Tuesday-Friday 7:30pm,
Monday, Wed-Friday 7:30pm Wk 2,
ITV1
Well… it was massively successful for a long time in Australia where it was a daily show for about a decade until The Chase basically killed it off, it’s been on in many countries, and finally it’s here. And I’ve never really loved it to be honest.
Six people are randomly ordered with one of them in the Hot Seat at any one time. If that first person can answer all fifteen questions correctly, congrats, you win a million. However if you don’t know an answer you have an option to pass and go to the back of the queue, which is better than elimination by getting it wrong but depending on where you are in the stack only just. That’s because only the person who answers the 15th question gets a chance to win the money. Every time someone gets a question wrong the top prize decreases, and if the person playing the fifteenth question gets it wrong they’ll go home with £1,000 provided they’ve collectively at least five right but you won’t have much of a broadcast if they haven’t.
It has it all: thick people’s idea of deep strategy, a format that fits uncomfortably into the Millionaire formatting (“it’s the £4,300 question!” or whatever, you can’t take most of the money points home at any rate) but almost certainly wouldn’t exist without the Millionaire branding and backing. But it does have 15 questions against the clock, it is only half an hour so won’t outstay its welcome and it has got Jeremy Clarkson so it’s unlikely to be a grossly offensive waste of anybody’s time.
We understand 18 episodes have been filmed, we’re getting eight now and the other ten are coming later presumably. Let us know what you think in the comments!
The UK intro and theming are really good. I have high hopes.
Thanks Greg
The Game Show Guru approves!
I like the purple.
Very fun! I’ve got too much fondness for the colourful Aussie set and funky music to love the UK takes, but I can’t say either were that bad. Game moves at a great pace, Jeremy perhaps not 100% comfortable with all the extra admin but he did a solid job keeping things flowing. Managed to overcome my “It’s not exactly like the Australian show I loved :(” gut reaction so I call that a win.
Reallyyyyyyyyy wish they’d started with a brief FFF of some kind to pick seats. Have a slight feeling the UK public may find some players getting shafted by bad luck a bit unsatisfying, and perhaps not unfairly so.
A perfectly decent production of a format I’m not especially fond of.
They’ve put a lot of faith in their contestants knowing enough questions to fill a 27 minute show.
Extremely enjoyable spin-off program, It’s got a nice flow, everything moves along quickly and has a fast-paced feel. It doesn’t feel rushed in anyway in this instance the clock works to allow it to keep moving, There is a perfect amount of contestant introduction and game play, Jeremy is such a professional and feels so natural at his work and you can clearly see he puts his all into hosting this program he puts me at ease and brings such a relaxing watching experience, Even though the show is faster than the normal millionaire there is room either side to play along at home. I know there hasn’t been many half hour formats on ITV but from the ones there has been this feels the best executed. Even the questions are genuinely well thought through some quiz shows they have stupidly easy questions but here they’ve kept it so it makes you think.
Feels very fitting for this new slot which has opened up and gives ITV an opportunity to offer new formats to a weekday prime-time audience
Looking forward to watching the rest.
9.5/10
I really enjoyed this. I saw The Australian version when it aired on Challenge and just thought it was ok. However something about this version feels more polished. It’s like a modern take on Millionaire in every aspect from the zippy gameplay to the updated studio, graphics and intro.
However one thing I did notice the question difficultly seemed to be all over the place. Easier questions seeing to be further up the ladder in a few cases. Is that deliberate I wonder to cause passing and to get different players in the chair.
2.9 episode 1 I’m told which feels pretty decent.
That’s very impressive if it gets anywhere near that during the other episodes that in itself is a success. After Ep1 of most new seasons there is usually at least a slight drop in viewers
I assume i’m right in thinking that Hot Seat gained more viewers than what the original Milionaire usually gets on Sunday nights (2.2-2.5M) ?
It will benefit massively from the fact that the ITV evening news is on before it and the soaps are on after it and those two usually get ITV’s highest viewing figures of the day so hot seat will gain viewers from either side which will grow the Millionaire Hot Seat sandwich and the new 7:30pm slot in general. Just like on the BBC the program before strictly benefits from having that on before it with people tuning in early, For example the Blankety Blank christmas special gained 1-2M more viewers than it would usually get.
Thought it was pretty good, and I don’t remember liking the Aussie version. Really benefited from being a rare half-an-hour quiz, so 21 minutes without ads, meaning it could fly through the questions rather than dragging it all out.
I did enjoy that it was a fast paced quiz with lots of questions that you can pick up easily in the middle of the show. Nice to see a new 30 minute quiz as well.
One minor quibble – for a show with such a lavish, futuristic set, the chairs that the non-playing contestants sit on look very cheap. Can they not have the same stools the main player has?
Last Thursday’s episode (episode 3) seems to be missing from ITVX for some reason.
+28 numbers for the first week of this have come up and it’s a bit of a hit – over 4m an episode on average.
Renewed!
Series 2 launching to 1.7 and 1.8 overnights I’m told – good for slot, but as expected down.
Not too far from where the min series is, but with a much lower payout per half hour.
A bad question on Friday though, asking “In the UK, which of these months typically contains two bank holidays”.
May was the intended correct answer with the contestant eliminated by saying August, but there are two UK bank holidays in August – one in Scotland at the beginning of the month and one in the rest of the UK at the end of the month. Therefore, “in the UK” there are two bank holidays every August.
I’m sorry if this isthe wrong place to ask this question but does any one know what ITV gameshows is broadcasting this autumn? With Password and Parent’s Evening pushed until early next year. Deal Or No Deal and Chase new series being preempted ,plus shows like Celebrity Lingo and the Sara Davies quiz show being axed after one series, what do you guys know about what’s coming up. I know that there is Celebrity Millionaire (one coming up with Carol Vorderman and Charlene White) but I haven’t heard anything about that being scheduled as they have last year’s to show and I expect they’ve taped others. Is ITV doing ok in competition shows?
There’s a Bullseye Xmas Special and another 1% Club Rollover. As you say, stuff has been pushed back to 2027.
Competition shows – Big Brother is doing better. Cooking With The Stars returns tomorrow in a reduced half-hour format. The Voice was at its lowest ever last night with 1.4m while Win Win got 836k.
Riddiculous and Deal or No Deal will be back next year, as will The Floor and Wheel of Fortune, the latter moved to the summer (apparently).
ITV announced fairly quickly which shows have been axed – The Neighbourhood, The Summit, Nobody’s Fool, Chase Around The World. Celebrity Sabotage and The Box are both unknowns.
Rather shocking figure for Win Win must be one of the lowest ratings ITV’s got for a prime-time Saturday night game show (I suppose it was against Strictly which most would prefer including myself)
Deal Or No Deal was originally supposed to start on 28th September but that got removed rather quickly the next morning and replaced with yet more repeats, I would have thought it they’ll still reschedule some new episodes later this autumn ? Usually around the end of October although by the way it’s going for ITV this might be their worst Autumn schedule in years! They just can’t help themselves showing the same repeats over and over again to save money.