Sundays, 6:40,
ITV
Features app playalong: Android, Apple
Phil’s back with a new visual quiz where contestants are challenged to answer questions by putting a ring around where they think the answer is on a big touchscreen floor.
Two couples play, each one hoping to win £25,000. After each question their personal pot goes up but the size of the rings go down. Teams have two lifelines – ask some people in the audience or flip the board and get another question. Whichever team has done best in their individual round gets control of the final all-or-nothing winner-take-all question. And using super whizzy technology, even though the show is recorded there are graphic inserts to show how people are doing at home.
We’ve seen the Dutch show, 5 Golden Rings (no I don’t know why they opted for a slightly different title), we thought it was OK although we don’t quite understand why telly people are getting very excited over it (it’s certainly done unremarkably in the Netherlands on SBS6, although not a flop). It’s up against Countryfile which doesn’t help, but the demos might tell a more interesting story if they’re ever revealed. It certainly doesn’t need to be 65 minutes.
According to ITV’s press office, the second episode runs from 6:45 to 7:45. I think the first episode just happens to begin early enough that the TV guide compilers round it down to 6:40.
What an idiotic set of decision making from the first couple!
The first couple have had far easier questions that couple 2. Also the app not quite working as it should.
One of the questions about a missing crab showed up on the app with the crab already missing but you could see it on the TV.
Can’t say im enjoying this, doubt ill watch again. For me 1000 Heartbeats in this slot would have been a much better idea.
I mean my opinion hasn’t really changed from the Dutch show – I think it’s OK, I found myself flagging a bit during the second game, I think the Final’s a bit sudden. Philip Schofield hosts it as well as ever, I enjoyed him playing along with the Barcelona streets question and keeping things moving – the pace wasn’t fast but it didn’t feel like time was being wasted particularly. I miss the Sonic 3-esque theme, although I appreciated keeping the Dutch clock music. Phil’s ADR during the app result bits quite irritating.
I think they’ve done a great job with question variety given the quite basic method of giving an answer – was expecting a load of Spot the Ball questions, appreciate the spatial awareness and memory puzzles. Also enjoyed the animations, quite a small touch but noticeable nonetheless.
The app was working really well for me, although I’m aware some were having issues. I liked the bonus questions you were given if you got the ring placement right before the contestants. However, not being able to put your ring down until five seconds after the contestants start is a bit irritating (*) the zoom is a bit overzealous (sometimes I just want to put a ring down in a general area and the zoom’s a bit offputting), and the zoom window not showing up black holes makes placement more difficult than I’d like. I was playing on a 12 inch iPad which might influence my opinion on playing along on it.
For me, the quintessential 7/10 show. Not rubbish, hardly unmissable. The app’s really close to being very good.
(*) I was watching on HD on Freeview so I don’t know if that means extra delay, but it seemed to sync up being correct perfectly enough.
I know you shouldn’t read too much in to what the made-up people on Twitter think, but unusually reaction is *really* positive, seems to be going down very well with communal viewers.
Really interested to the numbers tomorrow.
Alright, now that the first full episode has aired, where’s Kesh to give me the format rundown?
Hey there, Andrew. I was away for the weekend and only just got back. I have the first episode recorded, so when I eventually get around to watching it, I can give the run-down. Unless someone provides one of their own in the meantime…
Since each episode is self-contained (yes?) and there’s no forced ordering due to accumulating jackpots or such, it seems a strange scheduling decision that this was the first episode shown. If Mo had beaten The Cube in episode #1, a lot of the fascination would have been lost.
Having only watched the first Dutch episode, I was mildly impressed with the variety of questions here. But both couples went into a manic frenzy every time they needed to place a ring, and it seemed to be a battle of who could shout the longest and loudest.
I’m still not sure why both teams are on stage through the whole thing, since there’s no head-to-head until the final question. Why not have one podium, bring out Team 1 to do their game, then play the game with Team 2, then bring them back for the final?
It’s not bad, it’s just not very good either. Just kind of so-so. Would have much rather had a new series of The Cube.
I suspect quite a few teams will make level five – the only gamble element is in the final. And it’s not like £25k is hugely massive in terms of primetime prizemoney.
Was quite underwhelmed with it all really – just a Cube round gone too far and not very entertaining. It was too slow for the app to really work along with it, and actually doesn’t have the play along feel that most successful quiz shows have. Two people shouting at each other in each round isn’t exactly entertaining either. Eleven questions over an hour isn’t great either – you get that in a minute on The Chase.
2.8m for this last night, peaking with 3.1m about 7:20 which was when I was starting to flag. Don’t know the demos, but it’s certainly repeating it’s unremarkable but not flop numbers the Dutch show was doing.
Two other ways to look at it: it beat Top Gear (just, with plus 1) and Robot Wars only did 1.2m against it.
I thought this felt like a winner, overall. It’s a shame there’s no back-and-forth between the teams, but the questions were good. (Having considered things like this before, I couldn’t see beyond maps and diagrams of the human body).
The reveals were dragged out a beat too much (esp. at lower levels) and I would like it to be 10 minutes shorter, but I can see this working.
Yes, it would be better if the teams alternated throughout and could steal each others questions if they misplace the ring.
Prize level is underwhelming but in line with what seems to be the new norm, though for me an almost impossible £250k jackpot is better than an easily won £25k. What is the highest cash jackpot currently around on TV?
At the moment, I’d say Fifteen-To-One with its £40k top prize, but that’s only for the overall series champion. I suppose if someone goes for the higher offer on The Chase, then it can get quite high, but that’s a really big ‘if’
(Apropos of nothing Andrew for some reason I have to approve all your posts at the moment, I don’t know why, Jetpack is telling me you’ve done 230 perfectly good ones, hopefully it will sort itself out with the next update.)
Who Dares Wins with it’s £100,000 jackpot per show?
This would be my answer as well, although whether it’s technically £50k is an exercise I leave for the reader.
The Chase is a good answer as well.
Is In It to Win It still going? That offers £100,000 per game rather than per show.
In It to Win It has been dropped quietly.
Didn’t Camelot part finance these prizes. Now the ties with the lottery are gone I guess the shows with such jackpots will be too.
So is it official now that Who Dares Wins is the only Lottery game show to survive without the Lottery?
As I’ve said before, IItWI has arguably continued beyond its ask-by date – it has done just about everything it can do, plus viewing figures and Dale’s energy have been declining the last few years (although of course Dale has been battling depression).
5-Star Family Reunion will be missed by just about nobody. And I don’t think many people will miss Win Your Wish List either – it may be much better than 5SFR, but with respect it’s hardly Winning Lines or Secret Fortune, is it?
Dale hasn’t exactly been the most active recently, hope he is OK…
The problem with IITWI too was the contestant selection was done by coloured balls popping out of a retired old lottery washing machine
This Digital Spy article reckons something exciting’s planned for him this year, but I don’t know any more than that.
Ah, yes – Tenable. £125,000 per show beats all comers I reckon.
Good call.
What everybody else said: this feels more like Hall of Fame than Hall of Shame, mostly because of the imaginative and varied questions, but it’ll be interesting to see how similar episodes are to each other over time or whether there are plenty of other question formats that we haven’t yet seen. Very nice low-key hosting job from Phil, but I particularly enjoyed the pseudo-improv playing of the grid-of-streets question with the audience. From a viewer’s perspective, it looked rather easier than the contestants seemed to be making it look, which is a desirable property.
The final is interesting. It makes a pleasant change, and one very well suited to the Sunday night slot, for there to be a “someone’s going to win their pot, we don’t have a no-score-draw” show; I’d have thought that forcing the behind team to try to win with a tiny ring would be an easier way of getting the win, but we haven’t seen a winning-by-forcing-the-opponents-to-lose “negative win” for a while. (Or have we?)
Has that mechanic been used in the UK since the endgame of Hole in the Wall, come to think of it?
I can’t think of any. The only thing I could think of was the tie-break on Play Your Cards Right.
Although I wonder how different it would play out if you didn’t get to see the question before making the decision, like Hole In The Wall? The two finals I’ve seen have been memory ones, and not especially hard ones.
Ooh, now I don’t like that in the case of a tie they toss a coin to determine who has control of the final, especially as countback would have been perfectly simple.
Some of the questions, particularly the second set, were impossible to judge. For the Christopher Dean’s hand position question, you had no idea where or when that photograph had been taken. Unless you have an “in need of a social life” level of knowledge abut it, there was surely no way of knowing where his hand would be. And I couldn’t get the app to work.
It’s only one of the most famous ice dances of all time.
I know, but his hand could have been anywhere. If only up to their thighs were shown, there were several places it could have been. I found an image where the bottom half was in the same position but the arms weren’t.
I think they said it was their starting positions.
It was indeed the starting position not the end. The question was a pot luck element to it so it could of been anywhere.
The app is quite buggy and you need a stable constant connection for syncing to be perfect. My mobile dropped slightly out and i missed a whole question becausde of it so my score was inaccurate.
Now that it’s been over a week, if Kesh has been around to watching a full episode, I’m ready for the complete format rundown.
It’s exactly the same as the Dutch show, except you swap Euros for Pounds sterling, written about here:
https://www.bothersbar.co.uk/?p=9761#comment-456607
That very ending is why I hated Divided. The winners of £1,000 were celebrating in the face of losers who just lost £25,000. If the mother and son duo and any sense, they would have passed the question, and asked them to throw it, and they would just give them £1,000. And that heartbeat sound effect and the screen going black at the end makes me want to punch the TV screen. Great show though, and the errors in it can be repaired in series 2.
I’m afraid you misunderstand contestant contracts, that would not be an option.
That reminds me of the one Golden Balls Split & Steal:
Yep, that’s what led to a tightening of the rules, mainly to avoid bringing the production company into disrepute if they renege.
Do bear in mind that is what they did on the first episode of Wild Things. And that was on a larger percentage scale. Still, I’m sure you’ll agree that the heartbeat sound effect and the screen going black is one of the most irritating things on TV ever.
That is true but it’s at the company’s discretion, they film Wild Things over several days, contestants on most studio gameshows are usually seperated and sent packing soon after filming.
Also the prize is constant on Wild Things, if they agreed to let the losers throw the game that costs the production a further 24 grand.
I was trying to work out how many people were playing along by scoring 0 in the app and seeing how I was ranked but it looks like they considered that and haven’t given me a ranking. Just week I was just under 8,000th, I’m 2100th ish for the series, despite scoring zero this week.
I’m going to guess at 20-30k, which would be about 1% of viewers. Up the app revolution!
Right! I actually have a figure this week – 200pts, the single lowest non-zero score you can get, was worth around 43,000th this week – a bit more than I originally anticipated.
Assuming a (generous) overnight of 3m, that means app usage of about 1.5%. App the revolution!
Given that 5% of interactivity is OK, and 10 or over is great, then 1.5% smells rather low. As a fan of interactive ideas, that’s very disappointing.
But I do wish it was on at 8 instead of 6, though. I’m too busy with meals or the kids at that time to do apps as well.
The good news is that in fact in its earlier timeslot it only rated 2m, so that pushes the app user rate to just over 2%.
I maintain that playalong apps generally feel like work, regardless of whether they’re any good or not. People are happy to shout at the screen, and in many cases with this if they’re watching communally they’re putting their finger on the actual TV screen if they’re getting into it. You basically have to be really bothered to playalong on an app. Especially as there’s no real payoff for doing so.
I’m going to be intrigued to see how they spin the figures for Don’t Ask Me Ask Britain.
1.87m for this at 7pm last night. I get it, hot weather, but 10.3% share really isn’t great. They’re looking for contestants for series two but this feels more like an international sales thing.
I think it’s a decent show that’s quite far from unmissable.
Also there’s really confused messages about the app, on the one hand we have Pip saying ‘hey, there’s an app!’ one minute then ‘play along at home by pointing at your telly’ the next. The app remains quite good, but there’s still no killer reason to use it.