You know, in 2025 there were very few new TV shows I got to review, and not all of those were even quiz shows either. So in one way at least it’s nice to have new shows to review in the opening months of the year. Last month I reviewed Rob Brydon’s The Floor. Now it’s the turn of Sara Davies’ Time is Money.
This daytime show began on 1st January and
typically I’d manage to miss it until this week. Since returning from the
cruise at the start of November this has been the first time that I’ve taken a
week off work. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.
So how does it work? Well, the twist is that all 5
contestants are given money at the start of the first round, and the idea is to
keep it by answering questions on the buzzer. Answer questions correctly and
your opponents’ timers start to leak cash at the rate of £10 a second. Keep
answering correctly and the rate speeds up. Answer incorrectly and you lose
money. Once your cash has leaked away, you’re out. Unless two of you lose your
last tenner at the same time, in which case there’s a tie break. At the end of
each round, however money you have left is banked. You’ll only get to take it
away if you win the final.
So the rounds continue. Each remaining contestant’s timer
is topped up with a higher amount than the previous round until four
contestants have lost their cash and only one remains to play in the final. So
the finalist will have saved some cash in each of five rounds. They are shown
five columns, each with the money they saved in that round. To take away any
cash they have to answer a question correctly in each column. If all of that
column’s money runs out, then the contestant gets nowt. If they answer all
five, then however much money is left is what they get to take away.
A few observations, then. The timer gimmick isn’t that
unique. Both 'Five Minutes to a Fortune' and 'Take On The Twisters' used something
similar. Remember them? No, I’m not surprised, and the fact that these earlier
shows didn’t make it to a second series does cast a doubt over this one’s
future. But let’s consider the show on its own merits.
I think that the game play is quite clever. The idea of
essentially restarting the game with all the remaining contestants starting
with the same amount of money each round is effective. It means that you might
have absolutely aced the last round, but if the category of this one doesn’t
suit you could still be out. It avoids the problem you can get on a lot of
shows when one contestant is so much faster on the buzzer than the others that
the result looks like a foregone conclusion from early doors – so well done for
that.
You do get a lot of questions for your money – I’ve seen it
said that there’s up to 150 asked in each 50 minute show. They’re not
especially difficult – it relies on having round categories to give the
contestants potential problems – and in fact as the rounds go on there are more
clues offered in the questions. Essentially the show bets the house on the
buzzer races being tense and exciting. If that's not what you like, well then this is not the show for you
Cards on the table, I found the show seemed to be flagging
a bit in the middle rounds. Some of them seemed a lot shorter than others.
Also, for a 50 minute show there was no real variation in the game play until
the last five minutes with the final. Now, considering that host Sara Davies
makes a point of saying (several times if truth be told) that this is the
fastest quiz on telly, there’s quite a bit of ‘talking to the contestants’
padding. To be fair, they don’t do a lot of it at the start which is something
I approve of. But it really doesn’t let up much from the end of the first round
onwards, every time there’s a break in the questions. If you’ve followed the
blog for any great length of time you’ll know that this is just something I don’t
care for at all.
I’ve already mentioned host Sara Davies. I’m not entirely
sure why Sara is hosting the show. Actually I think I know the answer to that –
she’s hosting the show because she was offered the chance to do so. Why she
accepted the offer, well, that’s a harder question to answer. Sara is already a
very well known figure from several seasons as a dragon on BBC’s popular Dragon’s
Den. I don’t claim to be knowledgeable about her personal finances, but I know
enough to say that she is a very successful and wealthy entrepreneur. So it’s
probably fair to say that she’s not doing it for the money. Does she aim to carve
a career as an all-round TV personality? Or is she doing it because she thought
it would be fun? Answers on a postcard please.
What I can say is that she plays this role pretty well for someone who has not built a career entertaining audiences through her personality. For
one thing she has bags of confidence and never appeared mechanical or wooden in
the shows I watched. That’s important. If I think of other TV personalities who
chanced their arm with the quiz game show genre, Alex Scott never quite
convinced in “The Tournament”. While she seemed genuinely warm and likeable you
always suspected that if the autocue went on the blink she’d falter. As for
Gordon Ramsey and Jeremy Kyle, I think that they both suffered from the perception
that the viewers had of their TV personae – it just seemed insincere when they
were in chummy game show host mode. As I said, I’d like to see less chat, but
that’s a personal preference. It’s not that I don’t like the way that Sara
Davies does it.
I think that this is watchable fare as it is. However I
think that the producers have missed a trick since it could have been a real
winner. Had the show cut a lot of the chat, and had maybe four contestants
rather than 5 so it could come in at a lean and mean 30 minutes then I think it
would have been something a bit special. Alternatively, in the format that it
is, then they needed something extra. I’ve praised Sara Davies and she does the
job that she is required to do professionally and well. But the show as it is
really needs a host who provides a significant proportion of entertainment
value. Could you really imagine The Chase without Bradley Walsh, for example? Well,
for me, “Time is Money” needs a host with the wit and comedic chops as host to
elevate it above the herd.
Well, in the past I’ve seen some shows that I thought were
oven-ready turkeys go on to success while others that I’ve thought had
potential go on to disappear after one series, so it’s hard to say whether “Time
is Money” will run and run. I would watch it again, but I wouldn't go out of my way to record it.
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