Conclave as a gameshow

By | March 13, 2013

THE POPE!

Right, there has of course been a show that sort of was in effect conclave as a gameshow. Unan1mous, which started in the US and came across to Channel 4 in 2006 and even had a spin off show fronted by Paddy MacGuinness.

In it a group of nine people gather in a bunker and stay there until they can decide between them who gets the money. Every time they don’t get a unanimous decision something bad happens to push them into making a decision – chiefly the money starts ticking away, also things like secrets being revealed to make it difficult for other people to win – even when a contestant was Outcast, they were still required to stay in the Bunker and vote (and if they were fortunate find a way back into the game proper). Someone walking out cost the group half the money.

I dug the setting. Actually I quite enjoyed the show, but it wasn’t popular enough to get a second series either side of the pond.

POP FACT: The show was co-devised and hosted in the US by JD Roth, who hosted their version of Fun House.

3 thoughts on “Conclave as a gameshow

  1. Brekkie

    It’s amazing how old the concept of locking people away from the outside world in a back to basics environment until a winner is chosen actually is.

    Agree about Unanimous – I thought it was brilliant. Perhaps C4 tried it a bit too early – could have been handy to have up their sleeve once they axed BB.

    Reply
  2. Eighteen_Seven

    From Wikipedia : “The premiere episode attracted an audience of 15.84 million viewers in the United States, with most of the other episodes attracting between 12 and 14.5 million viewers. Despite these high ratings, the show did not return for a second season.”

    I was completely surprised when I read this on Wikipedia.com

    Disappointed that they didn’t do a second season

    Reply
  3. Alex

    It’s been bloody ages since I checked, but here we go:

    Fort Boyard is confirmed for 2013, woo.
    Nine episodes this year.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.