The Chase Around the World - Penultimate Episode

Thursday evening’s penultimate episode of “The Chase Around the World” saw our four remaining couples making their way around Zurich, which means that next week’s final will take place in Athens, the first capital city on the mainland of Europe that I ever visited, some 44 years ago.

So far we’ve only seen two couples being sent home by the Chasers – Dilan and Emily being the first, and Matt and Emily following a week later. So there would definitely be at least three couples making it through to the final.

For much of the penultimate episode of this enjoyable series it looked as if we might be seeing the winners of the last three shows, David and Steven, facing the Chasers at the end of the show. Despite being the first couple to get underway again they made a series of unforced errors, for example taking the tram to FIFA HQ as opposed to the FIFA Museum, and from early doors it looked as if they were going to be in the bottom two.

Now, you get to see what the director wants you to see. The way it was presented to us viewers at home it looked as if David and Steven only managed to overhaul poor Nicola and Maddie in the final challenge. Whatever the case, it was the mother and daughter team who were last in and had to face Anne and Shaun. Now, sitting at home we can only judge what we can see on the screen, but based upon what we’ve seen Nicola and Maddie looked noticeably weaker on GK than the other three teams remaining. The best position they finished in any show was mid-table. Now actually, when they came to face the Chasers mum Maddie did a lot better than I thought they would. Sadly a couple of mistakes left them needing pushbacks to have a chance and the Chasers were in unforgiving mood, and gave 10 correct answers to the questions in pretty short order.

I’ve enjoyed the series and I mentioned in my last post about it that I like the fact that the production team haven’t really tried to build a lot of sneakiness into it. It’s a difficult element to add to a show – for me it was the one jarring note in last summer’s Destination X. Another good choice by the production team has been not chopping and changing the rules and introducing random new elements to the game play. It makes me feel pretty confident that the show will manage to stick the landing in next week’s finale.