I’m a great fan of comedian Dave
Gorman. I love all of his TV shows, have seen him on stage several times, and as
far as I know read all of his books. In his excellent “Modern Life is Goodish”
series for Dave, in one of the shows he takes issue with the idea of the guilt
pleasure. Basically, he argues that if you enjoy it, then there is no earthly
reason for you to feel guilty about it – only he does it much more amusingly
than I just did.
I say this, because I’ve been
reflecting on the quiz shows I’ve been enjoying during the lockdown, most of
which I would otherwise have described as guilty pleasures. In no particular order
then. . .
Tipping Point
Back in 2012, on its debut, I wrote
this, “I’m afraid that, in my opinion, “Tipping Point” doesn’t work. Ben
Shepherd is so inoffensive you hardly even know he’s there, but he is very
bland. It doesn’t work as a quiz show because the questions are too simple, and
there aren’t enough of them. It doesn’t work as a game show because the game
itself is, well, a bit of a bore, and there’s no variety in it either. Drop –
sweep – oh tough luck. As in the original amusement arcade game, I should
imagine that this show is a lot more fun to play, than to watch someone else
playing. Now, I wouldn’t want to give you the idea that this is awful. Awful is
an adjective which should only ever be applied to shows like Ted Rodger’s 3 – 2
– 1. But even awfulness has a certain fascination to it. There’s nothing
fascinating, or even interesting about “Tipping Point”.”
Ok, I’m ready for my humble pie now,
Mr. DeMille. I’ve often watched and enjoyed “Tipping Point” during the
lockdown. I could hide behind the fact that my 6 year old grandson Ollie really
enjoys it, but that would be cowardly. Addressing the points I made in 2012,
either I was completely wrong about Ben Shepard, or he’s developed in hosting
style. But you watch the show now and you are seeing someone who appreciates
that the questions are among the easiest on any TV show, and that the average
contestant is not overburdened with a decent working general knowledge, and this
comes out with just the odd sly little comment or dig. Anyway, the questions
are at best unimportant to the watchability of the show, and at worst
irrelevant. It’s about the outrageous slings and arrows of fortune. OK,
knowledge comes into it, as the more questions you answer correctly, the more
counters you get to put into the machine, but lets face it, this is mostly
about luck. And there’s something about that which works. One of the most
gratifying TV moments of the lockdown was seeing a contestant not only get the
£10,000 counter over the tipping point, but also the double your money counter
at the same time, thus earning £20,000. Had he done anything noticeably more
clever than any other contestant? Not really, yet I love it. Admittedly, part
of this is the ritual of guessing who is going to be the most annoying
contestant from their introductions. Tipping Point seems to encourage
contestants to loudly and rather pointlessly comment while others are having
their turn – ooh, you’ve got a coople on the edge for you there, luv” and other
variations on the theme. So yes, I would admit that quite a it of my enjoyment
of the show is from schadenfreude, because its often this kind of contestant
who is eliminated after the first round.
Richard Osman’s House of Games
Every weekday of the lockdown, at just
before 6pm, after the Government press conference on BBC1 has ended, I switch
over to BBC2, and my grandson Ollie and I watch House of Games. It’s easy to
put my finger on what makes this show so watchable. First and foremost, it’s
Richard Osman himself. Fans of Pointless know that although there are times
when his banter with Alexander Armstrong falls embarrassingly flat, he’s a
witty and highly intelligent individual, capable of saying ‘that was a bloody
stupid answer you just gave’ without actually saying it, being inoffensive and
at the same time leaving nobody in any doubt that was what he meant. This is
absolutely essential for a show which features 4 ‘celebrities’, because you can
guarantee that at least one of them will probably set your teeth on edge. For
example, in a recent week, Anneka Rice was one of them. Now, thirty odd years
ago when she was running around in a jumpsuit on Treasure Hunt and Chalenge
Anneka, I could take her, because she was in a position where her talents were
probably shown to their best . But let’s be honest, almost everything that
dropped from her lips on House of Games made me want to shout “Shut up Shut up
Shut up!” at the telly. This is why you need a talent like Richard Osman
heading up the show.
However, I also rather like the
quirky question rounds. In fact, I so much like the questions where the answers
are rhyming pairs, and the Answer Smash ending round, that I stole the format
for a video quiz I did with my kids a couple of weekends ago – and what’s more
they worked brilliantly. My favourite answer smash was on the show repeated
yesterday, where we saw a photograph of Donald T. Rump and were asked – in a
fairy story, who spun straw into gold? – Answer – Donald Trumplestiltskin. Made
me laugh, anyway.
Beat the Chasers – Right, this is
something different. Tipping Point and House of Games are both fairly sturdy old
teatime warhorses which have been round the block a few times, and already had
their audience. Beat the Chasers is something rather more ambitious. For over a
decade The Chase has duked it out with Pointless as the early evening quiz show
of choice. And let’s make no bones about it, they’re both great shows. Beat the
Chasers then takes the central pro-am idea, and twists it, and put it on later
to make it into event TV. So in Beat the Chasers its every contender for him or
herself. We still have something equivalent to the cash builder round. Then we
get the twists.
The contender will have to decide
whether to play against 2, 3,4 or all 5 chasers. The play consists of a round
of questions. When the contestant gets one right, then the chasers have to
answer. Both contestant and chasers have to keep answering until they get one
right, when the go passes over to the other side. While the turn is with the
contestant, then their time, which starts at 60 seconds ticks away. Once all
your time is gone, you lose. Same goes for the chasers. Look we’ve seen this
kind of round before in several different quizzes, all the way back to Going
for Gold in the late 80s.
However, as I said, the contender
must decide to play against a number of chasers. So while a weak contender
might get an offer of, say, £3000 to play against 2 contenders who will get 35
seconds of time, then they would also maybe be given an offer to play against
all 5 Chasers for £100,000 in 45 seconds of time.
This is a fascinating development of
the original show. For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts on the format.
· I think that it doesn’t make a huge
material difference having 2 chasers against you or 5. That’s not me being disrespectful
– it’s actually the opposite. The fact is that for the vast majority of the
population, each of these Chasers can beat you comfortably on their own in even
time. Yeah, OK, one of them has to hit the buzzer, but you can bet your life
that for most of the questions, the others knew it too.
· However, the amount of time you have
does make a big difference. Massive. In “The Chase” come the final chase you
have to answer more questions correctly than the Chaser does.You just do, it’s
in the mechanics of the game. In “Beat the Chasers” you don’t necessarily. You
just have to still be standing by the time their time runs out. If you’ve got,
say, a 20 second advantage, then you don’t even need to answer every question
correctly. If you can keep your head, and you have an average geeral knowledge,
then you have a chance. If you’ve only got a 5 second advantage because you’re
taking on all the Chasers, well, it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve been
offered because you ain’t going to do it. Except . . .
· One of the most interesting things
about this format is that while, in The Chase, the format favours the Chaser in
the Final Chase, this is reversed in Beat the Chaser. I’ll explain that. In The
Chase, the two, three of four who make it through have to buzz in to answer
their questions. When it’s the Chaser’s go he or she can just shout them out
without buzzing. However in Beat the Chaser, it’s the Chasers who have to buzz.
It’s not a massive disadvantage, sure, but it’s still a disadvantage.
I will confess that I recorded each show so
that I could fast forward through Bradley Walsh bantering with the contestants.
Look, he’s just not for me – not everyone can be. I like him very much as an
actor, but I’m into this show for the questions. If you ask the Chasers though,
they’ll all say that Bradley is the reason for the show’s success – Anne herself
says that he is the Chase’s secret weapon. Overall, though, I thoroughly
enjoyed the shows. Long term readers of LAM might remember that my principle point
about pro-am shows is when the format gives an advantage to the pros, who are
so good that they don’t need the advantage anyway. This is different, and so to
my mind a very interesting proposition.
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