Excitingly Talpa have yet another Dutch lottery show just started – Kluizenspel – Safe Game – which is apt because it features very little in the way of new ideas, although what’s there hangs together fairly well. It’s Pressure Pad with a budget, basically.

Fronted by Mark Klein Essink (who also in hosting Kies de Kluis almost a decade ago has the monopoly on hosting Dutch quizzes based around safes), a member of the public must try to find €500,000 in cash hidden in one of seven safes. To help him, he can eliminate six of them by playing games against members of the audience – the audience are split into what looks like six groups of 25, and each has three representatives put forward. Given a clue to the nature of the game and the basic information on the representatives, the player must pick one to play against. If the player wins then a safe is eliminated, if the audience member wins then they win €5,000 (and it sounds like the rest of their section split €5,000 as well). The rounds in the first episode (titles my own) were:

• Wipeout-esque quiz – contestants take it in turns to pick from a list of nine people, six of which fit the given clue – “which six have appeared on the front cover of Playboy?” first to three correct answers wins.
• Letter game – 60 seconds of rapid fire questions where each of the answers begin with the same letter. Control player decides which set he will take and which the audience player will take. Highest score wins.
• Memory Video – a short video is played (about a minute) and then multiple choice questions are asked on the buzzer – you can buzz in before the answers come up if you want. First to three wins.
• Clock Quiz – Chess clock style list quiz where you had to name three things that fit a given set before control passes to your opponent. Both players begin with 75 seconds on their clocks, time doesn’t start until question read out, player can opt to pass and take another question with a ten-second penalty.
• Timeline – Put three things in date order. Control player goes first, first to three wins.
• Number quiz – Buzzer quiz where the answers are all single digit numbers. First to three wins. The resulting five digit number is the winning Bankgiro Loterij number for the week, and that winner will win a multiple of whatever the control player takes home.

After the six rounds it’s time for the final – the contestant either selects a not-eliminated safe OR they can take guaranteed money – between €20k and €75k by spinning the large wheel – this is quite neat, the pointer round the outside moves rather than the graphics spinning. It also feels like a little bit of an anticlimax, having made the focus the safes all the way through, they can be bought out of the game in a manner that feels rather incongruous. I wonder if it might have been better if they spun the wheel first and then decided if they wanted to guess or not, although I expect that’d lead to a few too many massive money winners. Anyway, the show’s OK but nothing to get too excited about, would probably work over here as a Saturday evening thing better than Beat the Crowd would, but that’s not saying much. It does seem odd that Talpa might be able to get people talking with their reality and reality game efforts (The Voice, Utopia), but their shiny floor shows seem rather staid in comparison.

Friend of the Bar Squared Eyes has a review and large pictures on his blog. If you want to watch this yourself I’m afraid you’re going to need to use the dark arts, as it’s seemingly geoblocked. You’re welcome to try anyway.