!mpossible
Synopsis
Thirty players answer multiple choice questions to avoid elimination; basically an updated Whittle.
Rick Edwards and an exclamation mark containing 10,000 pound coins.The opening round asks five multiple choice questions, each with a right answer, a wrong answer and an impossible answer. Wrong answers aren't right, impossible answers can't be right; for example, if the question was “who was monarch at the turn of the 20th century”, George VI might be a wrong answer, since he was king between 1936 and 1952, but Albert I would be impossible, because there were no British monarchs with that name. (You can't say you don't learn things from this site…) Right answers score a point, wrong answers score nothing and impossible answers or answers given after time has expired see the contestant eliminated. If there is only one player left in this first round, they are automatically put through to the second round if they have at least one point to their name.
Red if you're wrong, Blue if you're true.In the second round, whichever contestant has the most points (or, in the case of a tie, how quickly they've locked their answers in) after five questions is left after the opening skirmish picks one category out of four is faced with a 3x3 grid consisting of one right answer, three wrong answers and five impossible answers. The contestant is then given the first half of the question and must eliminate the five impossible answers, each elimination putting £100 in their prize pot. After five of these, the contestant is shown the rest of it and must pick the right answer to secure their place in the final; a wrong answer sees their final chance offered to the next place player and an impossible answer sees them coming back for the next show. This process repeats itself twice, so is played three times in all, with the second finalist picking from three categories and the third picking from two.
Would you like to challenge the 49ers or tell me what the other answers have in common?As players are eliminated after selecting Impossible answers, we can reach a moment with only one player left in the opening rounds. If this happens, the round screeches to a halt, and the last player standing plays the cash board. When there's no-one left in the game to give answers in this second round, they go back through the players most recently eliminated. It sounds hideously complex, Rick Edwards makes it seem as simple as falling off a log.
That's what a Wipeout looks like.The final is played as follows. Each contestant has ten lives. Questions on the buzzer, right answers knock a life off their opponents, wrong answers cause the contestant to lose a life. Some of the questions are Impossible; if the contestant says "Impossible" to one of these, then the other contestants lose two lives, but if the contestant says Impossible to an answer that is not Impossible, or gives any other answer to an Impossible question, then it is the contestant who loses two lives. Whoever is left after the other two have lost all their lives plays the jackpot round. Players who have made it to the jackpot round twice are replaced whether successful or not.
The category is "Biros". Select.For the jackpot question, the surviving contestant faces another 3x3 grid containing three of each kind and must speak their three answers within ten seconds. To win the jackpot of £10,000, the contestant must pick all three right answers, but if they pick an impossible answer, they return to the next show with nothing.
Inventor
A Mighty Productions format devised by Hugh Rycroft.
Theme music
David Roper and Nick Norton-Smith, credited as "Composer".
Trivia
The jackpot of £10,000 is paid out in pound coins - when it's won, the giant exclamation mark in the studio empties its contents into a hopper beneath. So that this technical wonder works, !mpossible credits Steve Webster for "Coin Machine Logistics".
