This looks like it might be quite fun, Million Dollar Secret coming to Netflix from March 23rd sees twelve people rock up at an estate, each one given a box – 11 are empty, one contains a million dollars which they can keep if they can keep it a secret. So far, so Fortune Hotel. Different is that there are challenges that, if completed, give away clues to the identity of the fortune holder (which they can sabotage), and there will be vote eliminations throughout, presumably the money gets reallocated if the holder of the million dollar box is eliminated. Trailer looks like lots of over-emoting Americans, but Serofinowicz under-cutting that by playing the host role amusingly seriously. Challenges look big scale.

My issue with ‘clues to an identity of a player’ formats is that you can never tell going in how well they’ve been calibrated – how well you do is only so much in your own hands, whether you win or lose is entirely down to how generous and cryptic (or not) the producers are and how satisfying (or not) a solve is. Still, though.

In the latest example of the brand name doing a lot of heavy lifting, prepare yourselves for the Race Across The World Experience: London. Prepare to live out everyone’s favourite bit of the RATW format: the bit where they’re following instructions from their GPS device to get to the hotel. Will your relationships survive? Will you lose your passport on a bus? Will you have to work in a bar to earn a couple of quid?

The race takes participants on a 4-5 km mission through the capital, typically spanning 2-3 hours. Players will pass through key partner venues, including renowned pubs, cultural hotspots, or famous landmarks, each serving as a ‘checkpoint’ where teams must solve escape room-style puzzles. These puzzles will guide them toward the next leg of the race, offering clues that unveil new parts of the city, “all while providing a true taste of London’s hidden gems.” (Quote from Televisual)

It’s basically any citywide treasure hunt but possibly with higher production values. What it isn’t really is Race Across the World.

I’ve had an message from Phil Stone who does Youtube quizzes who has a new format he’d like you to know about, a Bamboozle-esque experience called 50/Fifty Interactive Challenge. It’s probably not going to be winning awards for presentation any time soon, but I thought the experience was compelling enough to give it a shout-out – basically in each round you get a number of 50/50 questions – eight (easy) initially, then four (harder), then two and one final question, to progress to the next round you’ve just got to get half or more of the questions correct. Such is the limitations of Youtube that you’ve got to keep your own score and click on the relevant video at the end of the round to fail or continue, so basically you’re on your honour.

Doing This Sort Of Thing on Youtube is a pretty laborious and thankless task – you don’t even have the basic functions of a DVD player to keep score or anything really, as we saw with The AI Games last November, something as slick as that still required almost 30 separate videos and that was just for a game with effectively three questions in it – you have to think about “what does doing this using Youtube improve upon” if you want this sort of thing to blow up really.

Ooh, fun, keep Saturday 1st March free for a full day of live and interactive quizzing courtesy of Royal Flush and his fifth anniversary Game Night on Twitch that you’ll be able to play along with on your phone/second browser window. Normally his nights run from Saturdays from 8pm, this one’s from 10am going through to midnight (although my money’s on at least a two-hour overrun so bring snacks). There’s something for everyone (through accident or design, it looks the ones in dark blue seem to be the more hardcore formatty quizzes, the ones in green a bit lighter and chattier (Edit: I’ve just been told they’re “guest games” – and he has landed some proper celebs for some of these before), the turquoise ones are games that run automatically so Ben have a break presumably).

We’re normally about on a Saturday evening when we’re able, we will look forward to joining in with some of these. Five years of this sort of thing! Incredible.

More Things! Shiny things! More! More!

• Actually before the new things, an old thing you mind find interesting – the entirety of American Gladiators, the original 90s stuff and the Hulk Hogan one is now up on Amazon Prime. Big points!
• Also Happy One Question Series Two day! We thought it would never happen, but here we are. You can read the original Show Discussion post from 2022, if you want.
• Channel 4 have signed up to The Hunt, which sounds basically like Non-Celebrity Non-Bear Hunt! Actually it reminds us a bit more of a show from 2013 in the US called Capture, which had a Hunger Games vibe. Contestants hunt or are hunted in the woods, doing tasks to build a prize pot of up to £100,000, but with roles switching after getting caught. As Tantusar on my Discord suggested, “its just fuckin tag in the woods innit,” and really how could I possibly argue?
• Channel 4 are also signing up to The Inheritance from the makers of C4 non-hit Rise and Fall Studio Lambert (and also The Traitors). 12 people get set tasks by The Deceased from videos “beyond the grave” to add money to a pot which they’ll have to decide between themselves who can be trusted with it. The Deceased set to be played by “a British icon” – sounds as if they’re going to go high camp for this, my money’s on a Joan Collins/Judi Dench type.
• Alan Carr and Susie Dent – together at last! for a show also on Channel 4 attempting to find Britain’s Secret Genius which from the TV Zone description sounds a bit like The Piano, but for people who can do sudokus.

Lots and lots of New Things coming to light in the last 24 hours, let’s round them up.

• TV Zone reporting that Puzzling on Channel 5 has been unaxed, great news for fans of counting bricks in igloos and poor ADR. No idea whether Lucy Worsley will be hosting again, although surely the fact she’s done some well regarded documentaries recently suggests that is the draw. Apparently Potato are behind it now 12 Yard are no more.
• Apparently it’s International One Question week, as the nation quivers in anticipation for the second series starting on Channel 4 on Friday after an almost three year wait, the format has just sold to Quebec. But that’s not all! Also revealed today by Sony is 100 Choices, where a team have one question but this time 100 possible multiple choices (making it FIVE TIMES as good as One Question, evidently) but in an exciting twist, they have to do physical challenges to knock out possible wrong answers. It actually sounds a bit like how I envisioned One Question was going to be before discovering that answers were a bit cleverer and more Jeopardy-like in nature.
• ITV have bought the rights to Norwegian hit The Box and are putting them out to tender. In it, 12 celebs are put in bright yellow boxes and transported somewhere. The boxes open, they have to work out what the challenge is, which could be anything, and get it done quickly to stay in the game. I’ve seen a taster tape, it is Very Much The Sort Of Thing We Like – more action-adventure than anticipated, plenty of outdoorsy stuff, abseiling off off buildings, jumping into water, exploring warehouses, finding yourselves in an ice rink to a packed crowd… also does quite a good job of getting across the tension of the celebs in each box knowing they’re about to do something, but not what or when. Also lots of bright yellow boxes lined up on a hill or wherever is good visual. Fingers crossed it makes a good series.
• Finally great news for fans of FAST PACED and HIGH OCTANE quizzes, there’s a new one looking for contestants and it sounds basically like Quizzy Ant and Dec’s Push the Button. And that might be quite fun! You can click on it to take you to the application page if you want, which is just as well because if you mistype it slightly you might end up applying for gay porn instead I have just discovered. Which might be even better, who knows.