The Million Pound Drop Live

Revision as of 20:10, 7 March 2011

Host

Broadcast

Remarkable Television (an Endemol company) for Channel 4, 24 May 2010 to present

Synopsis

Davina McCall hosts The Million Pound Drop Live to give the programme its broadcast title. Contestants are given one million pounds, and all they have to do to keep it is answer eight general knowledge questions correctly, live on TV. But how certain can you be of an answer when £1 million rides on it?

The live show begins with the ever-excitable Davina welcoming the viewers to the studio, an apparently highly secure location, which consists of an audience on raised platforms lining the left and right-hand sides, with a large video screen at the back. In the centre, the play area, consisting of a desk complete with four trapdoors and video screens is elevated, but less so than the adjacent platforms, allowing the audience to look down on the proceedings. Before the game gets underway, Davina reminds us that the show is absolutely live, just in case we haven't noticed the on-screen graphic that also tells us the programme is live. Davina then introduces the players, who emerge through a door beneath the video screen, before climbing a flight of stairs to the play area. In most instances, the game is played by teams of two, although on occasion, a single contestant will play the game solo. This review will read as if two contestants are playing, as that is the situation in most instances. A brief opening exchange is conducted with the two players, before they are usually given a chance to touch the £1 million, which sits on the desk in front of them. The £1 million is comprised of used £50 notes, in forty bundles of £25,000.

Two categories, and a joke that writes itself.

The game then gets underway, with the two players being asked to pick a question category from a choice of two on the video screen behind them. After they have made their choice, which Davina usually hurries them into making because the show is live, four possible answers are then revealed on the small video screens adjacent to the four trapdoors on the desk in front of them. Davina then tells the players what the question is. The questions are all general knowledge, however some do play on the fact that the show is live, by making reference to events that have happened on the day of broadcast.

Tick, tock.

After a few moments to deliberate, a 60 second countdown starts, during which the players must decide on which answer they believe to be correct, indicating it by placing their money on the trapdoor in front of that answer. Similar to the criminally underrated Duel, if they are uncertain of the correct answer; they can cover more than one answer by splitting their money across more than one trapdoor. They can split their money in any way they like, however they are not allowed to cover all four possible answers. After the minute has elapsed, the trapdoors of the incorrect answers are opened, allowing any money on them to fall down through a series of Perspex slides to the ground below where it is collected by security. In the first episode, each of the trapdoors was opened one after the other, with a tension-building wait before each drop. This made for quite a slow game, and seemingly due to comments raised on internet discussion forums, one, two, or all three trapdoors relating to incorrect answers were opened at the same time from the second programme onwards, making for a much speedier game. The game continues in the same fashion for subsequent questions.

Oh well, it's only money...

If at any point, the players lose all of their money, they leave the game, and two new players are brought on. As this happens, the security team bring the money back up to the play area, which usually results in at least one of the security team blocking the camera as Davina briefly talks to the new players, but then, this is unavoidable because this show is live don’t you know?

The falling bundles are sometimes seen through the clear floor of the podium

Should the players reach the fifth question, the rules are changed just slightly, with one trapdoor no longer being used, and there only being three possible answers. Should the players successfully reach the eighth question, a further trapdoor is removed from play, leaving an all or nothing gamble on the final question. Put their money on the correct answer, and they walk away with whatever money is left in play, put it on the incorrect answer, and they leave with nothing.

This man's job is to stand at the bottom of the chute and gather the unwon money into a briefcase. He then takes the briefcase to the airport, where he boards a flight to Rio de Janeiro. Nobody knows what happens after that.

Drop ‘The Million Pound Drop’?

Although the fact that the programme is live doesn’t really add much to the studio proceedings, it does allow for viewers to play along online, and have their aggregated progress mentioned live on the show. Being live also allowed the programme makers to tweak the programme based on comments made after the first episode, which is a benefit. The mentions of the show being live could do with being less frequent though, as they do begin to grate after a while. The game itself works quite well, with a good degree of excitement, especially when the players lose their nerve with seconds to go and move hundreds of thousands of pounds across to cover another answer. Excitement then gives way to tension as the answers are revealed, which is also good. Some of the questions do need a little work though with some being so simple that anyone would be able to answer them, rendering that particular question rather pointless and a waste of time. Davina is Davina, exuberant or irritating depending on your point-of-view, but clearly in her element. On the whole, it’s not too bad.

By the way, did we mention this show is live?

Key Moments

In the first series, when the two players were absolutely certain of the correct answer to the first question, and then spent the 60 second countdown trying to pile the 40 bundles of notes onto a single trapdoor which was woefully under-sized. The second series saw the trapdoors enlarged in response to this problem.

Catchphrases

'Let's play The Million Pound Drop (Live)'

'Move your money back'

'Have you beaten The Million Pound Drop?'

Theme music

Marc Sylvan

Trivia

Officially, the contestants are actually given the £1 million before the first question is asked. As such, all of the unsuccessful players theoretically have a claim to having lost the largest amount of money ever on a UK game show.

The largest amount of money lost through a single trapdoor is the full £1 million, thereby fulfilling the title of the programme. This was lost by contestants Micah and Joni in the fifth episode of the third series. In the fourth episode of the first series, two consecutive drops released the full £1 million, however the money in both cases was lost through three trapdoors. The first £1 million was dropped in three stages, however the second £1 million was dropped all at once.

The most money won on the show was £200,000. This was achieved in the third episode of the third series, by contestants Rick and Sophie.

The first episode gained some extra publicity from an unexpected source when it was announced that the UK's first ever TV advertisement for abortion advice services would air in the first break (except in Northern Ireland, where the law on such things is different).

In June 2010, Fox ordered a pilot of the show for American audiences, airing in December 2010 as The Million Dollar Money Drop while networks in countries including Albania, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Russia, Spain, and the Ukraine all subsequently commissioned their own versions, all under the title of The Money Drop. We question why they passed on the completely obvious, and undoubtedly better title of The Million (insert local currency here) Drop, but we digress.

The first series was stripped across six consecutive evenings in May 2010. A second series in October 2010 was also initially stripped, this time across five consecutive evenings, before becoming a twice-weekly programme, with two episodes airing in each of the following two weeks. By the third series in January/February 2011, the programme ceased being stripped, and instead followed the twice-weekly schedule established by the latter half of the second series, with eight episodes airing over four weeks. In addition to the main series, four specials aired shortly before Christmas 2010.

On the sixth episode of the second series, for their third question, contestants Johnny and Dee were asked who had played the role of Doctor Who for the longest period of time, with David Tennant, Sylvester McCoy, Christopher Eccleston and Paul McGann being the possible answers. Uncertain, they decided to split their £650,000 equally, placing £325,000 on both Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann. The answer was subsequently revealed to be David Tennant, meaning they lost all their money down the drop, and left the show. However, in the days that followed, a number of people (later revealed to be 106) contacted Channel 4 to say that it was in fact Sylvester McCoy that had played the role of Doctor Who for the longest period of time - for two years in regular series from 1987-1989, and in two one-offs in 1993 and 1996 - making nine uninterrupted years. This was longer than the four years David Tennant had played the role, meaning Sylvester McCoy was the correct answer. In response, Channel 4 contacted the Doctor Who production team at the BBC who confirmed that Sylvester McCoy had indeed played the role for the longest period of time. As a result, Channel 4 invited Johnny and Dee back on the eighth episode of the series the following week, to continue with the £325,000 that would have remained. On their return, they managed to beat the drop, and walked away with £25,000.

Participants

From the second series onwards, periodically, celebrity contestants played the game for charity. The following is a chronological list of these celebrity participants -

George Lamb (presenter) and Larry Lamb (actor) - Beat the drop. Took home £50,000 for their charity Plan.
Johnny Vaughan (TV and radio presenter) and Jimmy Carr (comedian) - Beaten by the drop. Took home £5,000 for their charities.
Janet Ellis (former Blue Peter presenter) and Sophie Ellis-Bextor (singer) - Beaten by the drop. Took home £5,000 for their charities.
Emma Bunton (ex-Spice Girls singer and Dancing on Ice judge) and Jade Jones (ex-Damage singer) - Beaten by the drop. Took home £5,000 for their charities.
Bruno Tonioli (Strictly judge) and Pamela Stephenson (psychologist and actress) - Beaten by the drop. Took home £5,000 for their charities.

Web links

Official website

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk2iycvOQ0M

Videos

The very first episode.

Feedback

@@ Line 93: / Line 93: @@
 [http://www.themillionpounddrop.com/ Official website]
+http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk2iycvOQ0M
+== Videos ==
+<div class="video"><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gk2iycvOQ0M?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gk2iycvOQ0M?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br/>''The very first episode.''</div>
 [[Category:General Knowledge Quiz|Million Pound Drop, The]]