Wooh! This is Bother’s Bar v3.0’s OFFICIAL 500th post, so well done 12 Yard.

• OK – this is the show where three people don’t play for themselves, they play for other people and the charities that they have set up.
• The set – imagine a six pronged thing. Down the end of one of the prongs is the big screen. Down the two prongs next to the screen are lit up tunnels. Down the other three prongs are stages for the contestants to sit.
• In the middle is a round table from whence 25 different ‘gift cards’ spring up. These are electronically charged by an independent adjudicator. They range from £1k to £20k in £1k increments, and there are obviously duplicates (although no-one knows what they are).
• Our host is the lovely Gethin Jones. The warm up was Kevin Devine, whom older viewers might remember from That’s Life with Esther Rantzen. Which was a bit of a surprise.
• The first contestant comes out of the tunnel to meet Gethin in the middle. Questions of the “why are you here? Are you good at quizzes?” style are asked then a VT is played. The subjects of the VTs assume that they were being followed around by cameras for a documentary on good causes, then in the final shot the person who set them up reveals everything, that in fact they’re hoping to win some money for them in a quiz.
• Brave soul bought out on stage, lots of clapping. A quick chinwag, then the Hero is sent to one of the stages to have a sit down.
• Each Hero is guaranteed £1,000 whatever happens.
• The player will face five multiple choice questions, each one with three options. These questions are, on the whole, fairly difficult I thought, certainly very rarely lower than 3/5 on the difficulty scale.
• After they’ve decided on an answer, Gethin asks them to pick a gift card from the table. This is scanned in and the amount revealed on the screen. Chosen gift cards are not replaced for the next competitiors, which I think may cause an issue if the first players nick all the high value cards to themeselves.
• The player has some options. They can take the amount as is – in that case if the answer is right the money will be added to the Hero Fund, if the answer is wrong it will be taken away. But they have three ‘tools’ at their disposal which they can use once each – they can “double” to double the cash, “triple” (I think this should be “treble”, but that’s by the by) to triple it or they can “quit” (this would be much simpler if it was just “pass”) in which case the cash is drained away and no money will be won or lost.
• The object is to score as high as possible, because only the top amount will get paid out. As the other players will get to see the score to beat that means there’s a massive disadvantage to playing first and I largely suspect that most first players without a target to chase will not play it aggressively enough. There is already quite the sense that people would gamble more if they were playing for themeselves, but as they were playing for someone else…
• Scores can (and indeed will) go into minus figures. A player that finishes in minus figures still gets to keep £1,000 but obviously can’t win the show.
• Player one gets all their questions first, then they bring out player and Hero 2 and finally Player and Hero 3 for their go. Players, Heroes and supporters are shifted between stages and audience blocks between rounds.
• There is lots of confetti and ticker tape and fireworks when the winner is revealed.
• That is basically it. As a game it is, you know, fine. I think the question difficulty stops the show from being quite as exciting as it could possibly be (I think they were very lucky to have a “moment” towards the end of the show). As a production they’ve made some choices that I’m… surprised by.
• If you’re the sort of person who likes then to get on with it during quizzes, you’re out of luck – the first question won’t come up until five-ten minutes in. This being 12 Yard, there is lots of talking out the answers and painfully lengthy reveals.
• I was surprised that the Hero was going to be aware of everything. I was under the impression they would be surprised at the end of the show with the cheque. This, of course, is the money shot in philanthropy porn such as in The Secret Millionaire but this just isn’t the case here – they’re told about the whole thing on the VT, they come to the studio and then they spend all of it just hanging round watching in the background. There is none to little pleasant shock value really.
• It is as expected quite saccharine and yet as it stands I think it needs to go all out for it and appeal to old ladies or tone it down. Currently it operates on a middle ground I found a bit irritating, but this comes with the caveat that I’m a miserable bastard.
• I love The Geth. He’s young and fun, and Sell Me the Answer suggested he’s a pretty good quiz show host as well – very good with people and audiences. Regrettably in a more formal show such as this his engaging personality didn’t really get a chance to shine I don’t think. I think it’s a shame that he appeared to be having more fun off camera with the pick-ups than shown during the actual recording bits.
• It was a bit strangely un-12Yard that the mathematics of the game mean that you sometimes know if you’ve won or lost before the fifth question. In the show filmed tonight, the third player had an unassailable lead after four questions but still had to face the fifth one which was a bit of an anti-climax given the sums involved.
• The show rather interestingly had five advert breaks. This means it’s either going to be longer than an hour (good luck with that) or that ITV are about to adopt the US break system (good luck with that, and also God help us all). Edit: Three parts and 45 minutes are planned.
• Will it be a hit? I think older women will like it. I think it is too slow to appeal to a more mainstream audience (who may also not like the disconnect between the person answering the questions and the person receiving the money – people tend to like to watch a gamble but when playing on someone elses behalf everybody clammed up a bit). It’s not terrible, but it’s not killer. It failed the seat test, regrettably, but some people I overheard on the way out said they enjoyed it. Personally I think it’s got 3-3.5m written all over it, so make of that what you will.
• All the evidence suggests this is a different show to the Dick de Rijk show You Deserve It! that’s also floating around currently – conflating the two is a mistake I have made but despite the similar premises they appear to be different formats.

It is late and I might remember some more in the morning, so stay tuned.

Gethin Jones also suggested, after a member of the audience heckled after the show, that Sell Me The Answer has been picked up in The States.

Right, I’ve shifted machines now so I’ve got a working shift key. Anyway, LIVE FROM WESTFIELDS, here is some stuff on Control.

• Audience sit left and right of main set, main set consists of door (down one end) with large screen above, first level stage, a walkway with a moving table thing and second level where Control sits in a Bond villain style chair, backlit so no-one can see him very well (I will come to this in a minute). Above Control is a electronic marquee.
• Don’t know who the warm-up was but he was nice enough. Should have ironed his shirt though.
• Theme tune is basically what you’d expect if you crossed the theme from The Million Pound Drop with Clubbed to Death.
• Christine Bleakley is really lovely as it turns out, but it is doubtful she carries enough presence for a show like this.
• The game: a team of four friends attempt to amass as much cash as possible whilst a man called Control tries to stop them. On the face of it it is basically The Chase, and a more pedestrian version at that. BUT HOLD.
• But who is Control? Right, he’s being billed as this hugely mysterious man who we’ll only really see backlit so as to give little away. Because I’m nice I will play along with this, but let there be no doubt if he’s not been given a voice dub he won’t stay mysterious for very long.
• The game: The team face six questions. Neither the team nor Control know which category is going to come up each time, but Control will get to see the question. Each time he gets to set a special condition for the question and also the amount of cash up for grabs – potentially there’s £250k total up for grabs, although only presumably if he’s encouraged to offer it. Whatsmore the contestants can choose to play or pass the question which sets up quite an interesting dynamic, because if the team go for it and get it wrong then at least one of them will be sent packing – and it’s usually the person of Control’s choice. If they run out of players then Control wins – at least one person must make it to the end to do the Final Face-off. So enough money must be offered to tempt but he wants to make it as hard as possible. The team are spotted £10k to begin.
• And how does he make it hard? He has a lot of tools at his disposal – the standard question is four way multiple choice, but he might make it not multiple choice. He might only give half the question (and obviously you have to infer the rest of the question given the options given). He might make the team answer individually, sending anyone who gets it wrong packing. He probably has a lot more tools up his sleeve.
• The questions are by and large well written and on occasion quite difficult. A question came up asking which of the four choices was the only one to have had a number one as a solo, duo, trio, quartet and quintet which I really liked. (Aside: that might be a bit of a standard, but the answer’s Paul McCartney.)
• Because it’s naturally in Control’s best interests to get the team all out, the longer the game goes on the more will rest on each question.
• A lot of the fun here is in Control’s talking to the team – every inch the villain. At one point I smirked at a joke about redundancy when obviously I should have booed, which in retrospect is awful of me. I think it might be more fun if the contestants and even the host backchatted a bit more – this is where the lovely Christine falls down a bit I think.
• If anyone makes it to the end they get to do the Final Face-off. The team hide the money in one of (amount of team members left +1) cases. They are taken into a secure room to do this, and you get to see the independent adjudicator.
• Money hidden, the entire team are reunited, and one of the people who hid the money must face a 30 second interrogation by Control as to the whereabouts of the money. They don’t have to answer truthfully, but they must answer each question or risk disqualification.
• Time over, the contestant opens the case with the money in. Control then reveals on his card which case he thought the money was in. If he’s right – go home empty handed. If wrong – big winners. Good stuff.
• The show took about three hours to film. It passed the seat test, which is always a good sign, although it probably didn’t warrant three hours really. I quite enjoyed it, the bloke next to me seemed to quite enjoy it, old people in the crowd I was listening to less so.
• Just a couple of things: the individual answering the questions bit felt really clunky – one person answers on a keypad whilst the other one steps back and looks at the screen, then they swap places. This a) looks ridiculous and b) invites a lot of dead air.
• Secondly: I want to know if the suitcases without the cash in is weighted. I ask because Control scrutinizes their every move. I can accept this if it was one go and done, but if they have to reshoot the walking up to the table bit I can’t help but feel that gives Control an advantage he is not warranted.
• Two endings were filmed, one saying it’s the end of the show, one leading to a break. The show filmed had two breaks in it, so make of that what you will.

I might think of some more stuff on the train. Anyway, second pilot filming about now, so if you were at one or the other tell me what you think.

Edit: Something I considered on the way home, something didn’t feel quite right and I think I know what it is. I can describe because it isn’t going out I think, but basically the team ballsed up the first four questions with only one right answer, meaning one person had to choose to face the last two on her own. For this, she was offered massive amounts of money – £40k and £65k to play in an attempt to knock her out and get the job done. They were good offers in so much as she chose to play but got them both right – total pot, £130k. The offers throguhout the game were something like £10k, £12k, £15k, £30k, £40k, £65k.

However, if the team does well, what incentives are there for Control to offer lots of money? They’re going to get to the end anyway, albeit possibly than fewer than five cases. Either they get lots of individual questions (everyone answers, all wrong answerers are eliminated, everyone must be right to win cash) or they don’t get offered much. Basically, I suspect poor play will get rewarded (to make it more exciting) whilst solid play hits you in the pocket.

The contestant tried bargaining at one point – offering to take a lower amount if Control would reconsider and offer her options. Control pointed out that it was a nice try but he wasn’t for budging, but I thought it was quite an nice thing to try.

Also, will it still be a good show if everyone just passes every question and plays for £10k at the end?

Edit edit: Also you have to “lock in” whether you’re passing or playing, because now we’re bloody America.