Tuesday-Friday 7:30pm,
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.