The USxit List

By | March 24, 2019

Thanks to various on Twitter for pointing this out to me yesterday (we’re postponing Bother’s Bar Plays Badly until next weekend, do join in), the pilot for the US version of The Exit List on ABC and hosted by Mike Greenberg who’s lost his pen since hosting the US version of Duel.

Some points of note:

  • The shape of the Maze. It’s a big X!
  • Object hints in the rooms.
  • The way the game works, that they must visit at least two zones before being allowed to go back to the lift, means at a minimum they’ll have to go through 15 rooms. If they ace all the panic rooms, and get all the questions correct, that’s a minimum list of 11 things to remember. Chances are though you’re probably looking at 20-30 things each time which seems huge. They didn’t make “you have to get back to the elevator” very clear, you can’t just end any time after hitting two zones, so I can’t work out the emphasis on decision making at that point.
  • That is a hugely generous bail-out offer.
  • I think I preferred the escape from the UK show with its movement. I would have thought that the whole point of putting objects in the rooms would possibly be to help you remember. As it is, the “deeper you go, the harder it is to get out” mantra doesn’t quite work here thematically.
  • Nice to see they used Nick Foster’s musical score.

18 thoughts on “The USxit List

  1. Holger Mat

    And also it features Survivor alumni Eliza Orlins (Vanuatu & Micronesia) and Brian Corridan (Guatemala). 😀

    Reply
  2. Chris M. Dickson

    So good. Not convinced the changes made it significantly better or significantly worse than the UK original; they made sense in their own way. Thinking about it more, the panic ring rooms seem a shade easy, and I miss the kinetic nature of the UK final (especially with the decorated rooms) so perhaps I prefer the originally a shade, but this was very cool all the same. I liked the all-business nature of it and the fact that they used the original score.

    It turns out that there was a Hungarian version as well and there are episodes of it available via rtl.hu if you register with them (e.g. via Facebook). It’s pretty chatty by comparison but the gameplay still works. I think it’s a daily show played for more than The Weakest Link money, but much less than Deal Or No Deal money. There are short videos which only show the section from after the last question onwards, so you get the best bits.

    Reply
  3. Tom F

    Hmmm, a curious thing. It mainly reminds me how much I love the music, aesthetic and *feel* of the show, but I still find it a bit boring as a watch.

    Making the maze an X is a neutral change. I do like having a minimum limit on the game (as it always confused me why no-one in the uk bailed out for a surely certain £15k on Question 5), but not running the maze backwards is poor.

    Panic rooms pre-announced I don’t mind, and easier (but without the code thing) I quite like.

    I really like adding the props to the maze, it gives a lot of character, and would help different games feel different.

    I wonder if it would have been better for the end deal to be “play for a lower prize but you only need to get 22/27”. I still think it’s silly not to expect the pair to have conferred on the decision and make like it’s a surprise, but eh.

    Repeating the list after every question gets really boring in a game this long. I kinda wonder if hearing the whole list back should have been a special lifeline, ala the Winning Lines Wonderwall.

    Reply
  4. John R

    I always find it a bit of a shame Matt Allwright doesn’t seem to get more game show presenting gigs, as he is a perfectly competent choice for them!

    Even The Code was quietly dropped after the second series, the ‘£500 added to the safe’ bloke probably earned more in royalties alone for his appearances than any of the contestants won in prize money I suppose

    Reply
  5. David B

    No matter which version of this I see, I just can’t get excited by it – sorry. Since when was remembering your shopping list fun?

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      I think the production outshines the format and *sometimes* that’s OK.

      I certainly think removing the actual maze element from the final (or indeed anywhere, one of the more interesting things about the original rules was that a wrong answer blocked going forward) is a mistake, the original intention was meant to be sort of Indiana Jones-esque and this lacks, well, everything in that regard.

      Reply
  6. Whoknows

    I enjoyed that until the painfully obviously staged Exit List ending. What a shame.

    Reply
    1. David B

      It’s *all* very stagey. I know it’s only a pilot, but… c’mon…

      Reply
  7. David Howell

    Not sure if this came up before but CBS have dropped a partial segment of Million Dollar Mile on Twitter.

    It seems like an interesting jumble of format ideas. The titular mile is divided into sections with a Ninja Warrior type obstacle at the end of each, the contestant gets two minutes headstart before being pursued by a Chaser, sorry, Defender who is some sort of professional athlete (a CrossFit competitor in this segment), go up a Millionaire-esque money ladder complete with safety net (10k/25k/*50k*/100k/250k/1m), actually banking the money requires bailing out and then climbing a wall or something.

    It’s the 1,000 Heartbeats/The Chase/Ninja Warrior hybrid we may or may not have been waiting for!

    Reply
    1. Alex

      Of course I’m hyped for this.

      I also love the Prodigy-esque big beat soundtrack they’re doing the Defender profiles with. More of this please.

      Reply
  8. Chris Be

    Interesting interview with CJ from Eggheads on Iain Lee’s Talkradio show the other day, which is available in full as a podcast.

    CJ talks about his tough times from the past few years and I’ll let people make their own minds up by listening to it – especially as I would have thought people already have their own ideas about him. Iain provides some balance to proceedings, but from a quizzing POV a couple of interesting nuggets are how his departure from Eggheads was dealt with, and how he was offered The Chase a few years ago. Perhaps these have been covered at some point elsewhere but I found it an interesting 30 minutes.

    Reply
  9. Des Elmes

    The European Parliament has voted in favour of Article 13. Fuck.

    Will Ben Justice be able to complete his Top 100 now?

    Reply
      1. David

        I’ve looked at a ton of stuff about it on both sides- I don’t think it’ll be as bad as people say, just cause a few headaches at times as people set workarounds up. Plus the Netherlands/Belgium were more against it than for it as far as I could tell, so they’ll probably be a bit more liberal.

        Reply
  10. Matt Clemson

    It didn’t seem to sustain interest hugely last time, although I kept up with it, but just in case: a second series of The Great Escape has started up in Korea. Two episodes out, first one subbed, you can find them by looking into a Reddity place on Korean Variety.

    Will be interested to see what they learned from the first series, I thought it improved quite a bit over time.

    Reply
  11. James

    No idea how recently this was posted (could be very recent), but here’s Channel 4’s entertainment commissioning priorities. They’re in the market for big formats and even primetime quizzes! Plus there’s a list of shows they like (it sounds like they feel they’re missing out on things – particularly The Real Full Monty).

    https://www.channel4.com/commissioning/4producers/entertainment-tv-events-and-sport

    In slightly related news, C4 will adapt Songland, a new show on NBC with Maroon 5’s Adam Levine. It’s basically a talent show for songwriters – https://deadline.com/2019/03/songland-channel-4-1202582670/

    Reply
  12. David

    ABC has picked up the Mega Miniature Golf show that was floating around- but they renamed it. It’s now “Holey Moley”. They”re filming it in the same place they filmed US Wipeout, only this time they’ll have an audience…

    Reply

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