I don’t know who’s giving the ITV commissioners a kick up the backside recently but TVZone reporting this evening they’ve just commissioned another interesting format, 99 to Beat. Not a massive fan of the title to be honest, prefer the Dutch title, De Alleskunner (the all-rounder) but there we are.
In it, 100 players take part in 99 games in a warehouse – largely simple stuff, think Taskmaster tiebreak. The aim is very simple: just don’t come last in any of them, because if you do you’re eliminated. After eight episodes and 99 games, the final person left standing wins a significant cash prize (which I’m assuming will be something like £99,000).
As you can anticipate, segments are quick and the games are largely simple. It’s been a sort of low key hit on the continent, a couple of countries bought it as quite cheap Summer filler and it’s ended up doing rather better numbers than anyone anticipated, it’s been running in Belgium in one form or another since 2018, it’s on its sixth series in the Netherlands which has also had celebrity spin-offs, a fifth is about to happen in Germany.
There are two full series of the Dutch show on Youtube if you want an idea. Doubtless the ITV one will have slightly different production values. Banijay are making it.
Edit: thanks to a FOTB who told us this:
Right right as someone who actually took the time to sit down and watch a season of De Alleskunner let me give some thoughts:
- The show is fast – they have to get through 10 events per episode, so a 5 min cycle of “explain, setup, start, game happening, tense moment as things shake out for the last few, loser identified, breathe, tearful farewell, applause, and straight into the next thing”
- Despite this, after about 4 episodes, you do start to “know” the cast. “ah, there’s the journalist woman”, “oh no, not the redhead, I liked her”, etc…. They always briefly profile the “worst” 3 or 4 in each game, so if someone is an underdog who keeps cheating death, they’ll naturally become a main character.
- If you watch closely, you’ll see similar ideas (an A or B quiz, an estimating challenge, something stolen from a legit sport, and yes, lots of student-party style ‘carry/stack/throw’ games) come up again and again. As the numbers get lower, we get some more serious set pieces, like climbing or go-karting (and some things that are council duels on Fort Boyard). On numbers like 64, 32, and 27, you can expect an N-player mini-tournament.
- The games are gleefully, industrially, cheap. The chairs are cheap. The balls are cheap. Every single prop is cheap and looks naff. The set is the warehouse from Dutch Genius, but somehow worse.
- IMO the best reference point is the Squid Games: The Challenge – that would be my guess as to why this got the green light now.
- The magic is all in the tone – The disembodied voice in the dutch version is fairly snarky, catchphrase “There are 74 of you… but not for long”, and introduces each game and dismisses each contestant with a bad pun. The cast are mostly a friendly happy-go-lucky bunch. But the prize is serious, and losing doesn’t just mean missing the prize, but leaving the show but missing out on 98 more interesting challenges – so they do care. This means the audience are on a constant roller-coaster between silly, frantic, tense, and heartbroken – the light and dark of Belgian Mole on 8x speed.
- Honestly, it feels very Dutch, and I don’t know if it will translate well — the balance of snark and wholesome, in particular, is very fine and might just feel weird on an ITV Saturday night.
- A cosmetic point, but personally I think calling it the allrouder and making it about Just not being the worst in 99 things is much more compelling than 99-to-beat, which surely will just make people think of 1V100 and 1% club.
Surprised this had been commissioned now since ITV have been sat on this for nearly a year
I don’t doubt Squid Games Challenge/whatever the Mr Beast thing is going to be has helped this along.
Intrigued they’re (reportedly) doing it as 8 parts not 10 parts, 12-and-a-bit games an episode feels a bit ‘number unfriendly’.
Personally, I would’ve gone with “Game 99” as a title. It gives the show a sense of working towards an end goal (“Who will survive to face Game 99?”) as well as build up anticipation over the series (maybe name the games “Game 1”, “Game 2” etc.) and, for bonus points, have the viewers guess and discuss what “Game 99” will actually be? (Assuming those viewers haven’t seen any of the foreign versions before).
99 to Beat (wtf is that title), Genius Game, The Fortune Hotel – could be a successful year for ITV entertainment wise!
Wonder if they’re doing this to try and make up passing on Gladiators?
Adam and Ryan Thomas in talks to host this, which is leaving me with a bit of an “hmm, not sure” feeling. We’ll see though.
https://www.tvzoneuk.com/post/99-to-beat-adam-ryan-thomas-in-talks-to-host-itv-gameshow
Here’s a five minute highlight reel of the German one, which is probably a bit closer to the look ITV are likely to be going for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9OX5NdBgyI
Could they not have used the title that was just sitting there…
99 Problems…
It’s Adam and Ryan Thomas.
£25k top prize apparently which feels a bit… low.
I executive produced the Belgian version, where the show originates (format is from BBC’s counterpart in Flanders VRT) in 2023 and 2024. The show started off (4 seasons) as 100 mini episodes of 4-5 minutes, in a longer daily popular magazine-style program “Iedereen Beroemd”. As The Netherlands (SBS6) optioned the format to make a version of their own, they took it to weekly (10 eps). It was only in 2022 that VRT, the mothership, decided to do a weekly version, as the format was sold abroad only as a weekly. We skipped in the 6th season (final broadcast was june 8th 2024) the repetitive circle moments (originally, the repetition wasn’t their in the 4-5 minute daily segment) but we did that because of the familiarity with the format in Belgium . After 600 funny games, I guess it starts being difficult to come up with new stupid challenges. The German version, was taped in The Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. Advantage of that place was that you could have a more shiny floor environment as the place holds no daylight. the Belgian original version is set in an old electric warehouse, beautiful in architecture, but with full daylight. We recorded 17 days in july 2023 for the last edition, and not like the Netherlands, we shot it single camera on Amira-camera’s. That gives a more cinema-like feel to the show, and in the 6th ans last version, we added a host that was the candidates best supporter and shoulder to cry on. So not your typical host that talks you through the whole show. It is a brilliantly simple format that puts a light on every day people, who have no particular talent. Casting process is intens. Sadly for any TV maker, you can’t predict losers, so you lose, on the go pretty good characters, as the challenges are completely unpredictable.
Thanks for your insight! I predict the UK version will have a similar look and feel to the German one, and seems to be filming across 14 days in July, which feels like a long time but I guess you’re having to set up and film 6-7 challenges per day. I haven’t seen the Flemish original, but the Dutch show is easy to follow and quite addictive.