Weekdaily, 3:30pm
Channel 4
Well it’s finally here, the show we’ve jokingly referred to as Only Connect For Thickos and condensed to The ConDom gets an mid-afternoon outing.
The belief from going to see it being recorded is that it’s a good concept slightly let down by unspectacular and boringly safe production. Phil Spencer is likable but comes across rather like a substitute gameshow host to be honest.
Still that was from our experiences in going to see it live, it might edit really well.
I’ll repost this here, as it got buried in amongst other posts a week or two ago:
Well, I’m thinking at the moment that The Common Denominator should be better received than Face The Clock, but I reckon you lot will have the following potential issues with it:
1 – Not enough questions
2 – Variable question difficulty
3 – Series contains Daniel Peake as a contestant
We’ll see which of those causes the most grief soon. As to Phil Spencer’s hosting, I can’t testify really because I was so worried I’d make a complete tit of myself that I wasn’t paying attention. I need not have worried, OF COURSE I WOULD.
No idea when the show I’m on will be shown yet, but as you’ll see one person in the first round got much harder questions than the other two players (at least I reckon so).
That was certainly my feeling when I saw it, one contestant basically gets shafted.
Now I know that’s apparantly basically what they did for TV’s Best Quiz 15-1 (pulled numbers out of a bag, they got really hard questions for round one) but if that’s a deliberate production choice it’s much more difficult to hide with just three people. Naturally I accept two episodes is not a big enough sample.
Well considering Endemol have just bought the International rights to it hours before the first show airs, I guess they must be pretty confident about it.
It wouldn’t be the first mistake Endemol has made.
I want to like it. I think it’s the sort of thing you’d play round the dinner table, but I’m not convinced it’s been done in a way that’s going to attract attention. Being put in the same slot Face the Clock has just vacated isn’t helpful, but it will be interesting to see how much of Countdown’s audience it can hold on to.
These don’t have to air in any order so look out for a decent win today.
Well, not too bad so far. Some of the cheapness is rather coming over to the viewer, especially the one-row long shots of the minibus of an audience.
The “Bit of a Wasted Journey Pointer” is hovering for round 1, and round 2 seems a bit short also.
Somewhat unsatisfactory that quite a lot of the questions are being solved by accidental discovery.
I don’t know yet if this is a good or a bad thing, but they were billing it as the world’s first “think out loud” gameshow, or words to that effect.
The problem with it is that it robs you of the “penny drop” moment when they realise they’ve actually got the right answer. Instead, it’s “blah blah blah right answer blah” *whoosh* *confused face* “oh yeah”.
They are definitely going for that – dead silence for 10 seconds while they think of a correct answer doesn’t make for good viewing. It also involves us as the viewers more as they skim painfully close to the correct answer without saying it.
Yeah, but there are ways around that. For instance, you could get 2pts if you realise you’ve found the common denominator and press the buzzer (OC style) to claim it as your ‘sole’ answer. Or if time runs out, you get 1pt if you’ve said the answer at any point during the 10 seconds.
Fun fact: in the pilot of OC, you only got 30 seconds per question but you could keep shouting out possible answers and VC was allowed to give you hints if you were miles off the scent.
Really interesting, I’m always fascinated by things they try out at pilots that get dropped or changed.
Initial thoughts.
It’s OK but nothing special. 22 questions in a half hour show seems about right but in the jackpot round, one replacement question for a pass seemed easier than the one the contestant passed for (but then I suppose these kind of questions are something you either get or you don’t – especially the pop culture ones).
Would watch if I was at home but not something I’d be watching on catch up.
Crikey, over by 3.54pm. Have they got a bus to catch?
Positives: questions are pretty good and no sign of much imbalance on this episode; Phil’s not too bad give that this isn’t his usual gig; graphics are slick if not particularly showoffy.
Negatives: audience is so small as to be detrimental (to those who criticise OC for having no audience, happy now?); background music’s trying to copy OC and failing hard; that desk thing looks like a Fisher Price Planetarium.
Missed opportunities: direction is achingly vanilla; they could’ve got five questions in round 1 and 2 easily if they cut out the pointless clapping and stings; end game is pathetically unexciting until the last couple of questions – surely it could have been phased a bit better than this?
Crikey, over by 3.54pm. Have they got a bus to catch?
No, they’ve an ad break to fit in before 4pm. Under the relevant rule, broadcasters may only give 20% (12 minutes) of any clock hour to advertising. If Channel 4 puts a break in before 4pm, they can put 12 minutes around Deal or No Deal, and another 12 minutes in the 5pm lifestyle hour.
Complaints, if you must, to the Audiovisual Media Services directive (2010/13/EU).
Although I like the game idea I wasn’t that impressed with the overall look, set design, direction or editing.
The original Armoza format to me is far more exciting, I was expecting better of Endemol I must say.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7eVZ0AZj2o
I feel I may have been a bit harsh earlier. I gave it another go and found I really enjoyed today’s episode. The editing is tighter (less empty audio which is what I picked up on in Ep 1). I’m not sure if the direction is better or that I’ve just got used to it but it felt a lot smoother generally.
I agree that there don’t seem to be enough questions and that round 1 in particular seems a bit unfair in the variation of difficulty of questions, but they are obviously trying to get the most out of a 23 min slot. They’ve already got a mere 3 contestants for 3 rounds, they had just the right amount of banter so as not to be too dry, so I’m not sure how they could add any questions without extending to a 25 min slot (which is probably the answer).
I’d like to see a mechanism where unanswered 1st round questions could be offered to the other contestants for points (rather than just for fun as it is currently) as this would balance the game a little, but watching another episode back (doing some swift editing in my head like I do!) this could add another 2 mins to the show at least.
It seemed very forgettable to me: not that exciting or interesting at all, and like others have said also very frugal and tacky-looking. I doubt I’ll be coming back for any more in a hurry.
I miss Face The Clock.
C4 turned The Clock 75-80 minutes backwards and its clock will run out Friday (and possibly forever).
Sorry for the double pun.
Ho Ho 😉 I had it down that they were repeat runs, maybe not. And yeah, I would be very surprised to see it back, it’s a shame though as it was starting to grow on me.
…in the same way that barnacles do?
We enter a new ‘Twilight Zone’, another website (RealScreen) says that The Clock should have run out of time last Friday.
To quote Rory: ‘We are left in the dark’.
Yeah, It’s alright. Not going to set the world on fire. My biggest gripe with the gameplay is that there are so few questions available in the first two rounds that the winner is going to be more reliant on lucking out with an easier stack than being objectively better with the questions.
The picture questions seem much too hard, especially when you have to find the link between two people. Without spoiling anything, the first question in specific irked me – you have a prolific band and a prolific director, and you have 10 seconds to find the one word that their works have in common. (I’d be shocked if the answer they gave was the only one you could find, by the way). When the answer turns out to be half a song title and half the name of a person associated with the director, it hardly seems fair. You can tell the contestant did not even realize they had the right answer in the middle of the blind guessing they were doing.
One thing I was pleased with was the editing. Despite coming in under a question a minute, there really didn’t feel like there was a more faffing about than usual.
Overall, a big meh. Seen worse, seen better. Might be worth a Hall of Fame vote if the other new shows this year are weak. Far from an all-time classic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it got a second series.
It goes to show the class and cleverness of Only Connect in clear focus. There’s a lot of “either you know it or you don’t” – and, if you can’t recognise the image, you’re struggling, whereas the graduated clues of OC give you a chance or at least a feeling that something’s coming around the corner. The questions feel far from rock-solid.
It feels like I’m giving the show less than a fair chance by thinking of it in terms of what it’s not rather than what it is, but that’s how it leaves me feeling. It’s definitely more to my taste than other things that have been tried in this slot, and certainly not actually bad, but it doesn’t do much for me.
Watching it now. Notice the person who gets eliminated in round one barely gets any contestant chat. Hope that’s not every episode.
Well it is a thing that is on.
I found it quite difficult to get through the first twenty minutes but thought it picked up towards the end. It feels all a bit unneccessarily one note and could do with being funerer. Spencer not as bad as I was expecting, don’t know if this comes from later in the run when he might be more comfortable or whether he’s been well edited or what.
But, ye may carp and gripe at the amount of audience – but there were far more in TCD than in at least 2 of re-recordings of the first series of Perfection.
So, The Common Denominator, then.
Well, it has more warmth that the last incumbent of the new Channel 4 Bomb Zone. Recorded in a proper tv studio, makes the world of difference rather than a dark, echoy deserted warehouse somewhere between Doom and Glasgow.
Phil is a reasonable host – but it does smack of him being hired to burn off part of any exclusive contract he may have the Ch4 though – and, hopefully over time it won’t be too obvious that he is reading off the autocue.
Set. Did they build that table for another televised poker tournement? It’s oversized, has plenty of upward gaps to install minicameras and really doesnt serve any purpose on the show, other than for the technocrane to creep up on at tabletop level. I do like the coloured circles backdrop though, although for consistancy sake, they really should have been lozenge shape, just like gameplay graphics.
And Endemol have found another user for the dreaded question I-pad of Lamb.
Gameplay. Yeah. Nothing special. One alteration to gameplay I would make for Round 1, is to increase the questions asked per player by 1 to 5, and whatever the time remaining from the 10 seconds when they correctly answer the question, becomes their score for that question and then accumulated over the 5 questions. The two highest scores go onto Round 2.
That would sort out this shows cruise ship with a jammed rudder heading at great speed at the iceberg, of having the first 2 get 5/5, and player 3 balls up on Question 1 and then has to answer 4 questions purely in the interests of filling up airtime.
End game is pretty standard. But someone should tell Phil, that according to the rules he said before the start of the final, time runs out – all money lost. I caught him once, telling the finalist that ‘the £250 is safe’. Mucho Wrongo.
All in all – it’s not too bad, but Only Connect can have a good nights sleep with nothing to worry about from now on.
6/10.
I’m pretty sure when Round One gets to the point that the result is known it just ends, which seems a bit hard on player three but there we are.
I don’t know why C4 are obsessed with getting some of their lifestyle experts on exclusive contracts then trying to turn them into generic presenters.
Be interesting to see if this rates any better than Face the Clock but so far ratings wise it’s a no brainer to put Countdown back at 3.15pm and axe these random cheap fillers. If C4 want to find a genuine breakout hit they’ve got to invest.
Fluctuating between 6/10 and 7/10.
I don’t oppose prodcos buying formats from their colleagues and rebuilding it, but they also need to equal or better the original.
TCD managed a status quo, albeit with some slight glitches.
414,900 for episode one, up on Face the Clock but down on slot average. I’d give it a few days to settle before coming to a judgement given the show it’s taken the place of.
I suspect C4 can’t wait for the return of 1001TYSK though.
There’s a lot of guesswork involved, isn’t there? It’s quite unsatisfying in that respect. Because of the limitation of only two clues, the big money questions in the final game require the contestant to jump through more hoops than should really be necessary (particularly the £10k question in the first episode which seemed rather harsh).
Not something I’ll scramble to watch again. Until Dan’s on.
Mmm, it does feel a little bit like in some cases you’re looking at two steps of logic, especially with the picture-based ones.
Well, Dan fans, I have GOOD NEWS!
My episode will be broadcast on Monday 11th March. Watch it at your peril, apologies in advance, etc.
I enjoyed episode two a bit more, which is odd given it’s not discernably different to episode one.
Also surely it should be The Common Denominator OF rather than BETWEEN?
Skipped through the first episode but the end game just had me thinking Numberwang it’s that random.
Down to 323k (exc +1) for day two. Which isn’t good.
It’s got a really good theme, so it’s a bit odd that they’ve picked that set to go with it.
Has anyone said this format is a bit like Tarby’s Frame Game? Otherwise, I will.
Mmm… not really, that was all head and tail words, these tend to be more thematic.
If anyone would like to indulge their Tarby’s Frame Game fantasies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA2mIKfRl_I
Watching the end game, Tarby seemed to help the contestant set the links a lot (not that it helped in the end)
If anything, it hindered them. “Silver Bullet”, you idiot!
A great big ‘meh’ from me on this – Not enough points of differentiation (4 scoring opportunities for each player, and no distinguishing qualities between stumbling upon the answer at the last second and getting it instantly, before one player gets eliminated, another 4 between the remaining two players to decide the winner) being my biggest gripe, increasing the question quantity is the obvious means of solving, making it a two player game and removing the round 1 elimination would also help, as would giving points according to the amount of time left on the clock.
Pacing feels weird on this – About half the show is taken up by the end game.
They could’ve allowed for more scoring opportunities by passing it over for real to the other contestants, instead of the informal “just for fun” way they’re doing it now. We do this in OC – teams only get 3 connections and 3 sequences but it feels like more because of the passing over.
The break in the middle of Round 2 is a real ballsache because they have to spend about a minute recapping what everything is before getting back in the game, time that could’ve been easily used for a couple more questions.
And the “wooo” after every “He’s going for £x!” in the end game seems a stupid eating up of time. Why not get people to do, say, three questions to ‘qualify’ for the money ladder and only bother with the decision of whether they’ll carry on when you get to £500+.
I have a better final set-up: answer three questions for £ 1000 and then decide whether or not to play further for the jackpot (use all time or make one single mistake and you leave with nothing).
The jackpot should start at £ 5000 and roll over each time it remains untouched.
I nicked this idea from La Cible, a (now defunct) French quiz show.
It also needs the very nice endgame music form said show.
Speaking of which there used to be a runthrough of the endgame on YT back when Minne was hosting that seems to have disappeared. Shame, I was going to remix it.
Maybe try DailyMotion, if still available.
Or do the ‘Catchphrase’ way of doing it.
A board of 20 or 25 numbered connection questions.
1 minute to answer as many as they can. Free choice as to which number is answered during the round.
£100 per correct answered connection, but, you are only allowed to pass and move to another connection question once your total is above £500.
my two pence here. i was a bit underwhelmed to be totally honest. i really do like the question dynamic, but beyond that i struggle to find things i like. whilst i found it refreshing that it was a 30 minute show, when so many shows these days are elongated to make them better value for money, what did i feel? it was too short! or maybe i just didnt feel like they covered enough ground in the show. i feel like you could get to the final pretty much on luck. ah luck… not especially a fan of just yelling things at the screen. the main gripe though was that people didnt really seem to know they were giving the answer, that should have been more distinct.
i had issue with the question setting as well, i fear there is scope for multiple acceptable answers. for example in the episode i saw there was “eye/ocean” and unlike the verbal diarrhea on screen, i was just shouting “drop, its drop, eye drop! drop in the ocean! drop, omg how did you not get this?” before finding out the answer was liner. now i’m not saying liner is wrong, but given the parameters given on the show, i actually think my answer was just as valid.
Yeah, they’re on a hiding to nothing with those questions with two “fill in the blank”-style logics. On the first couple of shows they didn’t have those, maybe one was like that but the other was a completely different type of logic. But, as you say, when you have two possibilities (especially as it can go before or after the clueword) there’ll often be alternative answers.
On a similar tip, I didn’t like the question that used Locker as a clue for Hurt. Ok, “The Hurt Locker” was a film but is that really a strong link?
The first £ 10k winner has arrived today, at the 999th millisecond.