Netflix,
From 17th December
Neil Patrick Harris invites eight teams to figure out what prizes are in 12 giant boxes by way of quiz, the team with the most prizes at the end of the arced series wins what’s in the SUPER BOX worth over $250k – I know what this is but I will leave it as a surprise. Opening the box doesn’t necessarily mean you will keep the prize as there are ways and means to steal prizes and eliminate other teams across the series.
It’s Netflix trying another high stakes shiny floor quiz, an entertainment form they’ve tried to crack before and not really succeeded at. Will this break their duck? There’s not much hype about it. Also we know someone who went and saw some episodes being filmed and they weren’t very impressed, but perhaps it will edit extremely well and become a Christmas hit. UK production company Rollercoaster are behind it, the hitmakers behind You Bet On Tour and I’ve got an “I thought rollercoasters were meant to go up as well as down” gag lined up to go viral on Twitter if this doesn’t work, so everything to play for.
Watched it? Let us know what you thought in the comments!
Big scale but also irritating and actually a bit stodgy and boring. It’s quite difficult not to make your mind up about it in the first two minutes really, extremely US coded pre-titles and within the first few minutes we discover it’s a quiz with both confessionals AND Gogglebox cams, so we know we’re in for a feast of overreaction and removal from the action. The “ooh there’s STRATEGY” chat is a bit overwrought, for all the talk of “alliances” you’re going to knobble over the team with the most amount of prizes at any point and I am as well.
The quiz elements are *fine*, although there’s usually an easy answer that you can be fairly confident of being first or last. Playing the board is not that exciting, although kudos to whoever came up with “extra turn”, a wild card that carries no actual game changing or decision making function whatsoever. Two episodes in nothing has come up that has any real bite – a steal, sure, but the threat of elimination needs to kick in a lot sooner – whether this was always there but production got a bit unlucky I don’t know.
The contents of the boxes are *luxury*, sure, but for a big reveal they’re not really greatly exciting or surprising. What’s In The Box? Pretty much what you were anticipating from the three word clues and the name of the box. It’s quite an underwhelming mystery.
Neil Patrick Harris is fine. Surprised Netflix bothered to pay for an audience given you only see them in shadow behind him at some points, and they don’t seem quite as enthusiastic as the sound suggests.