For the Rest of Your Life

Synopsis

In this wholly original Endemol production, contestants pick numbers at random, hoping to avoid the reds and thus win a life-changing amount of money.

But what makes this show different is that the couples playing the game aren't going for a big lump sum, rather for a tidy little amount that they will get every month, potentially for the rest of their lives.

The game begins with the players choosing one of three envelopes (game show cliché number 1) to decide the base prize (typically a hundred and some quid). The first part of the main game sees them trying to multiply this up into a more robust monthly amount.

Scattered around the studio are strange handled cylinder contraptions that look like they ought to be in an episode of The X-Files containing some kind of alien goo. In fact, they have either white or red lights concealed in the plinths on which they stand. Each has an associated number written on the floor. The couple now divides into one person picking numbers, and the other revealing the lights, of which there are eight whites and three reds. Picking a white light increases their prize by the base amount, a red lowers it similarly. Once they're four steps or more up the money ladder (game show cliché number 2) they can stick with the prize they have. And it might be worthwhile doing so because if a red is picked, not only does the prize money go down, but they can't stick after a red, and have to pick again. If they pick all the reds, they win nothing.

In the second half, instead of money the couple plays for time. The coloured-light-revealer-person from before now goes into an isolation booth (game show cliché number 3) where they are kept apprised of how the game is going, but not of that their partner is saying. Eleven white lights and four reds now count for months for which the money won in the first half is paid, from one month up to The Rest of Your Life (40 years, seemingly - enough if you're James Dean). The twist is that as well as the player in the studio deciding whether to stick or continue after each white light is uncovered, the one in the booth makes the same decision, of which the other player, and the viewers, are not informed. After the main player has finished, either by sticking or by uncovering all the reds and losing the money, the other is brought out of the booth, and the game is run through again to see if the boothed player saved or lost them thousands of pounds by sticking earlier than their partner.

Unfortunately, nobody's ever going to get the money for the titular rest of their lives, because if anyone ever gets near the top of the, er, "time ladder", the payoff for gambling on the last step isn't nearly worth the odds of losing everything.

Overall, not very much happens and despite the complicated-sounding rules, the game is actually very dull. It is also very very long - an hour time slot, with an entire part taking up merely the prove-out. After the pilot was made, it didn't look like this would be picked up for a series. It was, so chalk up another top-notch decision for ITV.

Inventor

Dick de Rijk

Theme music

Marc Sylvan

See also

Deal or No Deal

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