1:25pm Bank Holiday Monday, 2:15pm weekdays thereafter,
BBC1
Answer questions and try to work out the link between the answers. We liked it when it was called Connections with Sue Robbie in the eighties, but now famous actor Mark Williams (The Fast Show, Harry Potter, Prudential advert) will be offering teams cash money to do the same in a show apparently directly based on the board game Linkee. It’s an unusual 50 minute slot, we’ll see how it does.
A better title would be Shit Only Connect.
Mark Williams is a decent host, but it’s a bit plodding and some of the links and clues are a bit poorly thought-out.
Like Cliff, if I was to sum up The Link in one sentence, it would be “Like Only Connect, but easier and with money at stake”
The basic gist of the game is that there are 6 pods worth differing amounts of money (£125, £300, £500, £750, £1,000 and £2,000, making a grand total of an oddly uneven £4,675), and each pod is suspended by 1-6 links (the higher the value, the more links there are). When all the links on a pod are cut, the pod drops and a swirl of colour ‘escapes’ the confines of the board, travels down a pathway leading to the desk of the team that released it and is added to their bank, which I thought was a very neat effect. In order to cut these links, the teams answer general knowledge questions on the buzzer, and the answer is shown at the bottom of the board. The less clues the teams see, the more links can be cut (4 if only 1 clue is shown, 3 for 2 clues, 2 for 3 clues and 1 for all 4 clues). When all of the pods have been released, the team with the least money is out of the game.
For round 2, the money that the remaining teams brought through with them are put into 2 separate pods, each suspended by 7 links. Mark asks the teams alternately, starting with the team that brought through the most money, a Who/What/Where Am I? question with up to 4 clues available. As in the first round, the more clues they see, the less links they earn. The team elects how many links they want to play for and are shown the clues. If the team can’t answer it, the remaining clues are shown to the other team for 1 bonus link. Whoever releases their pod first wins and goes on to the final round.
In the final round, the team is given an extra £2,000 on top of what they brought through with them. They must now complete 6 Superlinks in 60 seconds. The team nominates who will answer the first Superlink, as only one player can answer at a time. As the time ticks down, a list of up to 10 single-word clues are shown, starting off obscure and getting easier as they are revealed. If the nominated player buzzes in and gets it right, play passes to their partner, but play stays with them if they get it wrong and must answer a new Superlink. With each correctly answered Superlink, they go 1 step up a 6-step money ladder, using the same cash values as in the first round: £125 -> £300 -> £500 -> £750 -> £1,000 -> Jackpot. The team can elect to stop at any time and leave with whatever level they are up to, but if they run out of time, they leave with nothing.
I watched this with my partner, who said spontaneously at the end: “well that was convoluted.” I tend to agree.
The first round Andrew describes goes on for an age – and could easily be shortened by cutting the number of links needed to release each money pod, which I don’t think would dramatically affect the gameplay.
It did certainly feel like the fresher of the three rounds, though – and clearly the only one inspired by Linkee. Round two seemed like a re-hash of the Going for Gold final minus the chess clock, and the final a fairly generic ‘play for what you’ve earned with optouts after each correctly answered question’ affair. The addition of the extra £2,000 going into the Superlink also seemed a bit arbitrary.
It was stylistically a bit all over the place, too – the logo was quite nice but rendered horribly on the podia screens, with the contestant names in a truly ghastly font. As Andrew mentioned, the ‘swirl’ of colour effect was decent. Audience was awkwardly placed, and I’m pretty sure some applause FX were added in post-prod judging from the tiny number of people apparently there. Music was instantly forgettable, didn’t even bother to check the credits to see who wrote it.
Best bit about the whole thing was Mark Williams – a bit wooden linking between rounds, but actually a really competent and clear quizmaster. Not quite the surprise choice it might appear to be on paper.
Overall, then, a slightly clunky quiz that will probably be a bit too complex for lunchtime BBC One viewers to get their head round sufficiently to tune in more than once, and one that feels a bit too serious for the timeslot.
Watching now. Can’t decide whether getting a Board Gamer on the first episode of your show that’s very similar to Only Connect is genius or carelessness…
I do like how finding a common factor among things is apparently the sole domain of Only Connect these days, and all those who dare tread upon this hallowed ground shall be compared and mauled mercilessly.
By which I mean yeah it could do with a shorter timeslot, and a less bizarre endgame money ladder, but it was alright.
Oh yeah, I’m perfectly fine with other shows having the same basic mechanic, and frankly, if they’re stealing from anywhere, I’d like it to be something as good as OC. I just thought it was an ironic contestant choice!
And yes, it was alright. (Which is to say, probably better than most of the new shows last year!)
Liked the front game, the tones as the links were dropped and the visual effect as previously mentioned. OK-to-positive on both host and the rest of the game, negative on the set looking a tiny bit cheap, the clunky direction and the somewhat inconsistent questioning. (Bearing in mind that OC really does spoil us on this front.)
Strategy in the front game not as clever as it first appears, but still an interesting idea. And yes, could do with a shorter slot – the first two rounds would feel better taken at a bit of a clip.
It’s plenty good enough. I won’t be rushing to watch again, but it would pass the “Would I watch it if I was in bed the flu or suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands?” test.
Hopefully there will be an OC question one day about ‘quiz shows based on connections’.
Remember Connect-o-spot? This.
Seriously slow. Way too slow. Wa-a-a-a-a-a-y too slow. It’s the audio equivalent of a twelve-mile traffic jam on the M18 near Blackpool.
Contestants answer general knowledge questions to get the clues, which they’re then asked to link. It drags on, and on, and on, feeling like it’ll never end.
The final round is a chase up a stacked money tree, perhaps like one they found nestling in bins marked “The Common Denominator: Do Not Open”. And when, at the end of a tedious 45 minutes, the winners walk away with £750, I’m thinking, “well, that’s hardly worth it.”
There’s something to like: the graphics package is distinctive, the hosting is decent, there is some strategy in the opening round. But the questions are debatable (the Boat Race festival does actually last three days, albeit non-consecutive and in different locations), the links tend to the banal, and the whole thing is just too darned slow. After ten minutes, I’m casting around for something else to do.
Would I choose to watch this again? Not just no, but hell no.
For the record, Toby Jarvis gets credited for “music and sound design”.
Mr Weaver, I can’t believe I am writing these words – having followed Weaver’s Week since Disraeli was in power (JOKING – but seriously, it’s been a while, and I’ve enjoyed every word), I find myself wondering about your geography. “The M18 near Blackpool”?? Surely the M18 merges harmlessly into the M1, long before the coast?
Oh man, I couldn’t get on with this which is a real pity, I think.
I’m not a big fan of Rounds That Look Like They Might Be Strategic But Aren’t Really and round one falls right into the trap. I get what they were going for, I get games based on scalp-hunting, but for me I just see the potential for lots of links especially towards the end which feature little to no real payoff for little to no real fun. Every connection should have a payoff, even if its nominal. I think I’d favour dropping the threads idea completely and just pay increasing amounts of money for each link, or have more pods with a bit less money inside. Nice graphic though.
Round two is a bit boring, gambling on what sort of mood the question writer is in at the time of writing the question.
The final though I quite liked. Yes the money tree is a bit crap (rubbish jeopardy ahoy! and if you hadn’t noticed the cash amounts are the same as round one) but it’s entirely winnable (1.2 seconds a clue is 50 clues to find six links) and I think they’re hoping for more situations where one question would triple or quadruple the money with about ten seconds left which would be a plausible situation and make for a halfway interesting decision.
I liked Mark Williams but suspect the average punter would find his hosting style a bit too eccentric.
Can’t see it being a hit, but also don’t know what sort of figure BBC1 wants in mid-May at half two.
Maybe I’m going soft in my old age, but I liked it. Thought Mark Williams was really good, the graphics and effects were good, and the set was fine. Daytime sets are always going to look a bit rubbish due to budget constraints, even the Pointless set looks a bit rubbish if you ask me (The Chase is the exception that proves the rule.) The potential for “dead questions” in Round One is a bit of a problem, but for me it’s not a fatal blow to the format because the playalong value is still there (see also: Pointless when the team on Podium Four both give incorrect answers). Round Two the strategy works better. Really liked the endgame.
The questions weren’t as clean or as clever as Only Connect, and it could do with being quicker, but so could every other new quiz show since about 2005.
To be fair, when podium 4 scores 200, it’s still important for the remaining teams to score as low as possible so they can go first in the head-to-head.
You are not the only one Paul i enjoyed it too. I think for me the appeal is around the strategy of what links to cut and when to do so. I have always been a fan of formats that involve strategy rather than just answering questions. I would have liked that side to be expanded a bit more, I certainly prefer it to Perfection which i put a lot of down to luck.
That strategy for round one in full:
1) If you can earn money, go for the biggest amount possible.
2) If you’ve any strings left, cut the ones least likely to help anyone else next time.
3) Hope you’re in the right place when the big ones drop.
There are zero interesting decisions to be made, in part because each link is discrete, your agency is quite limited in that regard.
I’m not even convinced you need number 2, really, unless you think you are significantly less likely to get the next opportunity to cut links because you just cut some links.
The only strategies I’ve been able to come up with depend on reasonably accurately assessing both your and your opponents’ abilities. e.g. “They’re idiots, they’ll never get to cut more than 2 links at once, so we’ll keep everything at 3+ links until we get them!”. But it’s hard to believe anything like that could really work in practice over such a short, volatile, round.
Of course, if it gives a convincing enough illusion of strategy to enough people, then that’s arguably all that matters from a TV perspective.
Yes true enough, but it’s not something I will be championing. At least Dale Winton hasn’t started asking “what’s your strategy?” on In It To Win It. Yet.
I liked it enough- though I think they should have given money for correct answers to the questions in round 1 as well as the money in the pods- if one team wins all the money in round 1 and then loses round 2, the other team takes nothing but the added two grand into the final round (that’s probably why they added it).
In the final, I probably would have used a link limit instead of a time limit- they get the first word for free in each puzzle, then say 40 additional links (and don’t make it all or nothing- say if they go on and miss, they just go down a level).
I think that’s only part of the reason, David. The other reason is to keep the money ladder balanced by ensuring the jackpot prize is over £1,000, so the top prize is actually higher than all of the fixed stepping stones. Without it, there could for example be a situation where one team takes through £125 to the second round, having had one team take all the other money and the final team get nothing; then the lower-scoring team wins the second round, takes the £125 through; and effectively every prize in the final round becomes equal to or greater than their originally accumulated winnings making the jackpot redundant.
Actually, augmenting the £2,000 makes sense – the player’s earnings are effectively added on top of what would be the £2,000 link, with all the other amounts being the smaller links used in the first round in ascending order. Pity no attempt is made to actually explain this…
…I actually realised after posting that I just basically repeated your own point, but in a slightly different way. D’oh!
For those that care, the Tipping Point app is available on Android now.
I rather liked this, I do agree round one is rather broken, when a question is for ‘the chance to slightly affect the payoff configuration for the next question’ something’s gone wrong. A nice idea might be to offer teams the option to ‘bank or spend’ their links when they get a question. I also don’t see why the final can’t be all-or-nothing: plenty of other daytime shows do it, and it would save them the awkward 5 minutes of dud jeopardy they need to make it a 45min show.
That said, the whole thing sort of ‘feels nice’, I do think the questions are generally good enough and rather playalongable. Mark Williams is fun, and the visuals are nice. I would just about choose this over repeats of Pointless.
It’s actually at the top on my 2014 shortlist at the moment.
A 7/10, but I fear The Link might not be renewed, or it happens at the expense of 12 Yard stable-mates Perfection or Pressure Pad.
The Link is doing well in the ratings though, in fact with both it and Perfection topping a million regularly it throws Pressure Pad’s renewal (avg about .75) into sharp relief. It helps that ITV has basically collapsed in the afternoons.
I’m watching episode two now. Crikey. So many questions that just don’t matter.
I have no issue with the questions themselves, although round two is still dull.
Edit:
Yesterday a four-link clue ‘I am the first of every month there’s a Friday 13th’.
Today: ‘I’m from Brooklyn, New York’.
Now, I’m no quiz nerd…
Having not watched The Link yet..
So were the answers..
Day 1 – Sunday
Day 2 – Mel Brooks
Close! Sunday and Bugs Bunny.
Bugs Bunny? Really?
Remind me if I’m ever on pointless, I hope Warner Brothers cartoon characters isnt one of the subjects then…!
No, it’s not picky, it’s just common sense or having some idea of what fair play is. It’s things like this where the question editor earns their money.
I don’t think I can add anything that hasn’t been said already. It moved way too slowly, the first round felt a bit broken by means of having puzzles that lead to no gain, the second round was gambling on vague categories, and the final was forgettable.
Round 1 is strategically poor which makes it tiring. Having questions that everyone should rather get wrong (or skip) than answer correctly, is the sign that something is broken.
Round 2 is a bit bizarre: it’s made annoying by the random question difficulty. Skill counts for nothing here.
On the other hand, I find the final round fun. It would be good if they showed the round after team has stopped as a ‘prove-out’.
Overall, I like the concept, which is fixable. Mark Williams is excellent. Would watch again, if I catch it half way through.
Yes, agree. I don’t think there’s anything here that can’t be fixed, I’m just a bit shocked that it feels like nobody has really thought it all through from the offset.
In Break the Safe the correct strategy is to buzz in and give any answer at all. Obviously if you know the correct answer that’s the one to go with, but otherwise you can say anything at all – just answer “banana” every time if you like. That way you at least deny one of the opposing teams the opportunity to answer. That bugged me way more than the dead questions on The Link, which at least don’t undermine the fundamental “correct answer good, incorrect answer bad” dynamic of every quiz ever, but barely anyone seemed to notice or care. Hey ho.
I have zero personal involvement with The Link, by the way, I just like it.
I can’t argue with the fact it’s doing a million, I just wish it was doing a million and was *a bit more compelling*.
Let me run this by you, this has been floating round my head for a bit.
Imagine a set up a bit like round two, with each team having a pod or whatever strung up at the top of the screen by five links, and a giant cash pod at the bottom, starting with £125, then replaced using the show’s money tree (£300, 500, 750, 1000, 2000 although this could be fiddled with). Finding a link from the first clue is worth five links, then three two and one (yes it’s effectively OC scoring) to distribute as you see fit. Once all the links on the pod have been severed, your pod drops and you bank whatever cash is currently up for grabs and you get a new set of five links to sever, and a new cash amount down the bottom. BUT, because the links aren’t replaced until you’ve severed a full set, you can also choose to cut *other* player’s links, forcing them to take lower money whilst you jockey for an advantageous position for bigger money. Or if you back yourself, you can just go for everything. Cutthroat philanthropy.
Short version: first to five points wins money, but the points don’t reset when some money is taken (except for whoever has taken the money) and you can distribute points however.
Is that stupid/unworkable/not much fun?
Straight links for rising stakes would probably work just as well.
I think your idea sounds better, but seems like there is too much strategy in it to be an afternoon show…
I already like the show as it is anyway. I didn’t think it felt very slow in any of the rounds. But I didn’t like the pods. I think they should cut the links on the right/the left/the right/ the left and not just on the right all the time (do you understand what I want to say? It’s difficult to explain for me). This would make it look more balanced. And I think the pods should wobble a bit as soon as there is just one link remaining for them as if they were swinging freely. The rest of the graphics is great, I really like it!
The show is alright, if anyone should upload it to youtube, I’ll watch some more. It’s not great enough to use the dark arts 😉
With that tree, 2000+any other wins.
That actually isn’t necessarily bad here: you should normally seek to give away the 1000 to get a headstart on the 2000.
That could be strategically interesting, I agree.
(the tree is designed to avoid ties, except that a 0-0 tie almost happened today)
That 0-0 tie actually happened in an episode that broadcast earlier this week, with one team taking the full £4675 in play in the first round.
As a result, the game’s “tie-break” rule was revealed. This is simply to bring the £125 link back into play and continue asking questions, but only the tying contestants may buzz. First to take the money goes through and takes it with them. As the £125 pod has just one link, any correct guess on the category instantly qualifies that team.
I saw a couple of episodes on my sky planner and I have to admit it is solid enough.. However I think the game needs a few changes ideally.. First off the cash pods should go as this (125, 250, 375, 500, 1000 and 2000). Then for each link taken out it gets taken out with a note played going down a note each time a link is cut. For round two, they should be given the chance to knock their opponents cash out rather than to collect it, also.. They should make it a buzz in round also so they have to buzz in when the clues are being read out. Finally round three.. I think a good idea is this, the team with their prize get the 2k added on as the jackpot then round plays as follows, ten links are given to the team, the team will then have to solve the ten without getting them wrong, each time they get a link wrong they lose the highest sum going as follows (jackpot, 2000, 1000, 500, 375, 250) mainly they have to answer ten correct to keep everything but get 6 wrong then you leave with nothin’. It would be a better challege than the current game..