Show Discussion: Cash Trapped S2

By | July 31, 2017

Weekdays, 5pm,
ITV

The Bradley Walsh quiz based on an idea by Bradley Walsh returns for an extended second run throughout August in the The Chase slot.

Six contestants take part in a daily quiz, the winner tries to escape with their money. Succeed and they take the money away and everyone goes home, fail and they lose their bank and everybody comes back the next episode for a rollover.

We quite liked the first series although we hope they’ve stopped people buzzing and then timewasting in the end game.

44 thoughts on “Show Discussion: Cash Trapped S2

  1. Brig Bother Post author

    Well if you liked S1 then you’ll probably like S2:

    * “Britain’s biggest tactical quiz show!” Come on.
    * Rounds now introduced with a graphic.
    * Buzz in questions now worth no money, which looks a bit cheap. Granted they were never really worth enough to change the game, but it was a good way to make ties less usual in a natural way.
    * Clocks shown to tenths of seconds now. Quite unusual for a quiz. I suppose the added granularity doesn’t hurt.
    * Catch-up questions seemed quite hard.

    I don’t know if they’ve tightened up the answer timings in the Escape as everyone played ball today.

    Just looking back one of the criticisms I had of the first series was being annoyed by barely-audible background music. They’ve definitely mixed it higher, and now I wish they hadn’t bothered because it’s largely quite irritating, with the exception of the Catch-up clock music I quite liked.

    I still think it’s pretty good but I fear that’s about as high praise as I think I can give it.

    Reply
    1. Daniel H

      I enjoyed how the continuity announcer instead said “Britain’s biggest new quiz show” which is somewhat more of a claim!

      I suspect they dropped the buzz-in money to make it a bit slicker – now you’re just finding a board player rather than money flying about as well – agreed it was good as a tiebreaker, though.

      Agreed catch-up questions seemed to have gone up a notch – will be interesting to see if that is trend as it makes it harder to actually “catch up.”

      The clock is still only on Bradley’s screen during the Final which meant it was difficult to establish, until the clock was stopped, how much time was left.

      On the whole though, I still very much like it.

      Reply
    2. Brig Bother Post author

      Something else worth pointing out that’s an improvement, there’s a caption with all the multiple-choices shown when there’s not a shot of Brad’s big screen.

      Reply
        1. Brig Bother Post author

          2.1m for ep 2 so dropping. Racing doesn’t help, but it’s still above Tipping Point, if below Pointless.

          Really intrigued to see where it settles.

          Reply
  2. Alex McMillan

    My main hope is, if it doesn’t happen this series, we keep one set of contestants for the full run of episodes at some point

    Reply
    1. Thomas Sales

      I suspect the same is true of civilian The Crystal Maze given that the edition of The Last Leg billed for Friday the 11th at 9pm is billed as “the last episode of the current series”.

      Reply
  3. Brig Bother Post author

    It’s quite interesting that three episodes in the Catch-up round has been largely irrelevant which rather makes a mockery of it.

    I don’t remember it being quite so pronounced last time, although other than money for buzz-in questions I’m not sure why this is.

    I wish the head to head questions weren’t quite so much of a lottery. It’s questionable how interesting some of them are. I quite like the brainteasery nature of the buzzer questions though.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Fourth ep, another irrelevant Catch-Up round. Begins to feel like bad formatting.

      I think the show’s got something, I said that from the beginning, but it still feels like one or two iterations from being truly great.

      Reply
      1. Danny Kerner

        It needs to have a cash amount between £750 & £1,000 for the catch-up to have some possibilities of a 4,5,6th placed contestant winning the escape opportunity .

        Reply
        1. Brig Bother Post author

          I think it’s alright for those right at the back to not be able to make it, but if people in second and third consistently have no chance then I’m not sure that’s quite right.

          There will always be outliers of course.

          I ponder how much dropping the round two questions to £1,500 and upping the catch-up to £750 would affect the budget, but then also people like round numbers and there are already people moaning it’s too complicated as it is.

          Reply
          1. Andrew Sullivan

            Yeah, it seems to be that each episode, one of the players dominates in the Last Man Standing and Head To Head rounds, so it makes the Cashbui…sorry, ‘Catch Up’ round more or less moot.

            I actually didn’t mind that they gave money for the toss-up questions in the trial series, but as you say, people like round figures.

          2. Brig Bother Post author

            I’m now pondering whether Last Man Standing and Head to Head should swap places (and money).

            H2H has more interesting decisions strategically, but Last Man Standing has an inherent nobble-the-leader effect which should make it a bit closer going into Catch-Up.

            On the other hand Last Man Standing gets through a reasonable amount of questions so I can understand why they want to open with it.

            Hmm.

  4. Danny Kerner

    The catch-up round was actually critical today in deciding the escapist contestant.

    Won’t say how much was needed but the board was tight between 1st & 3rd

    Reply
  5. Daniel H

    A couple of dubious adjudications on today’s show:

    They accepted Gravel as correct for “What LETTER is added to the end of the word Grave to make a term for very small stones used to make paths?”

    And then later they accepted 1860s as the answer to “In what CENTURY was Abraham Lincoln President of the United States?”

    Reply
  6. Brig Bother Post author

    Down to 1.8m yesterday, share a bit above 17%, although Tipping Point was also under 1.5m, so. Pointless also down a little bit.

    People ought to be a bit wary of describing something as a hit (or indeed a miss) after less than a week in daytime, especially when it has an unusual shape in the racing. The trend is downwards but at some point it should level.

    Reply
  7. Brig Bother Post author

    Another blow-out today.

    The idea I’ve come up with is ‘The Escalator’, which is exactly like the current catch-up round except the first right answer is worth £200 and each subsequent one is worth £200 more than the previous one.

    Doing it like that means parity with the current pay-outs at four right answers which seems to be about average (200+400+600+800 = 2000), if you have a nightmare you’re worse off than current, if you get seven right which seems to be very doable you earn £5,600, which at least gives someone £4k behind a decent chance (six would also do it).

    Again, I’m not in charge of the purse strings and I don’t know how easy that’d be to get across to viewers, but I’m of the opinion something’s got to give.

    Reply
    1. Steve G

      Continuity error in the final too. When the clock stopped after the woman got the 180 degrees question wrong, it was on 11.1. It started again on 12.1

      Reply
    2. Daniel H

      One idea I had was to just put the Catch Up round first and call it the Head Start round or something like that – only problem is you wouldn’t have any notion of being Cash Trapped.

      Not sure if you spotted that they snuck a second back onto the clock (11.1 to 12.1 seconds) in one of the stoppages in the Final after Bradley declared “…is ABSOLUTELY right…” to the golf question. Prepare for the Daily Express to be outraged…

      Reply
      1. Brig Bother Post author

        Ha ha, I HAD noticed and thought that both elements were a bit odd. Also thought there was too much of a wait after one of the questions.

        Reply
  8. Brig Bother Post author

    2.1m for Cash Trapped ep 6, it looks a lot like that is the level, in that case everybody should be very pleased.

    Reply
  9. Danny Kerner

    Even Brad himself admitted on today’s show that the Catch-up round is pointless by his comments.

    Reply
  10. Brekkie

    Would be better to have another Head to Head round as an “Eliminator”, with 5th v 6th, then winner takes on 4th etc. through to the top.

    Reply
  11. Brig Bother Post author

    Some serious pots building up at the mo.

    I think I pondered this last year so I’ll ponder it again: is there merit in picking the Escapee Bullseye style, so the daily winner can have first refusal rather than having to go for it? I think for two or three days you’ll have a situation where it will probably roll right down to the bottom (who’d be forced to take it), but I think when pots start hitting five-figures there are some really interesting greed vs taking your shot mechanics going on, and who wouldn’t kick themselves passing up an opportunity only to have someone walk away?

    Reply
  12. Ken McManus

    I think the catch-up round would have more significance if correct answers were worth £1,000 rather than £500.

    But in general, if you have a good team that’s also witty, it makes for more fun … and Bradley is at his best then, too.

    Reply
  13. Peter

    The sound playing in the background gets on my nerves, does any one else find this.

    Reply
  14. martin

    Get rid oof the awfuldoor bell . You need to understand that this swamps Bradley reading the questions. It is also very irritating. Lose it or lose viewers.

    Reply
  15. John R

    The guy responsible for the flash of red for the wrong answer seems a bit too keen on the button!

    Didn’t give Bradley much chance for suspense at the end there!

    Reply
    1. David B

      This is the nearest we’re probably going to get for De Slimste.

      I see they’ve nicked Tom Scott’s “Mystery Biscuits” button.

      Reply
  16. AH

    Can’t watch it. The irritating background sounds drive me nuts. Sounds like a police car siren. Also it’s too complicated to follow. All i want to do is answer a few questions while I’m making the tea.

    Reply
  17. Brig Bother Post author

    It looks like this averaged just under two million, and you’d have to expect it to be a shoo-in for a third series on those numbers – easily the best performing Summer Chase replacement since Tipping Point by a wide margin.

    I’m presuming they’re going to give series two of Alphabetical a 3pm slot. Or save it until next Spring?

    Reply

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