Catching up with "The Code"

Last month I reviewed the new daytime quiz show “The Tournament”. In the comments, George Millman was kind enough to fill me in on “The Code”, a show which I managed to completely miss during my quizzing ‘lost weekend’ period. Having finally watched an episode on Youtube, I feel that I understand why George enjoyed it so much.

I did wonder if there was going to be any similarity to Omid Djalili’s ‘Winning Combination’. Thankfully not. It’s a much simpler game, and it's all the better for it. What it boils down to is this. One team, or single contender, plays at a time. They have to guess from the digits 0 – 9, to see which 3 make up the combination to unlock a safe. In order to do this they face a choice between three questions with answers, only one of which is correct. So, for example, they might be faced with

·       Which word in Bohemian Rhapsody is the name of an Italian clown character ? – answer given – Fandango

·       Who was the arch enemy of Flash Gordon? – answer given – Fu Manchu

·       Which is the German name for the city of Aix La Chapelle? – answer given – Aachen

So the player/team have to identify that the third question is the only one with a correct answer given. They get this wrong and it's so long and thanks for the memories. Get it right and they choose a digit, which will either be eliminated, or enter the combination. Now, when they have identified their first correct digit, the game play changes. For now the player/team gets to see all three answers, but can only pick two of the questions. This makes it trickier, but crucially, not impossible. If you know that you’ve picked out two wrong answers, then it is obvious that what remains must be correct. This continues until either the player/team picks a wrong’un and gets eliminated, or picks another correct digit.

So, once two digits from the combination have been identified, the game becomes more difficult again. This time, the team/player gets shown just the three answers, and can only elect to see one of the questions at first. The player/team then has to decide whether it is correct, or whether the answer is not the right answer to the question. Only then can the player/team choose one of the other questions to see. He/they must decide if it’s right or wrong. Again, the player/team keeps on laying until either they choose a wrong answer, or they complete the combination, in which case they walk away with the contents of the safe. Another player/team takes the stage, and we begin again. As I watched I was worried that when we got to the final digit the gameplay would degenerate into a guessing game. But it didn't - if you were good enough, you would never have to guess. 

George particularly liked the non-adversarial atmosphere and I know where he was coming from. At no stage do you think that host Matt Allwright is being insincere in his support for each player. Likewise, expert Lesley-Anne Brewis, of the QuizQuizQuiz organisation fulfilled a role similar to that of the great Richard Osman on Pointless, and manages to explain a lot of the answers without grating on the nerves in the least, which is a considerable skill. What I most like about this show is that I think you’d need an incredible slice of luck to be able to win if you weren’t at least a good quizzer. You have to actually know things to have a chance of winning. I like that. I think it would have been accessible to the non-quizzing viewer, while offering something to quizzers of a wide range of abilities, like both Pointless and Impossible.

Yet it came and went after just two series of 25 episodes. Which I suppose is one more series than a lot of new shows get, but it’s a bit of a shame that it just didn’t last longer. I often come back to William Goldman’s observation from “Adventures in the Screen Trade”, but that’s because it’s so true – nobody knows anything. Sometimes an inferior show catches on, while a superior one dies the death. If I had to suggest a reason, all I can really say is this. I do think it’s quite a bit harder for a non-adversarial show to catch on than one which involves contestants battling it out against each other. The real behemoth of the genre - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire had mouth wateringly huge sums of cash , and the life changing amounts of cash that a contestant could throw away with a careless answer ( which is what I did) generated their own drama. And even then, each contestant had to beat the others in a fastest finger round. When I watched “The Code” I was just put a little in mind of the Kaye Adams version of The People Versus – (which I like to think of as David Briggs’ Difficult Second Album – even though it probably wasn’t the second show he invented after Millionaire – he certainly also created the successful National Lottery Winning Lines amongst others). So maybe audiences thought that The Code lacked a little drama. Who knows? All I can say is that what I saw on Youtube, I rather enjoyed.