New Show: Riddiculous

During the week I caught the new afternoon show, Riddiculous, on ITV for the first time. Is it a quiz? Well, yes, at least part of it is, and I certainly think it’s enough of a quiz to qualify for a review.

The idea behind the quiz is solving riddles of varying degrees of difficulty. In round one the host, Ranvir Singh, asks three pairs of contestants a set of General Knowledge questions, and for every one they answer correctly then money is added to their bank. Once one of the pairs has answered three questions correctly, they get to face a riddle from Riddlemaster Henry Lewis. In the first round, the riddles are not that difficult. At the end of the round the couple with the least amount of money in the bank are asked to bid a fond farewell. For the second round, the three correct answers for a try at a riddle applies, as it does for the whole show. The couples face a round where the questions are worth more money, and the riddles are visual riddles. Losing couple stays on, and then in the third round they face questions for even more money, and the riddles, this time even harder, are worth more money again, so much so that theoretically a huge lead could be overturned. At the end of round three the couple with the least money in the bank is eliminated.

As for the final, the GK questions are dumped. Instead the winning pair are faced with a set of rebus riddles – essentially dingbats really – which they have to solve in a given amount of time. If they solve 6, they keep the money they’ve banked. If they don’t, well they go away with a cup and saucer each. No, really, that’s it. However if they do succeed, then they are offered the choice to either take the money or gamble it to double it. If they gamble they get one last rebus riddle and 20 seconds to solve it. If they don't get it right they get nothing. Zippo. Zilch. Only the bloody teacup. 

In essence that’s it. You know, I’ve got to the age that whenever I watch a new quiz, or a new quiz game show I often think I’ve seen this before or seen bits of it before at least. The set up – host aided by intelligent, bearded guy sitting at a desk – is reminiscent of Pointless. The 'least amount banked goes home' makes me think of a couple of shows, particularly Tipping Point. The ‘I’m going to offer you a gamble’ at the end is also remnant of a couple of shows, “Tipping Point” and “Bullseye” coming to mind. Well, they do say that there’s nothing new under the sun, nd it doesn’t necessarily matter how new the elements that make up a new show are, only how well they are knitted together.

I don’t feel that the elements making up the mechanics, the gameplay of this show are bad at all. However, it does really rely on the strength of the riddles themselves. In one way I suppose you could say that riddles are the oldest form of quiz there is, certainly going back all the way to the Sphinx and his ever popular “What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three in the evening?” quiz. I remember translating some Old English riddles into modern English when I was at University. You know, I don’t mind you asking me a riddle where I can’t get the answer, as long as I think – yes, that’s fair, I see how that works – when you tell me the answer. I didn’t always feel that the show played fair in this way.

Now, in one of the harder, round three riddles, the riddle was along the lines of ‘what letter can you add to 1 to make it disappear?’ The answer given was G – which turns one into gone. Fair enough. However, one pair answered N for none. The reasons given why it was rejected was if you add N, by turning one into none it means it wasn’t there in the first place. While I do think gone links better to the idea of disappearing, I do think that turning one into none also makes the one disappear. Allowing for this, I don’t think that riddle was well chosen. It shouldn't have been asked.

Likewise for the gamble, the winning pair could have said no, and walked away with over £3000. They gambled and were faced with a dingbat which showed examples of the word street, written down the page , in a row. A curved arrow pointed from the second in the row arching over to the fifth. The answer? Streets ahead. Surely it should have clearly included all three of the streets to the right of the second? I didn’t have a Scooby, and nor did the poor pair who had just blown their wedge on it. It was a hell of a downer for the ending actually, because I didn’t feel that they’d been given a fair shot, compared with the rebus riddles they’d had before.

Other elements? Well, I liked Ranvir Singh when she was on Strictly Come Dancing a couple of years ago. She projects a bubbly and warm personality. However on the particular show I watched she seemed to have a couple of habits that were not that much to my liking. She had a tendency to say ‘how did you know that?’ when the contestants answered relatively straightforward questions. Likewise, telling a contestant who knows that Richard the Lionheart’s brother was King John “You really know your History” is just a tiny bit patronising, Ranvir. Well, unless you really don’t know yours, in which case I can understand it. I wouldn’t say that this was a major issue for me, but it’s the sort of thing which could really start to grate after a time. As for the Riddlemaster Henry Lewis, well, fine. It’s difficult to make judgements after seeing just one show, but yes, OK, looking at the job he had to do it’s fair to say he did it perfectly well. Whether you actually need someone other than the host to ask the riddles is open to question.

When you get right down to it, this was a perfectly inoffensive quiz game. For me, being the misanthrope that I am, I’m really not interested in the contenders themselves on shows like this, only in how well they can answer the questions. Bearing that in mind I think that there’s a bit of fat that could be cut from this joint. I don’t think that there’s quite enough actual quiz or game to justify the length of the show, and as a result Ranvir has to get chatty with the guests to fill in the gaps. You could quite easily trim this down and it would – in my opinion – be the better for it. Feel free to disagree. If anyone was to ask for my advice – unlikely, I know – I would say that it would be a good idea to make sure that all the riddles are absolutely tight and only permit one correct answer. I think that the endgame could be tweaked too. Something along the lines of – You could take your £3,600. On the other hand you could gamble. If you get one rebus right in 20 seconds, we’ll double your money. On the other hand if you get the answer wrong, you only get half. That’s the sort of thing that other shows have done, quite successfully in my opinion. After all, you want at least a little feelgood factor to remain at the end of the show, whatever happens.