New Show - Time is Money

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 1^st 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.

The Shriek

As I write this on Friday morning, my ears are still ringing from the quiz in the club last night. Now, okay, I have always suffered from tinnitus, so to an extent my ears are always ringing. But suffered isn’t necessarily the best term for it. For as long as I can remember I have always had a noise in the background of my hearing that is a high pitched whine. It’s a bit like the sound of tuning an old fashioned radio with a large dial, or a really high pitched voice going EEEEEEEEEEE. I’m not asking for sympathy because it has never held me back as far as I can tell, and much of the time I never even notice that it’s there.

However, there are certain things which do seem to make it worse. One of which is having a question master in the club who just doesn’t get how to get the best out of using a microphone. I’ve been acting as question master quite regularly in the club for more than 30 years now. Using a microphone is a strangely counter-intuitive activity. Now I’ve finished with teaching, but I was a teacher for so long that when confronted by a large, open space with quite a few people in it listening, my instinct is to take a deep breath and then use my ‘teacher voice’. Which is just the wrong thing to do with a microphone. I find I get best results when I don’t speak above my normal conversational volume and when I pitch my voice just a tiny bit lower.

Okay. Now, the QM last night was one of our semi-regular setters. As a person, I like her. As a QM, well last night was one of her better quizzes, which meant it crept up to being average. For the first 6 out of 8 rounds she split each between 5 questions on one theme and five on another. What can I say? I just wish that the average setter for the club would set their sights on using the best gimmick of all – well phrased general knowledge questions that provide something for the rank amateur, something for the seasoned quizzer and something for all points in between. Learn how to make a good basic quiz before you try pushing the envelope. But as I said, for a themed quiz it wasn’t so bad. Even if she did confuse her John Collins and Tom Collins cocktails, and even if she did fall into the trap of the impromptu bonus. In this care she asked name the two actors from ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum” had a number 1 single in 1975. Then, as an afterthought she added words to the effect of – I’ll give you a bonus if you can name the song. . . I think I remember what it was.- Gawd help us. Thankfully she had it right, but you just shouldn’t ask a question when you haven’t checked the answer first. Thankfully she was right with her answer of Whispering Grass.

I’m getting away from the point here, which is my ringing ears. The big problem with this QM is that she shouts into the microphone. In fact it’s almost a shriek. I, and a couple of others, have started putting our fingers in our ears when she starts, but she carries on, bellowing it out. I’m sorry, but the older I get the more of a wuss I become about loud noises. It’s not really like physical pain, but nonetheless it is painful. Now, whichever way I look at it, I cannot think of a way to broach the subject with the setter in a way which would not come across as unkind, or, let’s face it, downright rude. Which is why I’m sitting here on a Friday morning with my ears ringing.

University Challenge Quarter Final - Imperial v Warwick

The Teams

Imperial

Rahim Dina

Eugenia Tong

Oscar O’Flanagan (Capt)

Justin Keung

Warwick

Josh Howarth

Antoni Kluzowski

Chris Levesley

Lucy Dennett

As you’ll see I didn’t know that V for Vendetta began as a strip in Warrior in 1982. However I guessed it from the description and so did Lucy Dennett, getting Warwick off the mark. One quarter of the Labours of Heracles brought Warwick a full house, as indeed they should. Oscar O’Flanagan opened his and Imperial’s account with physiology. People born in the UK who have played in the NBA brought two correct answers.I don’t know owt about the video game Rogue but Chris Levesley did for the next starter. Theoretical physics, which brought Warwick 1 bonus, also brought me an unlikely lap of honour for guessing the Higgs boson for the last. For the picture starter none of us recognised the logo of Historic England. Rahim Dina knew that Freetown is the capital city of Sierra Leone and earned Imperial the picture bonuses. Other national cultural organisation logos brought, well, nowt. Justin Keung knew that Reubens was a mate of the Brueghels for the next. 2 bonuses on the Indus Valley Script meant that the score stood at 50-35 in Imperial’s favour at just past ten minutes.

The next starter, with all of its talk of isotopes and such sounded difficult until Amol mentioned Cassiterite. Well, I knew it was tin, even if neither team did. Various clues gave Antoni Kluzowski the word urchin. Film awards in non Anglophone countries brought Warwick two bonuses. Eugenia Tong knew where the Drakensburgs are and the bonuses on Musical modes yielded two correct answers. This was followed by the music starter and eventually Justin Keung identified the work of Prokofiev. Two bonuses on composers of marches were taken. Chris Levesley came in very quickly with Andy Warhol’s Darling to earn bonuses on chess engines. 2 bonuses followed and narrowed the gap. An incredibly long astronomy question fell to Oscar O’ Flanagan. Literary works with similar titles brought them one correct answer. The Imperial skipper showed imperious form, knowing that Lord George Murray was associated with the most famous man to be named after 3 sheepdogs , Bonnie Prince Charlie. Holy Roman Emperors provided a pair of answers and this meant that Imperial led by 120 – 75 as hit the 20 minute mark.

For the second picture starter Antoni Kluzowski identified a gorgeous painting of what looked like Niagara by Frederic ‘Broad’ Church. Pictures featuring rainbows by British artists brought two bonuses. Lucy Dennett recognised words and concepts linked to Aristotle. Phylogenic classification – altogether now, gesundheit – brought one bonus but took Warwick into triple figures. Nobody quite got the next starter which simply required the answer of architecture. Neither did anyone get linear programming for the next. Oscar O’Flanagan knew various occurrences of the 1840s to get the contest moving again. The Amazon and its tributaries brought one bonus. The Imperial skipper was making his run for home now and knew Poke from Norwegian Cuisine, not to be confused with puke which is a term from LAM Towers’ cuisine. Two bonuses on disguise in Shakespeare meant that it was now or never for Warwick. They couldn’t take the next starter after an Imperial miscue. Oscar O took the next starter with 108 stars of destiny – no, me neither. The Kroll process might mean bugger all to me – and indeed it does – but it brought Imperial a rare full house. The irrepressible Imperial skipper struck again with the Continental System for the next starter. Depictions of Pontius Pilate didn’t trouble the scorer, but what did Imperial care. They had won to all intents and purposes. There was time enough for Oscar O’Flanagan to take his 8^th starter with Edward III, but no more. Imperial ran out winners by 190 to 105.

Well, the lasting impression of this game was that it was settled by Oscar O’Flanagan’s onslaught on the buzzer in the last few minutes. For the record Imperial’s BCR was 48% while Warwick’s was 61% off fewer starters.

Amol Watch

Amol, you’re at your absolute best when you show your mastery of the fine art of getting the hell on with it, just as you did in this show.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Seminal graphic novel V for Vendetta actually began as a comic strip in Warrior in 1982.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

Which astronomical observatory located on the Cerro Pachon ridge in Chile, contains a 3,200 megapixel camera, said to be the largest digital camera ever built which will be used to create an ultra-high-definition time lapse record of the universe over a period of ten years? Formerly known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, it was renamed in 2019, after an American astronomer whose work on galactic rotation helped evidence the existence  - and thank God at this point Oscar O’Flanagan buzzed in with the answer at this point. He’s certainly not dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.

Really?!!!!!!

 I can only hope that I'm mistaken about this. In the hope that proper Mastermind might be restarting on Monday I went to check the BBC2 schedule for Monday coming. At 7:30 we have . . . Celebrity Mastermind. Oh Gawd. But then according to the schedule they are repeating the first episode of the series that is just supposed to have finished. Because it has Chesney Hawkes and Danny Robbins in it and I remember watching it. It's hardly surprising I remember it because it was only shown a few weeks ago! I hope that either I, or the iplayer, is mistaken. Come on Beeb - please, don't take the piss.

When Did that Happen?

 UK Gameshows is Back! We reported that the website had gone down in 2025. I have periodically checked my link. I'm not sure the last time that I checked, but it wasn't working then. I checked again tonight. . . and it is! Best thing that has happened in 2026 so far! (even if it happened before the end of 2025)

University Challenge 2026 Quarter Final - Darwin, Cambridge v. Sheffield

The Teams

Darwin, Cambridge

Lewis Strachan

Ruth Ni Mhuircheartaigh

Louis Cameron (capt.)

Jonathan White

Sheffield

Rhys Lewis

Abdelrahman Elsisi

Jacob Price (capt.)

Isobel Dobbie

Okay folks, so it’s another quarter final. No bus fare home in this one, but that’ll come soon enough. With the first starter I recognised the given name we needed was Gustave on the reference to Caillebotte. Isobel Dobbie seemed to have the same revelation as she opened the scoring for Sheffield. Two bonuses on Elizabeth Barrett ‘Gravy’ Browning followed. Jacob Price recognised two principal divisions of Austria Hungary for the next starter. Dilma Rousseff brought two more bonuses. Nobody knew that the Jaen in Spain produces mainly a lot of olive oil. The next starter on celluloid went begging as well, but while Sheffield lost five I took my lap of honour for knowing it while the going was good. Louis Cameron knew that the Books of Chronicles take their name from a Greek word for time, to open Darwin’s account. Mathematical transformations brought one bonus. So to the picture starter and Isobel Dobbie identified the logo of the International Criminal Court. Three special ICC tribunal logos brought Sheffield a full house. This meant that as we approached the ten minute mark they led by 60 – 10.

Louis Cameron recognised Keats’ Belle Dame Sans Merci for the next starter. Actors who have played the same role in different films that are not part of a franchise brought them one bonus. Ideally they could really have done with a full house at this point to get the scoreboard really moving. Louis Cameron, clearly undaunted, took the next starter on the term Inherent Vice. (As opposed to the TV series with Don Johnson which was often incoherent vice.) Prominent sexologists (innuendo overload imminent) brought just a single bonus again. Jacob Price recognised a description of Baku. Pairs of bowlers who bowled unchanged throughout a whole test innings in the 21^st century saw Sheffield dispatch all three over the boundary rope for a full house. For the ensuing music starter the Sheffield skipper was first in to recognise the voice of Patti Smith. Other artists associated with Max’s Kansas City – nope, me neither – in the 70s and early 80s brought Sheffield no joy. Gawd alone knows what magnetic monopoles are when they’re at home but Jacob Price recognised them when he heard them described in the next starter. Shellac brought one bonus. Now, if you didn’t know about the Revie plan, then you had to wait until the very end of the next starter, and when Leeds United was finally mentioned Rhys Lewis won the buzzer race. Major settlements located close to the Tropic of Capricorn saw Sheffield take two bonuses, and they talked themselves out of the other. Abdelrahman Elsisi was a little unlucky that his early buzz on the next starter didn’t quite come off. He said ethics – but as the rest of the question showed, our survey (and Louis Cameron) said Medical Ethics. Quarter Days and Cross quarter days failed to provide Darwin with any points. There’s actually a park in the London Borough of Ealing where I grew up called Lammas Park. There you go. Almost twenty minutes gone and Sheffield looked comfortable with 130 – 50.

For the second picture starter Louis Cameron buzzed in having recognised a still from Citizen Kane. Other directorial debuts on the BFI’s list of The Greatest Films Of All Time Yes We Really Mean It This Time (Until The Next Time) at least brought them 2 bonuses. Jonathan White knew the Battle of Evesham for the next starter. The extinct language Auregnais failed to bring them more points. Nobody got the Holmes and Moriarty Problem for the next starter but Sheffield lost five. Lewis Strachan recognised various theories to do with dreaming – or did I dream it? – only to earn a set on creatures that can produce silk or silk like threads. One bonus put them one question away from a triple figure score. Abdelrahman Elsisi was first to recognise Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. The artist Joseph ‘Betta’ Beuys didn’t help the Sheffield cause but did at least serve to run the clock down a bit. Darwin came back with Louis Cameron first to leap on the term Veldt. Sarasate the Spanish violin virtuoso brought two bonuses and the gap was down to 20. Nobody knew the operculum. Gesundheit. Abdelrahman Elsisi was first to work out that there were 24 states of the USA in 1825. That more or less sealed the deal for Sheffield. Greek letters used in statistics brought pushed the Sheffield score further out of reach. The next starter went unanswered. That was it. Sheffield won by 155 to 115

There wasn’t that much to choose between the teams in terms of starters, but Darwin could only manage a 33.3% BCR while Sheffield posted 63%. That tells its own story.

Amol Watch

When he’s not trying to be a) too matey with the teams or b) Jeremy Paxman and just gets on with it, Amol does a fine job. Last night was such an occasion.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

In some languages the chess bishop is called the elephant.

Baby Elephant Walk Moment

On its establishment in 2009 the principal aim of the MoEDA experiment at CERN was to search for which hypothetical particles known bya two-word alliterative name? The second of Maxwell’s equations states mathematically that these particles cannot exist, but (thankfully Jacob Price buzzed in at this point. Dum de dumdum dum dum dum dum dumdum.)

New TV Quiz/Game show review - The Floor

Way back in the mists of time (last year) I wrote about Rob Brydon’s Destination X. As I recall I rather enjoyed the show, even though there really was next to no quiz content within it. A couple of weeks ago he launched the first instalment of the ITV version of a show that has been a hit stateside and in other countries. This is The Floor.

I may have elements of this wrong, so don’t take everything I say as gospel, but as I understand it, the show works like this. 81 players occupied spaces on a 9x9 grid. Each player had their own nominated specialist subject. The player who starts can choose the players in any square adjacent to theirs to play against. So if, for the sake of argument, the player chooses to play against Bob who has nominated early Etruscan Pottery as his subject, then the two square off in a head to head on Early Etruscan pottery. The head to heads are short rounds. Basically the two players are both given 60 seconds on their clocks. In turns thy are asked questions about – what did we say? Oh yes, early Etruscan Pottery. A correct answer moves the question to the other player. When the time runs out on one of the players, the other wins. Whoever wins takes over the other player’s square as well as their own, and I believe that the opponent’s specialist subject becomes their’s. Whoever loses leaves with nothing.

Now, on paper at least this format is not without interest. After all, with a little effort we can all be good on our own specialist subject. But a wide range of them? I can see strategic thinking being involved but sooner or later contestants are going to need to show decent knowledge of a potentially wide range of topics. I like that. For that matter I like Rob Brydon, one of Port Talbot’s finest. So having got all of that in its favour, I think that I should own up to a salient fact. I watched all of the first show. I haven’t watched it since. Partly this was because I forgot that it was on. But that in itself tells its own story. Because when you get right down to it a show like this should have gripped me. But it didn’t grip me enough to make an appointment with myself to watch the next show.

It’s hard to be absolutely cut and dried about why this doesn’t quite deliver for me, but I’d say it boils down to a couple of things. If you’ve been with me for a while you know that I much prefer shows where the questions – chat ratio is slanted much more towards the former. I haven’t sat down to work out just how much of the show’s length is given up to questions being asked and answered, but in all honesty it didn’t seem like a lot to me.

Also, on the show I watched it seemed to me that at least a couple of the contestants had only a brief passing acquaintance with their specialist subjects. Now I will admit that I don’t know just how the allocation of specialist subjects worked on the show – whether it was totally up to the contestants themselves, or whether they were given a selection of subjects to choose from, or whether it was dictated to them – you will do this subject. But if they had a free hand to choose their own subjects, well, some of them weren’t that impressive to be perfectly honest. As for the moolah, well it is possible to pick up £5000 bonuses as you go along. The grand prize is £50,000. Ok, that’s certainly not to be sniffed at, but it isn’t riches beyond the dreams of avarice, is it? Not when you compare it to other shows of the genre.

Well, there we are. I may watch again. But then again I may not.