Mmm, we’ve been quite down on this in the past despite everyone in TV being adamant it’d be massively successful over here, I just don’t think the format as is/was lends itself very well to being a weekly show (and if you’re going to have prizes worth playing for, a daily show is out of the question). I dislike the early stages which seem barely worth getting out of bed for. I don’t think the rewards for playing on are worth the stakes of having to risk everything you’ve won thus far, and most importantly who wants to see anyone crash out on a question they don’t get to see in advance? You want to see people lose because they’ve got greedy and overstretched themselves doing The Fun Thing. Two ways to lose and one way to win? That sort of thing can get in the bin.
So in what might be a formatting first, Americans have taken the format and improved it, and I don’t mean “improved” it as you’d normally expect, they’ve made some thoughtful changes here. Two teams of two playing for increasing amounts of time in the cage, and increasing values of prizes in the cage, whoever has escaped with the greater value of prizes gets to play the endgame with the best prizes, a tag-team 90 seconds where they’ve got to get at least $50k’s worth of goods out in order to take them home.
I like the new quiz element, it’s a bit like a mini-Wonderwall (Actually the Star Game from Turnabout might be a closer comparison) – eleven answers on a board, 10 clues, 45 seconds, you can’t return to a missed question, 3/5/7 seconds in the cage for each correct answer for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd round, it’s fun. Players get three seconds warning to escape like the original (failure to escape means banking nothing for the round), and each round adds skill-based challenges to unlock big prizes, as the original had. It has the essence of the format and largely eliminates the issues that I think people would tire of quickly.
Jeannie Mai is great as the host on the floor – energetic and natural. Damon Wayans Jr can certainly read an autocue. My main issue is that sonically it all washes over you, not especially memorable, not especially dopamine inducing. I think it’s OK!