Weekdaily, 3:30pm,
Channel 4
Sandi Toksvig hosts a new afternoon quiz where celebrities ask questions of people on things you probably really ought to know. Hey, that sounds a bit like the Open Door round in De Slimste, but we digress. Answering the easy questions lets you answer harder questions for money.
That’s all we know. Apparently foreign versions have a playalong app, although I don’t know if we’re getting one.
I auditioned for this back in May. They said that the programme was going to go out during Countdown’s summer break. I’m not sure why it ended up shunted to November, with Countdown forced into an earlier slot instead. Maybe Channel 4 had forgotten that they were covering the Paralympics.
OK, I watched it nearly live.
Three contestants play. There’s a category board with 12 subjects. There are three rounds then a final, the three rounds being identical except for progressively limited choice of subjects, value of the cash questions and which player starts the round. The subjects are numbered from 0001 upwards. It’ll be interesting to see if tomorrow’s episode starts from 0013 onwards, though it does suggest the show has a life expectancy of 91¾ episodes, which would be an above-par performance.
Basic gameplay: a contestant picks a subject from the board, and an expert (often a C4 presenter plugging the channel, but not always) asks a question that they think you should know. The contestant gets a chance to answer it; if they answer it correctly, they retain control for the cash question. If they don’t answer it correctly, either of the other contestants get a chance to silently buzz in, with a correct answer earning control. If any of the contestants answer the “you should know” question correctly, a cash question on the same subject is asked by host Sandi Toksvig to the contestant with control – but, again, if it is answered incorrectly, it is thrown open to the other two. A correct answer to the cash question banks £100 in the first round, £300 in the second round and £601 (sic) in the third round. (Breaks ties, looks amusing.)
Final round: starting with the player with the most money from the first three rounds and progressing in descending order, each contestant picks one of the 3/2/1 remaining subjects. Then starting with the player with the least money from the first three rounds and progressing in ascending order, each contestant has to answer both the “you should know” question and the cash question to stay in the game. The contestant with the best position from the first three rounds who answers both their questions correctly wins the game. (Based on one show, it is unclear if the first-place contestant, who answers third, wins by default if the second and third place contestants, er, lose.)
The winning contestant comes back to do it again the next day as champion, but also has the chance to answer a single question to win the total of all three players’ banks, possibly as much as £3003.
I was pretty negatively prejudiced about this coming in, as the premise and the trailer seemed to point to a judgmental negative-entertainment show, based on the inherently flawed axiom that certain things should be known. (Says who?) In practice, the atmosphere is relaxed, jovial and friendlier than advertised, though Sandi Toksvig has very probably told all her gags before on radio.
At 25 questions in a C4 half-hour, it’s all pretty gently-paced stuff, but it passes the time and doesn’t offend. Nevertheless, it sure ain’t Breakaway. It’s a straight-down-the-middle five.
The show is credited to “Thames Scotland” (!!!), a part of FremantleMedia. The credits suggest five devisors, two Producer/Directors, an Edit Producer, a Director of Production, a Director, a Producer, a Production Manager and two Executive Producers.
Er, “83 and five-twelfths”. Things I should know: how to divide 1001 by 12.
Don’t forget the viewer’s question too – If they include that, then 1001 / 13 = 77, which is not a stupid number of episodes to make, though its very brave for a first series!
In fact, forget the viewer’s question (although that is also described as something “you should know” – there’s the final question too which would make it an even 77 episodes if they start tomorrow from #0014
I liked it. Nice straightforward quizzing, good set (looks very 90s – in a good way) and Sandi Toksvig being charming. My only concern would be they didn’t match the contestants very well. If they aren’t evenly balanced it is easy for it to become a whitewash. That being said the format does mean nobody is out of it at the end. Shall definitely be watching again.
Sandi seems a little lethargic, and being stuck behind a desk can’t help. The questions are far too easy; there’s no balance of easy & hard questions like there is on The Chase (which today, incidentally, had the exact same Harry Potter question as 1001 Things).
I don’t think I’ll bother watching it again. But I bet if I do take a look next week, today’s winner will still be building up his easy winnings.
£601 for questions in round 3. Cute tie-break for the (double) round 4 advantage of picking category and winning in a tie-break on round 4, and I admire a show that’s willing to use the fact that it’s arbitrary multiplying points by 100 to it’s advantage. Going to cause some slightly mental prize pots, mind.
Not impressed that round 3 questions are worth 6x (Well, slightly over) round 1 questions and round 2 questions, or that it all comes down to getting two out of two for the final round, but at least the advantage given earlier in the quiz has an effect. It does unfortunately make everything but the last 7 questions utterly pointless from a tension point of view.
I’d have probably made it £101, £301 and £601 if I was going with the 1 3 6 structure, so at least the tie break would be ‘amount of questions right’ rather than ‘amount of round 3 questions right’ which are already much more significant than any other round’s questions, and had more significance to that than just choice of category and what happens if multiple people get two right, but I think 1 2 3 would have felt less off here since that would mean that all three in round three wouldn’t be equal [exceed with a the extra .01 the show actually gives] to offset all six categories in earlier rounds.
The category choice has some light risk/reward strategy in it, which is nice (Leave it a round to up the amount for it, or make it a significant Round 4 category, but risk someone else choosing it when they get first stab at the category
25 questions in 30 minutes (just under 24 excluding commercials) makes it a very genteel quiz, but not quite so genteel that it feels like a crawl, especially with Sandy hosting. It’s an inoffensive half hour, and engaging enough to be enjoyable, but nothing special.
That the set being slightly garish is my biggest problem with it indicates that after one episode, my issues with the scoring and how pointless everything before the final seven questions are are surprisingly not deal breakers for me – In the abstract they look like them.
I apparently can’t add up. 1200 vs 1803, my 1-2-3 suggestion would make it 900 vs 903 (Or 906 vs 903, depending)
Nobody seems to have gotten the point of the 601. As a tiebreaker it’s nice, but it’s more that if you were to win your own questions in each round, 100, 300 and 601 add up to £1001 – as in 1001 things you should know.
I haven’t watched it yet, but you can rest assured it wasn’t lost on me.
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Oh I quite like this, it’s mildly clever and mildly good fun, I would write more but it’s late. Decent daytime fodder at leadt. Will write more tomorrow.
Just watched it via that boxy resource.
If I were stuck at home in the afternoon and this came on live, I could possibly be persuaded to leave it on, since (as pointed above) it’s charmingly inoffensive, casually paced, and not all that important to catch every last second.
But go through the trouble of finding and downloading again? I don’t think so. Yawn.
Just finished watching it, and the show get s a big “eh” from me. It doesn’t do anything wrong, but it doesn’t really do anything right either. The questions seem a bit too easy (the handful I didn’t get I chalk up to cultural differences), and if there was supposed to be an appreciable difference in difficulty between the opening question of a category and the cash question, it was lost on me.
The final question seemed to be a bit of a tack-on as well, ending the show not with a bang but with a perfunctory tick mark. No choice of categories, no jump in difficulty, not even a special light or music sting. Here’s your question, here’s your cash, see you tomorrow. I’m not saying the final question needs to be anything special, but you should at least make an effort to make it feel special.
Sandi Toksvig does a fine job as host, moving the play along, playing with and off the contestants, and occasionally showing the quick thinking that makes her a two-show-a-series staple on QI. I do like that they’ve hidden her monitor under her desk – thought that was a nice touch.
In the end, the producers of the show should be commended for competently getting the basic elements of a quiz show correct – we’ve certainly seen enough shows trip over their shoelaces coming out of the starting blocks. However, competent is the farthest they get – the show is missing that clever hook or interesting twist to make it worth finding the time to watch it.
Don’t want to be offending anyone, but can anyone explain who the host is and why she is hosting it?
Really like the quiz though!
Sandi Toksvig is a writer and comedienne (originally from Denmark), best known these days for hosting The News Quiz on Radio 4, but for those of us of a certain age for hosting Saturday morning show Number 73 and regularly appearing on improvisional comedy show Whose Line is it Anyway? in its early days.
Anyway I *quite* like this show, it’s the first “picking categories off a board” show I can think of where it feels like there’s some scope for some proper risk/reward strategy. I thought the questions were in the main reasonably split into “average knowledge” and “more difficult”. Repetition of the words “you should know” a bit irritating, and I was originally of the impression the winner is guaranteed the money they earnt and the prize pot question was for everything else but this appears to be not the case.
Apparently it took five people to devise.
I think we’re in a bit of a golden age of afternoon quizzes with a bit of personality.
It’s certainly worth recognising, but calling it a Golden Age constitutes Fighting Talk. I’ll happily put the days of the post-lunchtime quiz on BBC 1 up against it, from circa “a couple of years before Going For Gold” to “a couple of years after it”. There were a variety of interesting, and mostly short-lived, but not charmless seasonal alternatives to GFG in there as well, and if we can stretch the definition of daytime to include the traditional gentle 9:25 ITV curtain-raiser, yer Lucky Ladders, yer Chain Letters, yer Keynotes, then the case for the Good Old Days gets even better. OK, I’m just being old and nostalgic.
Sounds like the prize pot rolls over if you don’t get the final question right.
Third place player managed to win today, which was quite amusing.
Just wondering how long all the angles in a triangle have added up to 360 degrees … would be a very strange triangle.
As long as triangles have been rectangles, if you’re referring to the question asked by Rachel Riley on yesterday’s episode.
…assuming the rectangle is in a Euclidean plane, rather than a hyperbolic space or a Riemann sphere.
Second series started airing today. Disappointing to see the loss of numbering on each question category – frames now ONLY show the subject 🙁
Other than this; and a few sound tweaks and slightly easier-to-see final round graphics, the production values are still the same as its first series. The game remains almost the same too – but with one major rule change: the player in the lead in the final round now selects the categories for ALL THREE players to play. I have mixed feelings about this change.
Really that’s changing exactly one decision, since the person in last had no choice of their category anyway. I can’t see any strategy in the leading player selecting everyone else’s categories, as unless they’ve expressed a preference in their chat to Sandi, it’s impossible to know how good they are at the unplayed categories. (the exception there is if you’ve seen the current champ’s previous game, but you’ve beaten them in terms of accrued cash, in which case the aim would be to give them a weak subject)
This is the main reason I feel mixed about it. It seems more like change for the sake of change.
I think I agree, I’m not sure I love it. I think there ought to be a reasonable distinction for coming second into the final even if means getting a choice out of two things you don’t love, for me it feels like they’re removing a potential element of long-term category picking strategy.
It’s not a dealbreaker, it’s still a perfectly pleasant way to spend half an hour, I just think it’s a little short sighted.
Just got round to watching a marathon of all 10 episodes broadcast so far (It’s been a busy couple of weeks followed by a very quiet couple of days!) I have the following observations:
1) Losing the numbering is a shame, It tied in very nicely with the idea of the title of the show and added a nice little quirky bit to it. A shame, but not a deal breaker.
2) The cash questions now bear no relation to the ‘things you should know’ – whereas in series 1, if you answered a question on, say, The Battle of Hastings, you could expect a cash question about the Normans, the year 1066 or famous battles (usually). Now you just get something else on any other part of history. Again, a shame, especially in the mystery category where you get two completely random questons on entirely unrelated subjects. (One that springs to mind is a ‘thing you should know’ on wine, followed by a cash question on the Bessimer process).
3) It seems to me that the questions are slightly harder and the contestants are a little smarter. This is good. And it means we get to see more questions per show, but I think means we also get more £3,003 cash pots per show as well. You can decide whether or not this is a good thing. Personally I like the variety in prize funds.
4) The big one. The champion picking the categories for the other two. Why?? The way the game is structured, you gain no advantage in your opponents before getting their questions wrong, as to progress you simply need to be the ‘highest-ranked’ player to get both of theirs correct. In fact, many champions have spotted this and deliberately given their opponents questions they thought they would prefer. This seems to be a completely unnecessary change that makes the gameplay worse.
5) A quick mention that Sandi Toksvig has grown into this role – she seemed a little awkward in the early parts of series 1.
Overall, I feel like this is an 8/10 show that has dropped to a 6.5 now.