Weaver's Week 2024-09-15

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We're putting our research into game show history to one side for the moment, and heading back to our more familiar territory. Let's talk about new shows, try to work out what makes them tick, and whether they're worth watching.

Contents 1 The Answer Run 1.1 BBC Studios Entertainment for BBC1, from 19 August 2 In other news 2.1 Quizzy Mondays

The Answer Run

BBC Studios Entertainment for BBC1, from 19 August

Jason Manford has hosted quite a few game shows in his career – Bigheads, Show Me the Funny, and What Would Your Kid Do? for ITV, more recently First & Last and Unbeatable for the Beeb. Those BBC shows were credible formats, but didn't quite land with the audience – First & Last was poleaxed by the health restrictions, Unbeatable was clunky and felt like hard work.

All of this is a shame, for Jason is a lovely chap, enthusiastic and encouraging to everyone, and he can buff up a tarnished format into a gleaming silver-plated tray. There are limits to his powers, not even Jason's good vibes can turn a tray into a tankard.

Er, let's get to the format. Jason gives us a quick demonstration. A statement appears at the top of the screen, and moves down. It'll match one and only one of the two options on the sides. Swipe the bar to the correct side and add money to your bank, swipe the wrong way and deduct cash. Simple to explain, and Jason makes it look easy.

Three pairs play the game, and there's a one-question buzzer race to decide who plays first.

First couple pick one of three this-or-that pairs (on the opening show: Won-Lost, The Smurfs-Rolling Stones, Peter-Paul). Jason has a short chat with the couple before they play, help us to know them a little better.

How does our pair bank money? A statement appears at the top and travels down the screen. The team have until it reaches the bottom to swipe left or right along a touchbar. Each statement has a value from £50 to £500. Swipe in the correct direction to add that money to the team's bank, swipe in the wrong direction (or don't swipe at all) to deduct it. The bank cannot fall below zero.

There are up to 15 questions or 90 seconds in the round. The team have no idea of how long the round has lasted, but there is a clock on screen for the viewers at home. A good team will get £2000 or more in this round, and almost every team leaves the board with something.

After the first team have played, there's another buzzer question for the other teams to decide who plays next, and the last team will get no choice of category.

The statements themselves are the heart of the show, and each pack has a mixture of run-of-the-mill statements, and interesting never-knew-that statements. Have an extended example: the statements from last Wednesday's round between Julia Roberts and Kate Winslet.

• Has a son named Bear (for £200)
• Is older (£500)
• Played Tinkerbell in a 1991 film (£100)
• Played Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (£50)
• Married a man named Ned Rocknroll (£200)
• Had a cameo in Friends (£250)
• Has a production company called Red Om Films (£500)
• First to win a Best Actress Oscar (£300)
• Born in Georgia (£50)
• Appeared in an episode of Extras with Ricky Gervais (£200)
• Has twice played a character named Iris on screen (£100)
• Co-starred with her daughter Mia in the TV drama I Am Ruth (£250)

And time ran out so we didn't see the last three statements. We're told that the statements appear in a random order. The cash amounts seem to be vaguely related to the difficulty of the statement – even if you know nothing about either actress, you're likely to know that Kate Winslet is from Reading and Julia Roberts is from somewhere in America. Which was first to win an award, that's much more of a guess.

One can always guess; however unsure the players might be, there's always half a chance of getting it right by sheer luck. And the contestants can confer, discuss, and think about the question – it takes something like ten seconds for the statement to come right down the screen and hit the little teeth at the bottom.

After each pair has played one board, they all get to come back and do it again. The second round follows the same theme as the first: swipe to the correct answer. Here, there is a difference: the statements change in value, alternating from £200 to £400 and back again. The players see when the value changes, and the maximum value here is £1000. With greater risk comes greater reward – teams can easily add £3000 to their bank, but a poor category can result in only a few hundred.

Once more, buzzer questions control the order of selection, the last team to play gets no choice of category. The lowest score after the second round leaves the show, and it seems a team will usually need more than £2000 to progress.

The next round alternates between the two remaining couples. Buzzer question to play first, and there's no choice of category – it's imposed by the producers.

Our first team starts playing, and adds money to their bank. As soon as the first team give an incorrect answer, the clock will stop, money falls from their bank, and the other couple take over. When they err, the first couple return. Up to 15 questions or 120 seconds in this round, question values again double and halve, questions worth up to £2000.

Yes, it is possible for a team to lose money in this round, just don't expect them to win the show as a result. Statements in this round seem to be a good deal more difficult than earlier in the game, which is likely a deliberate choice. Higher score when the round ends is the winner, both losing pairs leave the game with nothing.

To take their jackpot (which can easily be over £5000), the players must get a chain of 8 right in a row. There's a nifty effect to build bars of gold up the playing area; if the statement hits the top bar, it's treated as wrong. At the end of the round (90 seconds or as many questions as they can fit in), 4 in a row will earn half the jackpot.

What's great about The Answer Run? It looks lovely.

The set is decked in pinky-purples with orange highlights, a refreshing change to the ubiquitous blue sets. White is the neutral colour, statements appear in purple text on a white lozenge, answers and cash banks are picked out in white.

The text is smaller than ideal, especially for Freeview viewers watching in standard-definition on smaller sets, or for people peeking on a window in the corner of a laptop. Lest we forget, at 4.30, your audience is going to include a bunch of children double-screening while pretending to do their homework, and a lot of older viewers whose eyesight is not perfect.

Paul Farrer has written the music, electronic twangs and bloops, with a tune ramping up in the final few seconds of the round, and a louder sting as each team steps up to play. Paul never skimps on the music, every composition is worth the fee, The Answer Run is no exception.

The tech is by Marvellous Machines, and it works as advertised. Move along the touchbar to indicate your answer, and the answer will follow. Which is fine, only that it doesn't really work as a visual. If they'd made The Answer Run in the 1980s, they'd have used a joystick or a big lever to push left or push right. If they'd made The Answer Run in the 2000s, there would have been chunky buttons to press. The touchbar is clear and logical for the contestants, but it doesn't really add to the television spectacle.

Plenty of questions for us to get our heads around, something like 100 statements to consider on each episode. Our metric of speed puts this at 57% as fast as Channel 5's nothing-but-quiz 100%, which is a bit more quiz than we'd expect on daytime television – but less than The Chase, and much less than The Finish Line.

One thing might rescue The Answer Run, and it's the presence of Jason Manford. He's encouraging and enthusiastic, bubbling with good humour, and able to react to anything the contestants throw at him. Sympathetic to the contestants, too; when the losers say "we've had a lovely day", we can believe they mean it, and their day has been improved by the host.

This column has watched some episodes of The Answer Run. Some, but not all. We're surprised that the show doesn't have us shouting at the telly and playing along. Perhaps it's because play can be slow – we hear Jason read the statement, there's a decision, wait for the cash amount, Jason says right or wrong, and we could have moved on some time ago. A couple of times, we had the opportunity to come inside and watch The Answer Run, or stay out in the garden with a good book and half a glass of lovely; the telly show didn't win. And we would come in for Bridge of Lies.

Make no mistake, The Answer Run is a good show. Solid, well-made, looks great, brilliantly hosted. But The Answer Run is not yet a great show, it isn't the most compelling watch on the box. For this column, it's a show to watch if we're around, it's not appointment to view. That said, it is a new format, and it is certainly worth a watch, and it's probably the most returnable new programme we've looked at since Radio 4's Unspeakable.

In other news

Stranded on Honeymoon Island was a remarkable feature on German television earlier this year. As Gestrandet in den Flitterwochen, the show was picked up by SAT.1, and ignored by everyone especially the professional television reviewers. According to the billing, "the show takes couples who don't know each other before, forces them to marry, and then sticks them on a deserted island. There they should enjoy their togetherness and get to know each other incommunicado. Will the former singles find their dream partner like this?" The German public said "who cares? Click!"

The series combines everything the BBC does badly: it's derivative of another show (in this case Two Strangers and a Wedding), it involves newlywed couples (see Wedding Day Winners – well, don't see Wedding Day Winners unless you have trouble sleeping), and it's all set on a hot tropical island (how quickly they forget the lesson of Survivor). Anyway, CPL productions have a commission for 12 one-hour episodes, which we fear will sink like a machete.

National Television Awards took place this week, and the highlight was Jenny Ryan's performance while wearing a suit of armour and accompanied by a retinue of mediaeval knights. What, that was the MTV awards later the same night? Ah well.

Anyway, Jenny will be pleased, because the public voted The Chase their favourite daytime show. Other game shows winning were I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in the Entertainment category, The 1% Club as most popular quiz, The Traitors leading reality competition, Strictly Come Dancing the most popular talent show, and Ant and Dec were voted Most Popular Television Presenter for the 23rd time this century. There was a special recognition award for Davina McCall.

TV Times magazine is still published, and the TV Times Awards are still a thing. This year's nominations include:

• FAVOURITE PRESENTER
  • Ant and Dec – Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
  • Stephen Mulhern – Deal or No Deal
  • Bradley Walsh – The Chase
  • Claudia Winkleman – The Traitors
• FAVOURITE FACTUAL SHOW
  • Dragons' Den
  • Race Across the World
• FAVOURITE ENTERTAINMENT SHOW
  • Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
  • Gladiators
  • Michael McIntyre's The Wheel
  • Strictly Come Dancing
  • The 1% Club
  • The Fortune Hotel
  • The Great British Bake Off
  • The Masked Singer
  • The Traitors

We have near-domination of that last category, Gogglebox the only nominated show that isn't a competition. That fact must say something about the contemporary television industry, but we don't know what. The awards are a 100% online vote, at http://www.futureevents.uk/tvtimes by 8 October

Quizzy Mondays

Unbelievable scenes on Mastermind, as the slip cordon proved leakier than a sieve, the batters might as well have gone out with a sieve because they were back faster than a lettuce, and the better team won just before lunchtime. The normal black-chair-and-questions format returns next week.

Too Many Cookes won Only Connect, the winning question was also the night's best, about films missing their certifications like 12 Angry Men (and props to the question setter for finding that!). Far too people online got the picture sequence – one rhyme for "one" and so on, apparently there are some accents where "sun" doesn't rhyme with "one", and "tree-bee-a knee" was misinterpreted as a rebus for the Friends character Joey Tree-bee-a knee. Pipe-Dreamers got into the swing of things, they could be dark horses to come through the losers' bracket.

Wadham Oxford took the win on University Challenge over St Catharine's Cambridge. A bit of a nervy game, not helped by a harsh call in the first bonus set, rejecting "A funny thing happened to me on the way to the forum" as the Sondheim musical doesn't have "to me"; we can't help but reckon the predecessors would have taken this and sought a way to be generous to the opposition. Wadham did enough to win 180-120, but a bonus conversion rate of 51% and overall accuracy of 48% are not promising. Wadham did get all three starters with clues all defining various words, which could be useful.

High culture, as Young Musician of the Year starts its auditions (BBC4, Sun). Middlebrow culture, TG4 begins its search for Junior Eurovision (Sun). Contemporary culture, a new run of RuPaul's Drag Race (BBC3, Mon). Ancient culture, a new run of Just a Minute (Radio 4, Mon).

Also, Dress the Nation (ITV, Tue) is the latest advertorial competition, and the twentieth game show hosted by Vernon Kay, we reckon that's more than any other presenter. Out of Order (2) resumes (Comedy Central, Mon). All these beginnings require a few ends: the grand finals of Celebrity Race Across the World (BBC1, Wed) and Celebrity Masterchef (BBC1, Fri).

Strictly Come Dancing has its first performances (BBC1, Sat), and Strictly It Takes Two returns (BBC2, Mon 23rd). It's prefixed with series eight of House of Games (3) (BBC2, Mon 23rd). This column won't publish next week, we return on 29 September and expect to discuss Stephen Mangan's Password.

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