Challenge are doing a season of showing first episodes of things over Christmas, including Deal or No Deal, hence the headline. Pat Sharp and Melanie and Martina have recorded links for it.
A lot of it is stuff Challenge already show on their various rotations anyway, but there’s some interesting stuff in there – Treasure Hunt is promised (that’s not been seen on Challenge for years and years), Whittle is on the cards (presumably a prelude to giving it its full time run) and Blankety Blank with Terry Wogan, which I’m very much looking forward to.
In other news The Million Second Quiz isn’t dead! Yet! The important thing is the app was successful, so perhaps they should just drop the unsuccessful television show and keep the app. I note the Ryan Seacrest Demographic Hourglass (TM) was “borrowed” for the Bushtucker Trial last night on I’m a Celeb, and anyone who says it’s actually quite an old idea like you might have seen in Batman is lying.
On BB’s request:
Yesterday I watched “Der Quiz-Champion”, where one of the brain boxes can walk away with a mouth-watering € 500k. The route to the jackpot is quite Nintendo Hard:
First, the contestant has to survive a 60-second Q&A quickfire round. Each question is worth a point, you need seven points to advance. Fail to do so: danke schön und tschüß.
Survivors now enter a duel with five experts (here: celebs) associated with one subject (Sport, Music, Literature, Science and History). Rounds are played in the aforementioned sequence, the computer only needs to decide which category will be the challenger’s first.
In each subject round, multiple-choice questions are asked, both the challenger and the expert can flick through the three answers until either of them locks in their answer on a buzzer: the other then will have no more than seven seconds to pick an answer. The correct answer is worth one point.
The round initially ends when one of the duellists first reaches three. Should the round end 3-3, additional questions are asked until one contestant blinks and the other doesn’t. If a 7-7 stalemate arises, a decider question (non-MC) is asked: the first to buzz in with the correct answer wins, failure means the other player wins by default.
The challenger advances after each won subject, but is immediately down for the count as soon as one of the experts successfully wins their round. Whichever challenger scoops all five duels, books his seat in the champions’ lounge.
If no other challenger manages to make their way to the champions’ loge, its incumbent inhabitant automatically wins the jackpot. Otherwise, the designated champions play an extra round, in which they are asked one question from each category (non-MC, against a 10-second clock). One point per correct answer, rinse and repeat until one champion scores more points (which can pad the upcoming show (), but it’s more fair than letting the public decide the winner).
Verdict: a very neat variant on The Chase meets Duel in its own right, with ditto questions (although the gimmes are medium questions at best). No danger of wearing out, because two shows (usually within 1-1.5 week) usually go out early or late in the year.
Interesting, thanks Delano.
How many contestants does it get through?
Four- the video of the show is up (and not geoblocked either)
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/2030028/Der-Quiz-Champion-vom-20.-November-2013
Pretty exciting too, even if you don’t speak German…
I’m 10 minutes into this and already I’m impressed. Why can’t we do big quizzes like this over here?
I like the rotating turntable to face whichever expert you’re up against, it reminds me of Kirsty Young’s rotating desk on the first incarnation of The People Versus
And if you remember Helge Georg from Quizboxen, he’s one of the competitors on this!!!
Wednesday’s show was a bit short, because ZDF insists that the 21h45 News will start at that time (more or less).
Luckily, the next show (Saturday, November 30th) will last for at least 150 minutes.
Forgot to mention it earlier, so sorry for the inconvenience.
Whilst i’m enjoying the deconstruction of Blankety Blank with the current Les Dawson repeats, the news of Wogan repeats on Challenge is very welcome indeed. The BBC ran a short series of repeats ages ago, and I can still reel off a few choice put downs, and celeb panel abuse. Beautifully crafted quick witted dry sarcasm.
Seeing as my calendar on Christmas Eve evening is very free and empty, please show at least 2 back to back episodes, please Mr Challenge. Ta.
Also, now celebrity squares (hopefully the ATV originals reclaimed from Bobs personal archive) is going to be shown, what about the other celebrities in a box show – Punchlines?
It’s never been repeated, and there doesn’t appear to be any reason why. The only thing I’ve been able to think of, is that Lennie refused to sign the release for repeats, and his estate are still upholding that wish (similar to Dave Allen’s who are still carrying out his ‘one original and one repeat and that’s it’ broadcast of the ‘at large’ shows.)
As an early 80’s LWT show all the tapes must exist, but then apart from the action game shows, Challenge I don’t think have ever repeated an out and out LWT produced quiz show (the later Brucie PYCR were a co-production so could have got them via Freemantle distribution)
Yes I remember those repeats, he filmed new intros for them. Fingers crossed Challenge will allow a 35 minute slot so they can be broadcast uncut.
I mentioned Punchlines just the other day, funnily enough. Surprised Lennie Bennett would be that precious over repeating them, but you never know.
Some ratings from yesterday:
I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here 9,729,800 (41.1%)
Pointless 4,259,300 (27.2%)
Tipping Point 2,315,000 (21.8%)
Bargain Hunt 2,034,000 (33.4%)
Eggheads 1,501,700 (8.3%)
Come Dine With Me 1,428,700 (8.8%)
Four in a Bed 1,266,500 (9.1%)
Dickinson’s Real Deal 1,055,700 (15.1%)
Deal or No Deal 907,800 (8.6%)
Pressure Pad 816,400 (12.3%)
Peter Andre’s 60 Minute Makeover 806,900 (12.9%)
Countdown 460,100 (6.4%)
Ta.
Wow, half a mill for Countdown! Also that’s the biggest number I’ve seen for DoND for ages, although admittedly it’s been ages since I last saw a number for it.
That number for Bargain Hunt is also all sorts of incredible really.
Do these include +1?
The ones on DS (here: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=69902644&postcount=1345) include HD but not +1 and are slightly lower, so I suspect so.