Thanks to @hideousyolk for pointing this in our direction, last night saw ZDF’s newest attempt at a big Saturday night event show to replace Wetten Dass? and is proof if proof were needed that nobody does large scale studio games like the Germans (Miljoenenjacht not withstanding).
If you want to watch it you can catch it on the ZDF Mediathek for the next week before it disappears into the ether. It is ungeoblocked as far as I can ascertain. It’s a shade under two hours thirty.
In it 1,000 contestants are reduced to a single winner who wins €100,000 by surviving the cut over a number of rounds, beginning with a obstacle course round the ZDF car-park to get rid of 500, a Test-the-Nation style intelligence test to get down to 250, an observation round to cut to 100, balancing on a post to find the top 50, a tactile work-out-the-value-of-coins-by-touch-alone test to get to 25, a “creativity” test involving placing odd shaped bricks into a small case so the case shuts to get to five, a “build an unusual house of cards using beermats” test to find a final two, then the big €100,000 finale is wine glass Jenga. There are occasional guests to break it up. It’s basically Massively Multiplayer The Krypton Factor, the auditorium is quite something.
For me it needed to get on with it a bit quicker during those early quiz rounds – the time limit for each question was rather lengthy and every couple of questions they’d be a chat with some contestants and I’m not sure there’s really any point at that stage – when it gets down to the final 100 and all the games are played on stage the pacing felt more correct. I quite liked the way contestants learnt their fate by hoping their armband lit-up. The games for the final 100 were in the main well shot and lit, although I think the wine glasses probably could have done with some closer overhead shots to show placement a bit better.
Otherwise it’s a fairly entertaining watch which worked rather better than Das Spiel Beginnt back in March. Apparently not a recording without it’s problems though, apparently one contestant had a heart-attack on the obstacle course (they survived) and there was a suggestion of other accidents but you don’t see anything.
[This is BB, I’m using my COMMENT POWERS for good by reposting this Nico W posted in the thread beneath just as I was writing this post].
My thoughts on last night’s “1000- Wer ist die Nummer 1?”: I think it was a bit boring and felt as long as the recording (it started at 7:30 pm and took until about 3:30 am). The games were interesting (I enjoyed the car parking puzzle btw), but I never felt that excited, because I didn’t get to know the players. The last game was the first I actually felt somehow excited although the players had a deal of sharing the money (because of the long recording). There were at least 2 games left out and the “puzzle in the box” game (the one where 25 contestants were whittled down to 5) was played because of some technical errors. Therefore the show ended 35 minutes earlier than planned.
I’m interested to see whether this show will make it to the UK as it was a format co-created with BBC worldwide, but the ratings (3.64 million/ 12.8% market share) weren’t impressive despite all these headlines surrounding the heart attack of one contestant in the first round and alle the other complains the contestants had. You can read a good round-up of the events over at DWDL (http://www.dwdl.de/nachrichten/50636/aufzeichnung_zu_neuer_zdfshow_geraet_aus_den_fugen/)
Ooh interesting, didn’t see the BBC Worldwide credit.
I did think going from 25 to 5 felt like a rather large cut.
I wonder if it’s descended from 2 for 2000, a CBBC show which whittled 2000 competitors down in a similar manner.
(You’ll have to excuse my memory here, since it’s been a while, but iirc, they started by eliminating through a Runaround style quiz, then had various obstacle courses, a treasure hunt and a quiz for the final 12 in the studio. But this took place over a number of episodes rather than one multi-hour marathon.)
This must have been a complete logistical nightmare, mustn’t it?!
That seems to be the main bulk of the complaints too, why some where not allowed through to the next round, and so on. I’m also sorry to hear about the heart attack during filming – not a pleasant circumstance and I’m glad they recovered.
So, yes, the show is way too long. Oooh coin identifying OH MY THEY’VE PUT A FOUR MINUTE CLOCK ON IT. But watching it on fast forward I really enjoyed it. The atmosphere when the 500 filtered into the studio was incredible. The set was amazing – the lighting manager needs a raise (at least 100 well placed spotlights) – I felt it was clean yet spectacular.
I felt the challenges were good but not quite as outstanding as I wanted. Was hoping for at least one more properly physical challenge after the first one, which biases the show towards men getting through sadly.
Still, very enjoyable games – and the production difficulties explains the sudden 25 to 5 game which felt very harsh, but I now understand that that wasn’t planned.
I’m very surprised they tried to film this in one day – I’d have said it would have needed at two at least.
I really liked the atmosphere of the show and the idea of the show. I do reckon they’d help themselves a great deal if the show only started with 500 people instead – it would help the production side certainly.
It’s not perfect but I really liked it (on fast forwards) and hope it can be streamlined. The Germans do their large scale gameshows right (let’s not mention Red or Black), so I hope that it improves in further iterations.
I found I was actually fine with four minute coin-defining, in itself not greatly exciting, but as part of a process acceptable enough, and this is a show that defines itself on a process.
Just a head’s up for something happening later this week.
On Friday 8th, The Hit List returns once more. We’re back in the same studio BUT there’s a difference because this game’s all about you, the interactive players. There’s no-one playing in the studio – instead, we’ll be running a series of mini-competitions where you have to hit as many answers on the list as you can. Will you be able to top score on our leaderboard? We might even cobble together some prizes if we have time.
It should kick off from about 3pm and last until 4.45ish. Follow @hitlistquiz for updates and any last minute timing changes.
I’ve got that day off! How exciting.
The set and graphics on this one were absolutely spectacular. The balance round in particular looked haunting, and the audience energy was amazing at the start. The intelligence test felt varied and engaging, and not the drag these games can be.
The flak they receive for the fitness course doesn’t seem entirely fair. They clearly tried hard to avoid accidents, with solid surfaces, all soft obstacles designed for easy medical access, an anti-trample maze, spread-increasing questions, warmup time, and an overall medium distance amongst other things. When you sign up for a foot race of a thousand people, expecting not to be shoved seems foolish. And yet, every point whose safety I questioned while watching turned out to have accidents happen there. I figure a wider start gate, an unfunneled and longer first obstacle and an extra 200m in between would have helped a lot. Alternatively, group release or some sort of task to be performed before getting to start the course could achieve the requisite spread.
The result of the course was ludicrous in its gender split. You really do need to give the ladies a head start, and probably also some obstacles that play to their strengths. Flexibility, balance, and compactness come immediately to mind. You could also just have more women candidates, and/or pass more people.
The back half was a lot more disappointing. We couldn’t play along with or even understand their backup briefcase game because we never got a good look at the pieces, and the final two rounds, for all their tenseness, were pretty similar. I really wanted a change of pace somewhere in the back half: Some sort of Fear Factor-y stunt, or a rapid-fire quiz or some other high-energy round.
Registration has finished so it’s too late to enter, but it’s not quite too late to enjoy it as a spectator: today is the third and final day of Urban Ninja on Tooting Bec Common in That London. Other events around the country may well follow.
Love obstacles but don’t enjoy mud, running, queues, pain or travel? Urban Ninja brings the obstacles, and just the obstacles, to you! This event, loosely based on the Ninja Warrior TV show, is a short, portable, urban obstacle course race which consists of nothing but obstacles. It is split into two levels of difficulty: Tame and Insane. Anyone looking for a bit of fun will find the Tame obstacles suited to them and may be able to make a decent stab at some of the Insane ones.
To say this is “loosely based” on Ninja Warrior is to suggest that One To Win (etc.) was “loosely based” on Bob’s Full House. Each course has ten obstacles which come pretty directly from the Ninja Warrior playbook, with those from the Insane course being more often drawn from stages two or three than stage one – but a couple of stage one favourites in there (a properly warped wall and a rolling log). It may even be that this is closer to the proper Japanese Sasuke experience than our own Ninja Warrior show, and I approve.
A friend of mine, who has been doing Tai Chi for well over a decade and thus has proprioception and strength up the wazoo, went yesterday and did two-thirds of the “Tame” course. I get the impression he enjoyed it, but he noted that “yes, there was a pronounced lack of safety rails or padding if you fell off the equipment in directions you weren’t meant to“. Cheapness, deliberate or just first-event bug? Who knows. Apparently about a third of entrants completed the Tame course and nobody had completed the Insane course by the end of day two.
I approve.
Their final tower is five metres, which seems to compare favourably to the size of our one in Manchester, etc.
I’d think it would have been easier if they had done a 2nd game outside the studio (maybe the 500 to 250); it just seemed a little long. I did like the wristbands they had that lit up to show the people moving on- and the last game wouldn’t have been out of place on SdR…
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it played somewhere before, but I can’t for the life of me think where.
I think we found a new game for The Cube- pot the yellow…..
nice start for Caduta Libera! which opened with an all-celebrities episode
L’Eredità 2,675,000/3,981,000 20.67%/23.73%
Caduta Libera! 2,225,000/3,435,000 18.27%/21.11%