Kies de Kluis (2006, Tros, The Netherlands)

Well, this is apparently the Next Big Thing. Here is the Dutch version of Endemol’s (licensed from Intellygents) International Megahit Take It Or Leave It.

The title sequence. As no doubt you’ve noticed, it involves safes.

Kies de Kluis, which like many big money Dutch gameshows, is sponsored by some sort of lottery (The BankGiro Loterij, in this instance).

We think the show’s title translates to something like “Crack the Safe” in English, Altravista isn’t much use in this instance (“Molar de Kluis”, meaning very little to anyone).

Here are those all important neon safes!

And here is our all-important host, Mark Klein Essink!

Right, the opening sequence voiceover suggests (and you’ll have to forgive me, my Dutch is a little rusty) that there are three couples vying for the money.

Through some process, this couple here are definitely playing. Say hello to them!

Right, this is where my famed knack for gameshow intuition comes in.

The team in the studio are shown one set of opponents, whilst the announcer gives a description. The team discuss them for a bit.

Now, I think, they must choose to take them on or reject them and take on the other team, who will remain a mystery to them. This fits in with the underlying theme of the show.

And it’s a go, this other team come running down the stairs and stand behind the other podium.

We never find out what the third team look like, if indeed there is a third team. Perhaps they get to be the seeded team for the next episode.

Onto the game. There are the ten questions on the screen, they are worked through sequentially.

Our seeded team get first go. As you can see there’s nothing in the bank (top of the screen)

Here’s the first question. What is the msot common surname in the Netherlands?

They are also given an answer, “De Vries”, and evidently there’s a picture of a bloke with the surname De Vries.

The team’s job is to decide whether to take that answer, or indeed to leave it and opt for the mystery answer that will be revealed to them when and if they reject the answer they’ve been given. It’s a little bit like Celebrity Squares.

They’ve decided to reject De Vries, so they’re lumped with the mystery second answer, in this case Jansen. The answer turns white to show that that’s the answer that’s been locked in.

Is it right?

Nope.

Red for wrong.

And that means control of the game has passed across to the other team.

Whoever is in control after the tenth question wins the right to play for all the money in the bank.

But they mess it up as well (“What colour is Superman’s S” seems to be the question here).

But thank goodness, the first team get question three right.

There will be money in the bank after all!

The twenty safes are bought up. In each one is an amount of cash from 50 Euros right up to 50,000 Euros.

There is also a bomb. they either automatically lose control of the game to their opponents.

The safes are shuffled and renumbered.

We can’t help but feel this would be much nicer with some actual physical safes. It would certainly take away any accusations of cheating you may come up with.

The team must choose two safes, one each. Here, our contenders have chosen 5 and 7.

As five was chosen first, it’s boguht forward to reveal its contents…

In this case, there’s 9,000 Euro in safe number five.

The team must now decide whether to take the cash on offer to add to the bank, or to leave it and take what’s in the other safe they’ve selected. There are significantly bigger values waiting to be picked.

As you can see, they’ve decided to take the money.

But we must now see what’s been rejected.

Great decision!

Towards the end of the game now, and team one have put 84,050 into the bank thanks to some good picking.

So obviously, it was in their best interests to get question ten wrong, and hand all the money over to the other team.

Who can’t quite believe their luck.

But it’s not the end of the world! Our gallant losers seem to win a consolation credit card, to which they can get into increasing amounts of debt and depression.

It’s a never ending spiral of despair, I’m telling you.

But somebody is going to win something, Mark is out with his safe to visit someone who has won 500,000 Euros on the BankGiro Loterij.

Today’s winner appears to work in a bank. FIX!

Our worthy winners now play for the 84,050 Euros built up during round one in the grand final. They go centre stage for this.

Right, I’m afraid I’m going on intuition to describe the endgame. There’s a fair chance I may be describing this wrong, so I’m calling it as I’m seeing it.

The couple are asked five more questions, same style as before. They aren’t told if they are correct or not.

Once they’ve answered the five questions, we think the computer orders them so that all the correctly answered questions appear first (in a random order), followed by all the incorrectly answered questions (in a random order, for what it’s worth).

The computer brings up a question. The couple may as well be confident that the first one is right, otherwise there isn’t going to be much of a game.

And it is!

The first correct answer brings up the five safes. The money is inside one of the safes (they reckon it’s in green).

Right, the computer brings up questions. Everytime the players are happy that the response they’ve selected is the correct response…

…one of the incorrect safes drops back into the floor. They’re down to three here, as you can see.

We think that when they come up to a question they think they’ve given a wrong answer for, they can stop the game, pick a safe and hope the money’s inside.

But if they push on through a question they’ve given the wrong response to, then the game is over there and then and they don’t even get to pick a safe.

They’ve done that here.

Evidently, if you get all the questions right, there’s only going to be one safe left and a guaranteed prize.

Mark opens the remaining safes, and as we can see, the money was hiding in the neon blue safe all the time.

Never mind – credit cards all round!

 

We have to be honest, we went into the show wanting to hate it. We wanted to hate it for clearly trading on the back of the success of the mighty Deal or No Deal. However, at the very least it’s actually an amiable enough traditional quiz (with tedious everything hinging on the tenth question “mechanic”, and a bit slow moving) that really isn’t the next anything, let alone Big Thing – in fact, it could fit into Challenge quite well if they don’t expect anything mega (divide the numbers shown here by ten and we suspect you’re just about there).

The Italian show, Il Malloppo, was the second most popular show on Italian television in 2005. Baffling. But in it’s defence, look at these pictures – it does look like rather more fun doesn’t it? And it’s all wrapped up in 30 minutes, unlike this which needs fifty. We still think there’s something not quite right about the Italian take on the show, which plays by highly modified rules, but there we are.

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