the contract. They can guess at answers but they’ve got to give a correct answer before a “time out” signal happens, in which case they lose the question. A correct answer seems to reset the invisible time limit. If the child makes the bid, they earn £100 for each correct answer. If they fail, the money they could have won is split with the other teams. Repeat three times in round one, each pair getting to start the bidding.
Round two works the same as Round one except they are now open lists (“name playable characters from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe”) and each answer is worth £200.
Round three is on the buzzer – the parents will buzz in, the child will answer. Whatsmore each question is two picture questions (such as seeing two countries, they have to name the capital, or here are two famous people with the surname Rice, what’s their first name?) and the parent must pick one of the two questions will be answered. A correct answer is worth £500, a wrong answer splits that between the two other teams.
The team with the most money goes through to the final where they get the chance to double their bank. The parent selects one of three categories. This time parent and child can work together to answer the question. A board of 12 answers appears, five are correct, seven are wrong (and at least two of which, seemingly, are Obvious Joke Answers). They must pick the five right answers before hitting three wrong ones.
And that’s it.
I’d guess the absolute maximum if one team answered all questions would be 3x£1200 in round 1, double that (and possibly more) in round 2 then I wasn’t keeping count but at most 10 x £500 questions in round 3. So around £15k which can then be doubled in the final round.
More realistically they’re given at most around 6 answer per question and likely at most answering 2 of the 3 questions per round then 3-4 questions in the final round so probably around £12k is the most I think we’d see won.
This was down to 1.3m this Saturday, which is kind of a shame.