Weekdays, 3pm,
ITV
Vernon’s back with another thirty episodes of mental agility and heart rate control quiz 1000 Heartbeats.
By the sounds of it it’s been taken apart, the bits cleaned up and put back together again with new games and new music from Paul Farrer And His Hat performed by the Heartbeats Strings Quartet (who you can now book to play at your events). Paul’s putting some of his tunes on his Youtube, so go and have a look.
We enjoyed the first series more than we were expecting to in truth so hopefully the second series will continue going in the right direction. This time it’s in an earlier slot – 3pm rather than 4pm, it’s doing well if it gets around a million (at the very least it aims not to lose too many viewers from Judge Rinder before it) so look out for that.
Well they fixed the one thing people were having a lot of issues with- they don’t start the heartbeat counter until the word “play” is said. The trade off is that stepping off to stop a round is now a 100-beat penalty instead of 50.
I think for Series 3 (if there is one, which is likely) they should change the rules so they can only step-off ONCE through out the entire game at no penalty.
That could be a very dull 9 minutes of television if someone doesn’t know the answer.
I think they balance they’ve got at the minute is pretty good – the -100 is definitely putting people off from stepping off too much, but it still happens occasionally.
I’m not going to get to watch this until this evening, but it sounds like the modifications have gone down well on Twitter, barometer of all public opinion.
Very good; tightened up in many little ways, in a way that I wish all shows could be between series one and series two, and now runs at quite a pace. Well timed for a run at the Hall of Fame, irrelevantly enough.
My favourite daft little improvement: the way there is only one heart pulse, rather than two, in the “1000 Heartbeats” graphics going into, and coming out of, ad breaks. It’s the tiniest thing but it niggled at me in series one…
Alright, expanding on tweets:
* Blimey there’s no mucking about is there? In a way I think it probably gets into it slightly *too* fast – were the quartet actually introduced at all? Similarly that’s quite a jarring cut from stage left to the plate for the first game, and I can’t help but think if the contestant plays on there should probably be a beat to insert some canned applause before going straight into it.
* Similarly I miss the heartbeats before they step onto the plate. For a show that takes sonics seriously I can’t help but feel you’re missing free drama in quite a few places. In this instance you’ve taken something that worked well away!
* I bet the researchers responsible for the Heart Breakers in the first series breathed a sigh of relief when they found out they wouldn’t have to find 90 more questions based on ‘hearts’.
* I very much like the changes to the gameplay, enjoyed that Compare was effectively Contrast in reverse, Reflection and Definition perfectly sound, I noticed that Keep Up now only requires 18 answers rather than 24, as I’ll always say anything that makes a gamble more likely and encourages a large range of outcomes is going to make for better television ultimately.
* Can totally see why you opened with that game.
* Really like the new music – is that a new tune for Contrast? It sounds like something from old-skool Gladiators in a good way.
* Someone film Vernon saying “will you cashout or will you crash out?” to insert as a catchphrase before the final game, thanks.
8/10, will watch again.
Edit: I knew I would forget something, I still think there ought to be an indicator for how many right answers are needed if someone steps off the plate mid-game.
I like that patching gameshows is now a thing in a similar way to it is in videogames!
I believe this was also the first time they ran out of questions in a category, yes?
Otherwise, yes, a good game is now even better. I’m impressed that Paul et al. clearly listened to the criticisms of Series 1 and took them to heart.
I still like the show and will continue to watch, but for me it doesn’t quite solve the main problem that the game lengths should get shorter to the end whereas R5 is a massive game that kills any prospect of a gamble.
For instance, that guy first up yesterday played virtually perfectly yet only had just enough beats to cash out. In order to get to R6 you need to either have the heart rate of a loris or really chance your arm. And I can’t see anyone trying R7 any time soon.
Hi everyone. Thanks for all the positive comments and suggestions. Obviously we are always looking at improving and streamlining. With the editing of the show it’s always a struggle between wanting to get the know the contestants and hear their stories and at the same time wanting to keep the pace up and see lots of gameplay. Vernon is so terrific at drawing their personalities out and some of the banter we got this time is just fantastic, but overall I love the pace of the shows in Series 2 – I hope you agree that our time flies by pretty quickly.
I’ve also been really heartened to read online the thumbs up about my new music and the other various tweaks we’ve made.
Being asked back for a second series was a great chance to adjust and grow the show and ITV have been really supportive and nurturing in allowing us to do that. Im sure as you all know The Chase has been on since 2009 and we are still making adjustments and improvements as we go forward to series 10 next year. So we are all thrilled on 1KHB to see how well we are doing so far even in our early stages.
I love communities like this and seeing my original idea grow and have a life of its own is wonderful. To see people taking a thoughtful and intelligent interest in us and getting involved in talking about what we do and how we can do it better creatively is a real honour and I thank you for the comments. Let’s hope we get to make more shows so we can implement them….
Cheers guys and thanks again for watching.
Paul
Cheers Paul!
I think flow is super-important especially for shows on the gamier end like this one, and it’s really hard to get right, you’re absolutely right in that I think people will like the pacier edit – more relevant content – concise is good but the key I think is not to seem *too* blunt, my gut watching yesterday suggests the flow is *slightly* off for me right now and you risk dryness which I *fear* may be a general audience turn off.
I like almost everything about the show otherwise and hope it’s a successful series for you.
May I take the opportunity to say that I love the show, Paul. It’s a genius idea and the execution has been superb. It’s good to see that the ideas suggested for improvements have indeed been implemented and I wish the second series every success.
Ricky’s game was FASCINATING to watch. The man cashed out like a pro! That’s what I love about this show – no two games are ever the same
I was especially impressed by his ABBA and deduction skills.
I always thought it was a shame 5 Minutes to a Fortune didn’t get a second run… another show gone that just needed a few small tweaks and some time.
Ps. I bet C4 would be happy with the viewing figs 5MTAF got now!
Speaking of viewing figs, has anyone heard how the first couple of eps did ratings-wise?
I’ve not heard anything, but you can probably infer from that that it’s not a disaster although not setting the world alight. Around 700k would be my guess.
660,000 9.4% (including HD, ex +1)
Better than Pick Me… but the lowest share of the day on ITV.
Started watching it Tuesday and loved it…the pacing didn’t really bother me – I might be use to basically no introductions to people with tipping point over the years.
Like Paul mentioned above Vernon’s energy really brings out the personality of the contestants.
I don’t have an issue with the show’s pacing, I do think it could do with remembering the lubricant.
The geek inside me is wondering if the ‘THIS IS 1000 HEARTBEATS!’ intro Vernon does at the top of each show is recorded just once or each episode is recorded fresh.
I’m SURE in Series 1 some times the camera would zoom down and Vernon would be looking up, other times vice versa and now it is really bugging me!
Bit of a cock up today by the editing suite, whilst explaining Cash Out for one of the contestants the voiceover mentioned if 5 in a row were answered correctly a win of £250 would be achieved, instead of the actual £2,500 😉
I’ve watched every day, I fear fatigue is setting in – I hope there are more than three new games.
Matt’s game was superb. If only he’d have backed himself, he’d have been the show’s first £25,000 winner!
During the £10k game of which I’ve forgotten the name it seems a bit unfair that they kindly don’t start the heartbeats until the question and options have been presented for the first ‘question’ but do leave them running for the second one!
Also, cruel twist at the end!
All the games have a certain amount of process that you cannot skip. At least now, most of the curse has been taken off it.
Good decision to have a prove out for the final game. Shows it can be done, but I think he got the easiest set of rounds for some time.
Glad he did it and glad he played along, a lot of people would just deliberately fail it because they don’t want to know.
Not sure I agree he got the easiest set of rounds either, or certainly not significantly easier.
The more I think about this, the more I think he actually was fortunate to have questions in his ballpark (Barker vs Corbett would have tripped a lot of people up, Reorder was designed deliberately to trip people up, I’d have been confident with three answers in Identify but that’s a 25 beat penalty everytime I had to guess the fourth), but actually his stack of games was pretty unfriendly.
Compare/Contrast – Much of a muchness I think, although I suppose it takes less time to read out pairs of answers in Compare.
Unravel/Reflection/Reorder – No question I want Unravel here, it’s speed reading and it’s quite difficult to get wrong. I can do Reflection (the hour hand is ingenious as it is off putting) but evidently loads of people have issues with it, Reorder is wrong answer central.
Unscramble/Definition/Assemble – Provided you can see them quickly you can do Unscramble in seconds. Definition is a pretty easy game but potentially quite time consuming if you don’t see them immediately. Assemble has real potential to be bastard hard.
Link/Identify – Both of these can cause trouble and both of them have an element of deduction. Gut feeling thinks I prefer Link over Identify given the choice because it’s a bit easier to infer an answer. Actually that might be statistically the wrong choice.
Pinpoint/Keep Up – Both quite lengthy games, I think I prefer Pinpoint as it tends to involve slightly easier-to-do maths under the pressure, lots of small numbers, whereas Keep Up often involves quite awkward figures to deal with. I’m fine with the extra visual logic of Pinpoint, that makes up for the fewer questions.
Decipher – Probably wouldn’t play this unless I was looking at 400+ HBs left.
Recall – It took me years to memorise my mobile phone number, I’ve got no chance at this.
So the ideal stack I reckon is Compare/Unravel/Unscramble/Link/Pinpoint/Decipher/Recall and any deviation from that is likely to cost a prize level. Also a stack you won’t get because two word games, but I’d be just about fine with swapping Unravel for Reflection.
I do think we should only take those results with a pinch of salt as he was under less pressure than he would have been in normal gameplay.
My ideal stack:
Compare or Contrast (doesn’t matter to me)
Unravel or Reflection (doesn’t matter)
Unscramble
Link
Keep Up
Decipher
Recall
“Lyndsey” Buckingham? Someone was asleep at the editing desk today.
I’ve still got no idea how this is doing by the way, but again suggest that if it was doing *particularly* well or badly someone would have said something by now, so read into that what you will.
I would say after five episodes that it’s a good show, but not now something I’m particularly making an effort to tune for – I feel as though I’ve basically seen everything it has to offer and this is always going to be an issue with money tree AND minigame based formats.
Having religiously viewed the entire first series, I saw the first episode of this and left it. The first series had a sort of rough-and-ready charm, the new version comes across as too polished. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the sheer volume of errors made in the episode.
Production or contestant errors? If the latter, I think they have their place as entertainment alongside those who make a good stab at it.
Thanks to someone on Twitter:
Yesterday.
ITV (inc +1)
15:00 – 1000 Heartbeats: 0.73m (10.0%)
16:00 – Tipping Point: 2.18m (21.6%)
17:00 – The Chase: 3.31m (24.0%)
17:15 – Pointless: 3.51m (24.2%)
Channel 4 (inc +1)
14:10 – Deal or No Deal: 0.21m (3.2% )
15:10 – Countdown: 0.31m (4.2%)
Roughly as expected, I think.
And I’ve just spotted Jon’s 660k post above. Thanks!
Worth a watch today!
You could call today’s episode of 1KHB The Good, The Bad and the Baldy! 😉
Are they saving their best eps for Fridays as a matter of course?
Good VernFace (TM) today. Unravel seems to catch a lot of people out. There’s only so many options!
This is such an oddly cut together episode.
I now find myself annoyed whenever people get to Decipher and stuff it up.
Paul Farrer’s put the other question beds up:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCamQGC_eoWhdFqqNVDobZRQ
And a boatload of other theme music he’s composed, as well! (The Chase and The Weakest Link, to name a few)
So what’s everyone’s favourite tracks, then? Lowest to highest, mine are:
3-6-7-2-5-CO-1-4
The official ranking (best to least good) is:
5
1
7
CO
2
4
6
3
I prefer the tracks at a higher tempo usually.
Track 4 sounds a little dull on the YouTube clip but at 160bpm it’s got a very infectious galloping bit.
I do like bed 4, it’s not quite the case that the lower downs are bad, I’m just not as fond. 4 and 6 are new for this series IIRC, they’re the two with slightly different time signatures. I think bed 1 is new as well? It’s quite groovy.
Some thoughts about the music.
Obviously it was a challenge to write music that has to work at 60 BPM and 180BPM and everything in between. The way to get round this is to make it quite ‘Baroque’. A bit like Bach or Vivaldi with lots of quavers and semi quavers (short notes). This keeps it interesting at slower tempos (stops it dragging) but obviously mad busy at faster ones. Personally I like being able to do something different so beds 2 and 4 in 3/4 (waltz) timing and Bed 6 in 5/4 timing – I enjoy. If you knew how difficult it sometimes can be getting TV producers to push the creative boundaries and take risks with unusual things I honestly believe that getting live players onto a daytime format working in 3/4 timing is something I’m very proud of – and I hope even if in a tiny way – raises the profile of music for TV shows a bit and encourages other producers to take more creative risks with music on TV.
HOWEVER it’s also on my mind that music in a show like this is always the supporting character and can never draw too much attention to itself. I felt I’d over composed a lot of the music for Series One and it was getting in the way. So I made changes for series two that made the music a little less scary and obtrusive. So while I might say I’m much happier with it all now if we make another series I’ll still probably pull it all apart again and re-write them all.
Bed 5 seems to be a favourite from the comments I’ve seen. Personally I like the electronic bass pulsing of it and it’s a good contrast to the more ‘classic’ sounding other beds.
Also (obscure 1khb fact fans) an early version of Bed 7 was originally composed to be the cash out bed and what we know as cash out was originally written to be bed 7 until we got to the studio and series producer Ed de Burgh told me swap them round. He was right of course. He always is. Anyway I’ll shut up now. Thanks for all your comments. I love that you enjoy the show. Makes me really happy.
Cheers
Paul
My favorite bed is Round 5. But i do miss Series 1 round 2 bed, was sad not to see it back this series.
Thanks for keeping us up to speed, Paul! The only game show creator I know who keeps in touch with their fans!
Perhaps that’s because I don’t consider myself to be a gameshow creator. I’m a composer who had an idea for a gameshow that I never expected anyone to take seriously. Turns out I was wrong.
Also I think the more insight and openness about the creative process and how these things come about – the more I hope it will make viewers appreciate the hard work and creativity of the team that goes into projects like this. Perhaps if you can see that if a composer with zero experience of format creation (essentially one of the lowest on the production food chain – the piano player in the corner of the pub) can bring something like this to the screen then theres no reason why anyone with a good idea can’t do the same.
Thanks Paul, insight into the creative process is something we value, and I’ve always been of the opinion that the format is most of the thing, but it certainly isn’t all of the thing. We’ve probably given more of a damn as to how a show *sounds* than anyone.
I’m mainly pleased that 1KHB goes for *tunes* rather than unmemorable (but easy to edit) soundscapes.
I think the show has a longevity issue but it deserved to make it to air.
Spectacularly poor round of the reflecting the clock game by one contestant about half way through yesterday’s show – surely setting a new record for most beats used in one game
I think the guy crashed out using 908 beats for Unravel last Friday, does it beat that?
Oh – i had it in my head that Unravel man was mid 700s but i could be wrong.
This guy was 882, anyway
No, he was in the 700s when he stepped off the first time. He used a total of 905 hb’s to get only halfway through the round!
Ah – OK – obviously confused myself – we’ve found our top two anyway!
The reflection guy also only got about half way through, with most of his guesses just reflecting one hand and a few reflecting neither!
Just seen this is up to 0.9m for the Text Santa ep, still down on Rinder (and lowest rated show all day outside of Good Morning Britain) , but certainly way up on Pick Me if that’s the level and not inflated by the day.
I reckoned if it’s getting around a mill by the end there’s a good chance of an S3.
Looks like we got only 20 episodes instead of the planned 30. Is it merely on hiatus for the holiday break, or is it pining for the fjords? Nothing’s on the posted ITV schedule yet through the rest of the year.
Back in January – ITV showing lots of daytime repeats over the Christmas period (Pick Me in the mornings at the moment), so probably back January 4th.
And now it’s out of embargo, 1000 Heartbeats is certainly back on 4 January.