We looked at some Dutch shows last week, this Sunday let’s look at a French one. It’s one we’ve mentioned in comments before, but because France tends to geoblock its stuff it’s difficult for people in the UK and abroad to watch. It is likable word game Harry.

Broadcast weekdaily on France 3 and hosted by one-time weather forecaster and Richard Ayoade lookalike Sébastien Folin, Harry is basically that round of Brainteaser where the words are split up into bits and rearranged and you’ve got to find the word done as a half hour show and led by cheeky computer character Harry.

Four players compete, one of whom is the current champion who will select the category in the first round. In round one Harry will flash up bits of words in moving rings, the contestants must piece together the word on their touchscreen and confirm it as fast as possible – twenty seconds max, and a clue is given halfway through the time. Contestants are scored 5, 3, 2 and 1 point if they are correct based on speed of response – 0 points if you are wrong. The sixth and final question in the round is worth double points, the lowest score is eliminated and the points are reset between rounds.

Round two changes from show to show. It plays similarly to round one but there will be an added wrinkle – instead of letters one of the rings will show a picture and you’ll have to translate what letters it represents in your head when coming up with the word. Or the letters in one of the rings will be invisible. Or one of the rings will be fake. Wiki suggests one variation they introduced recently is a round where you make words without vowels. The category for each question is given before the letters comes up and again a clue is given halfway through the time.  Points are 5, 3 and 1 point, doubled for the final question. Lowest score leaves.

Round three (the semi-final) is a buzzer round. A clue is given before each word, but now the elements of the word appear every few seconds. Buzz in if you think you know what it is, a right answer scores a point, a wrong answer lets your opponent see the rest. It’s best of nine.

The winner is the day’s champion and gets to come back tomorrow. For now they will play the final where they can win up to €2,000. Harry will flash words played straight for 80 seconds. Every time the contestant gives a right answer they move up the money ladder, every time they give a wrong answer or don’t respond within eight seconds they go down the ladder. Wherever they are at the end of the 80 seconds is what they get to keep. It’s actually fairly difficult, but the show’s best player (Michèle) won €24,100 across 27 attempts.

It’s fairly stylish for a daily show. Youtube!

It’s a shame there’s no real call for 30 minute shows over here at the moment really, it’d be too sleight for a longer timeslot. I tried to find the show’s original pitch tape which seemed to have quite different rules, where the amount of points you got converted into a better chance of being drawn in a lottery to decide who went forward through the next round, but I can’t find it now. Which may be for the best.

Unfortunately France Televisions geoblocks their catch-up service. But if you can get round it, new episodes are available to watch here.

If you missed any of the Going Dutch series this week, you can use our exciting catch-up service to watch again:

Monday: Met het Mes op Tafel
Tuesday: Twee voor Twaalf
Wednesday: Per Seconde Wijzer
Thursday: Lingo
Friday: Wie Ben Ik?

I’m hearing reports that a year after being filmed, it’s being tentatively pencilled in for Sunday nights beginning the 27th.

I bet despite the wait it’s not as good as Take On The Twisters.

This is the last in the present series of Going Dutch, but who knows? If you enjoyed it perhaps we’ll do it again in the future.

To finish off the week we’re going to have a quick look at Wie Ben Ik? (Who Am I?), a popular comedy panel game. It began in Belgium and in 1990 a native Dutch version started hosted by a young Caroline Tensen (who some of you will know as the host of the Dutch 1 vs 100, which she still does) and has been on and off various different channels before restarting about six weeks ago on RTL4, now hosted by Wendy van Dijk (which Wikipedia suggests was an assistant in a previous incarnation of the show, and has also hosted the Dutch version of The Voice and The X Factor)

Currently each team has two regular players (Media personalities Paul van Leeuw and Jandino Asporat vs Gordon and Richard Groenendijk) and a guest celebrity. In round one one team will play “who am I?”, each player will hit a buzzer in front of them and a board will pop up with their mystery identity. The other team offer three cryptic hints before the player gets to ask 30 seconds of yes/no questions. Once all three players have had their go, they get to make initial guesses. If they’re right they get 90 points immediately, if not then they they get a clue (sometimes through a big door or an object on the conveyor belt) and get 90 seconds to ask questions. When they work out who they are they score 1 point for the team for every second left over. Repeat for the other players.

Round two is “what am I?” and plays the same as round one but with the teams swapping roles, and the mystery things to guess aren’t people.

The final round is “where am I?” where teams get alternating 30 second periods to try and work out where the host is according to her card by asking questions. Whichever team works it out gets their score doubled which will normally win the game.

Not the best game structure, but it’s just something to hang the comedy off really, and previous versions of this were very popular indeed. Here’s an episode from 1990 – doubtless this loses something if you don’t understand Dutch (and I don’t) but you can probably get the gist of the funny bits with tone, rhythm and expression:

Now, modern shows – regrettably RTL hide them behind a paywall and geoblock (although you can also pay to see the upcoming episode, also if you can get round the geoblock the previous episode seems to be free to watch) but the online clips are free to watch after an advert.

It is the sort of thing that’d work quite well over here during Would I Lie to You? off season, or with the 8 Out of 10 Cats people playing, I reckon. Or on Dave.

Most people know Lingo I assume, this is the easy midweek-because-I’m-busy-at-time-of-writing show.

Anyway! Lingo began in the US where it wasn’t very successful and began in The Netherlands in 1989 where it’s been running ever since. Currently it broadcasts on the TROS network on the Channel Nederland 1, but it looks like it’s moving to Nederland 2 next year. It’s been hosted by Lucille Werner with Jan Peter Pellemans acting as judge and announcer since 2005.

The format has changed variously over the years, but the main idea is the same – solve word puzzles and then hopefully create lines on your Lingo card for a bonus. For each puzzle you’re given the first letter and must guess a legitimate Dutch word of the correct length. You are then shown which letters are in the correct position and which letters are right but in the wrong position (a bit like the board game Mastermind). Players in a team take it in turns to make a guess, if they take too long to come up with a word or use a word that doesn’t exist or is the wrong length, the opposing team get a chance to steal control and get a bonus letter. Correctly identifiying a word earns money and lets you draw two balls from the hopper to cover some numbers up.

Right now team play three words of five letters for  €15 a pop, three words of six letters for €25 a word, three words of seven letters for €40 a word (the teams can ask for a cryptic clue in this round, although I haven’t ascertained if there’s a bonus or penalty for asking for it) and a final eight-letter puzzle where the teams take it in turns, beginning at (I think) €60 and dropping €10 a guess. Between rounds there’s an on-the-buzzer ten letter word anagram which begins at €70 and drops €10 every few seconds as the puzzle gets easier. Getting a Lingo earns a €100 bonus (and the card is reset). Also in the hopper are a wildcard ball, green jackpot balls (the jackpot accumulates at €100 for every guessed word but starts each show at zero) – getting all three wins the jackpot (not added to the score) and if they find one they can redraw for free, and three red balls which relinquish control of the game. FINALLY, each team can buzz in and interrupt their opponent’s go once per show. If they immediately get the word right, their score is doubled, if they get it wrong it’s halved. I don’t like that rule (although would be happy to let them steal the game once per show), but it’s by the by.

The winners get to play the bonus round. They get 2:30 to get as many words as they can – each correctly guessed word puts €1,000 in the pot and allows them to draw a Lingo ball to complete a line afterwards. There is always one ball from the initial set-up that will complete a line off the bat. If they get a Lingo they win the pot. If they find the silver ball they can opt to stop and leave with half the pot. There’s also a pink prize ball in there. It’s quite odd that the bigger the prize, the better your chance of winning (previously the prize was a flat €5,000).

ANYWAY, here’s episode 5,000 which went out last month. The winning team are surprised to hear the news that they will be playing for €5,000 a word in the end game.

And because we’ve been showing elderly episodes on Youtube this week, here’s an episode from 1998 hosted by Francois Boulange:

Dutch Lingo is probably the most cheerful and least objectionable show currently running on television. Here’s the official site where you can watch episodes. I’m surprised nobody’s tried reviving it over here – if GSN could get years out if it, why not Challenge? It must cost peanuts.

Take On The Twisters frankly stunned everyone when it won Best Studio Based Gameshow at the C21/FRAPA Format Awards at the world’s biggest telly trade show MIPCOM this evening despite getting even lower viewer and critical ratings than the show that won it the year previously.

The candidates for the awards were initially selected by C21Media.net’s community of 35,000 international television executives. Then a panel of buyers voted from 10 selected formats within seven genre categories.

We are sure it will become as big an international success story as previous winners of the award The Bank Job, Epic Win, Pretty Smart, The Encounter and 8 Out of 10 Cats.

This is what we thought of the show.

I’ve just bet my house on The Million Second Quiz winning it next year.

Here are the other awards for what they’re worth.