Sundays, 9pm,
(but episode 2 Monday 9pm),
Channel 4
Alan Carr and Susie Dent challenge ordinary everyday people who may have had their brainpower overlooked to games devised by British Mensa to see if secretly they’re actually geniuses, with the top twelve people from four regional heats going through to the final at Oxford.
And from the adverts this looks like it might be good fun – large immersive set-ups like games from The Crystal Maze which we presume have been edited for playalong value (in fact there’s even a playalong website for it). Alan Carr basically Doing A Claudia, presenting shorthand that a format that might sound a bit weird and unappealing might actually be for them. Would presume Susie Dent does the explanation heavy lifting. Surprised it’s taken this long for Dent to get a format outside of Countdown, actually.
But is it any good? Let us know what you think in the comments!
A second series has already been commissioned before the first one has even started. Applications are open now and closing on 01/06/26 with filming taking place between July and August 2026.
Channel 4 seem to have very high expectations for this format, Have to admit it does look good from the trailer, It’s definitely my kind of format, Has an element of a game show but also some competition and play along feature similar to The 1% Club. Can see it performing reasonably well.
They was even advertising it on ITV last night during The Masked Singer.
https://www.channel4.com/4viewers/take-part/secret-genius
https://eu.castitreach.com/a/mothership/secretgenius2/welcome
As a programme, it’s OK but the website isn’t interactive, just showing the puzzles as 2 static pictures and a video with no chance to interact with them.
I thought there was a decent smount to like about this with one quite large caveat, and that caveat comes in the first twenty minutes or so during the “quickfire” element (and during the last bit), in that that letter puzzle was quite hard for the viewer to parse and try and solve themselves before Susie and Alan gave the answer themselves – the contestants got up to twelve minutes (to do two puzzles admittedly), we felt like we got to see a board for about 45 seconds, then a further 45 seconds of it in quite small graphic whilst we got Alan and Susie commentating, and then we got an answer and explanation of the answer within about 90 seconds of the puzzle starting. It’s like if you want to have a go yourself you’re better off going to the playalong bit on the website and having a look before watching the show, except if you watch live you can’t because they don’t go live until showtime, I think.
On the whole the tasks were pretty good, the months of the year may be the weak point – the number square would have fitted in quite happily in most Crystal Maze zones. The ice cream memory game felt like a really challenging version of a Krypton Factor mental agility round, as soon as that second phone call came in I realised how difficult that game was.
I liked the set-up for Come to Light, but there really wasn’t enough time for the viewer to memorise the instructions, perhaps some graphics following one of the contestant’s successful attempts might have been useful. Or even an on screen legend.
So there are things that could possibly be dealt with better but despite that I enjoyed it, I thought there was a decent balance between challenge content and contestant journey, Carr keeps it light and empathetic (I dare say there’s a fair amount of Asperger’s on show C4 would have got easy laughs from back in the day), Dent does most of the explanatory heavy lifting as predicted. Maybe 4 down to 3 is a bit unnecessarily brutal considering thw way the rest of the contest runs.
Basically, it feels like the sort of show Chess Masters *wanted* to be really.
1.2m last night I’m told – pretty good, although I bet people get caught out by the second episode tonight.
Good fun to watch, It’s nice to see channel 4 taking on there own unique quiz show / game show style format which they don’t cover very often so it felt refreshing to see them take it on in a prime-time slot to catch the attention of those who like this genre of tv, I think the rating it got benefited from having Pottery Throwdown before it and also likely drew in some viewers from Limitless Win on ITV, They scheduled it smartly to gain the best audience so it didn’t clash with ITV’s Sunday night game show offerings and was placed after a relatively popular bake off inspired format!. I was expecting some of it would be similar to The 1% Club on ITV but actually after watching it did have more of a physical aspect which that doesn’t have.
Alan Carr felt in his element adding a dose of humour and comedy acting more as the main host of the program compared to Susie, Susie Dent feels more in charge of the game element which was generally expected. The tasks was enjoyable especially liked the lamp game at the end and the grid with the squares, required quick reaction and concentration
I’m slightly questioning the play along element of the program which they want viewers to get involved to see if they are a genius. The play along website was generally a poor experience just two stills and a video, what it needed is a way to physically click stuff and move things about. for example in the second quick fire with the number puzzle I was expecting to be able to move the pieces into the grid. It needed a better interactive app for it to work well, I gave up on that during the first add break and just watched it instead. Also the imagery which was edited on screen was very small and difficult to see properly without having to lean forwards, this was the same problem The 1% Club had in series 1, maybe they can fix this for series 2.
Aside from the PLAY ALONG VALUE which I wish would have been better, I’ll be watching the rest. 7.5 / 10
The way it was being sold I was expecting to see sheer unexpected genius and endless wow moments of brains quickly solving difficult puzzles. Instead we got a lot of people umming and ahhing over a puzzle I solved in less than a minute (and I’m not genius!). Funnily enough they didn’t bring up my method which was quickly going through the alphabet for a missing letter and then quickly working out if that letter was in any month which I thought was a much simpler method than what they were suggesting.
We also saw a woman somehow make it into the top 8 despite completely failing a whole puzzle? I’m still so baffled at the scoring here as I don’t get why she got through as a result, did the other four just completely flunk it?
There’s a lot to enjoy but also quite a lot of frustrating moments where you’re essentially watching the highlights of people taking on a game as opposed to be able to have a go at the game yourself like 1% Club. It wasn’t the show I was expecting it to be but I didn’t dislike it. Again, I feel like the cast should’ve been a bit more genius than perhaps they were.
920k ep 2 overnight.
Loving the show but in the North WestandNorthern Ireland episode, I didn’t hear a single Nrn Iron accent. Not even close