Weaver's Week 2009-09-13

While we were trying the Format Tombola out, we rigged it to always stop on "observation", "outdoors", "Bill Bailey", "watch the birdie". Someone at West London broadcaster SKY television must have heard us, because they've commissioned a series where Mr. Bailey will take people to nature reserves in West London, and invite them to film wild animals while dodging the big metal birds flying into Heathrow.

So, let's spin the Format Tombola and see what comes up. "Easy games." "Confined space." "Phillip Schofield." The Crystal Maze revival, anyone... What's the defining twist? "Spewsome special effects." That's going to make it awfully difficult to review, seeing as how we'll have to keep a sick-bag handy.

Since 19 Keys last graced our screens in 2004, the cube has been lurking in its mountaintop eyrie, waiting for its chance to burst onto the nation's screens again. It almost came back last year, when this show was piloted for Channel 4 with Justin Lee Collins hosting. That would have been an error.

The central conceit of The Cube is that players – and only one person plays at a time – are asked to do some simple things — in the cube. They are invited, for instance, to throw a basketball into a bucket while standing on an oversized record player — in the cube. Or to blow a ping-pong ball into a beaker of water — in the cube. Or to walk in a straight line while wearing the Helmet of Justice — in the cube. Or to retrieve the Used Snotrag of Invisibility without disturbing the Custard of St Olive — in the cube. Or to make a cup of tea — in the cube.

This being ITV, we're not going to be playing for time crystals or a weekend rock-climbing in the Dales. No, we'll be playing for frugal lucre: cash, and lots of it. There's a thousand pounds for completing the first challenge, and it doubles for the second success. Then the prizes ramp up: 10 grand, 20, 50, 100, and a top prize of £250,000. Such an achievement may look impossible, but we're in no doubt that someone will be challenging for the top prize by the end of the series.

There are a couple of lifelines available – a contestant may make any one game slightly more simple, and they may take an experimental run at any one game before committing to play it. If they win the game, it doesn't count; if they make a monkey fist of the run, it won't hurt them, they can still take the money and run.

The basic game, therefore, is a sequence of take-it-or-leave-it challenges for rapidly increasing amounts of money. To assist the contestant, Mr. Schofield is able to give some facts about how many failures other people took to complete the task, and any significant patterns that emerged – shorter people are better at some tasks than others. Inevitably, there's false tension introduced from time to time – "will she go for it? Find out after the break." The first few shows were all complete in themselves, featuring two contestants whose games were both finished in the hour. We're reminded of how One Versus One Hundred went halfway through its first series before introducing rollover contestants.

As we've already discussed, the games think they're all that easy to begin with, but they're not, and contestants will lose lives as they go on. From time to time, the rules aren't explained particularly well to the audience at home – the contestant throwing a basketball from the record player into a bucket was failed on one attempt for bouncing the ball off the wall of the cube. Indeed, the reaction of the studio audience suggests that this wasn't explained well enough to them, either. Other games require the contestant to use the walls as reflective surfaces. Both are valid rule, but they've got to be clear and they've got to be consistent. If the game's being done in the cube, should it exploit the cubular nature of the cube: to wit, that it has six faces, at least five of them transparent? Is the roof, is the wall part of the playing surface or not? This is never properly resolved.

So would the cameramen appearing in shot. They're there, and if you look at still photos, they're clearly visible, but in the heat of the programme, and because it's only lit from within, the cameramen are able to get very close to the wall of the cube and not appear in shot. We reckon there are at least eight cameras around the cube, close enough to pretend to be in there with the contestant.

According to the publicity, The Cube has "state-of-the-art filming techniques". This amounts to slowing down the playback and digitally enhancing the footage so that it looks like there are cameras at every possible angle. Other than recaps after the commercial breaks, there's not a single replay in the whole programme. This has some tremendous drawbacks: in games that are decided by only a small margin (such as put balls back in a jar — in the cube) the viewer is denied a chance to check the producer's decision was correct. Nevertheless, all these effects mean the show looks a million dollars.

This is a shame, because the set design is entirely coherent. The floor of the cube is white, with red shadows where fixed objects (boxes, poles) touch the ground. All the balls are red, all the props are white, red, or transparent according to the game. The backdrop is always black, with just the softest of lighting bringing out the contestant's friends and family in the audience. And there's a rotating pathway, going from the circle where Mr. Schofield stands to the back of the studio, and then turning to meet the cube.

It is unfortunate that this column cannot watch The Cube for more than ten minutes at a time. We like the idea, even if the whole Evil Cube thing is tremendously overdone, and the challenges are made out to be a bit more simple than they objectively are. A little hype never dragged anyone down. Phillip Schofield is, as usual, the quality host, not putting any pressure on the contestants to play, giving them sensible and balanced advice throughout. But no show is worth us worrying about seeing our dinner again, and the aesthetics mean we'll have to bow out after one episode to review, and taking a very careful look (small screen in the corner of our computer) at another contestant to provide pictures.

Southampton get the next starter, on paradoxes. This institution was founded in 1850 by a wine merchant, who thought he was getting an institution for the betterment of the people of the area. Who said he wasn't? With this slur, and the claim that "taxpayers will find out whether their money is well-spent", we wonder if we've tuned into The Daily Hell channel. Anyway, famous alumni include the original webmaster Tim Berners-Lee, top sportsbod John Inverdale, and KP from Bother's Bar.

Thumper asks a bunch of questions about the only surviving member of various classes in fauna and flora. He doesn't know what he's on about, and neither does the Imperial team. They get the visual bonuses, on anagrams of historical figures, and Imperial leads 60-10. We'll take Good Question of the Week:

Q: The French army captain Charles Barbier invented "night writing", a 12-dot code designed for sending messages during battle in the 1820s. It was modified by an eponymous schoolboy into what form of communication for the blind?

Imperial, Gilad Amit: Braille

Clear? We'll move on, and after some bonuses on centuries, we reach the audio round. It's questions on Synth Pop Circa 1980, and Imperial has a large lead, 120-35. There's a question on objects with descending numbers of faces, diminishing from a cuboid (six) to a cricket bat (one). Southampton get a set of bonuses on ships, but can honestly say they know nothing about the navy. "That's why we went to Southampton", replies captain Stuart Wynn with refreshing honesty. Yes, if they wanted to know about sailing, they would have gone to Portsmouth. After a short third stanza, we're up to the visual round, on winners of the Best Actor AMPAS award for portrayals of real people. Imperial leads, 155-45.

Southampton proves its knowledge of the city of Rome is as good as its knowledge of sailing ships; Imperial prove they know everything about the football world cup. Southampton get modern art for their next set of bonuses, and do only slightly better. With five minutes until that new show on BBC3, it's clear that Imperial has the game in the bag, and Southampton needs to double its score in order to make the repechage board. The rubber feels as good as dead, even though Mr. Wynn is doing his best to drag his side up. He remembers the Latin name for radishes, so he'll be welcome on Fraggle Rock.

Very much a game of two parts: Imperial dominated the first three-quarters, then almost seemed to switch off once the game was won. Southampton was never in the running until the final six minutes, then got six starters – and just six bonuses. Gilad Amit gets our nod as best buzzer for Imperial, four starters and just one missignal; his side made 19/30 bonuses and had four missignals – that's more than any other side this year. Stuart Wynn had six of Southampton's starters, the side was right on 9/26 bonuses.

Next match: St John's Oxford v Durham