Saturdays, 9:15pm
BBC1
John Bishop puts Francis Galton’s wisdom of crowds theory to the test as an individual attempts to answer estimated guess questions better than an increasing number of crowdmembers – 200 in the studio, in order to win a large cash prize.
We have a rough idea of what to expect as we had a mole at a test recording, and also the show has gone out in Germany where it flopped (Die Weisheit Der Vielen) and it’s sold to Spain although I don’t think it’s gone out yet (Los 200: Uno contra la masa). Our understanding – contestants answer several questions and have to beat increasing numbers of the crowd for increasing amounts of money. If they don’t win, the money rolls forward to the endgame where a single contestant will win it all or it will get split amongst the 200.
The 200 in theory stay all series although again if our understanding is right people can get replaced by being furthest away on a question, or the best player all episode can turn on the crowd and go for the jackpot.
It’s made by Magnum Media, the people behind The 1% Club, the executive press quotes seemed to suggest you’ll love this if you love quiz shows with large crowds like that is the appeal of The 1% Club. This does seem to be basically a format for John Bishop to do some crowd work, and there’s nothing like watching John Bishop in action to really appreciate the talent and craft. Of Michael McIntyre.
Anyway, let us know what you think in the comments!
My god, this is utter shite, I’ve turned it off after three questions. The whole rolling faces graphic just takes up too much time and doing it after every single question. At least I have my pick for hall of shame
Hi Daniel, I work for BBC’s Points of View and saw your comment about Wisdom of the Crowd. I wondered if you’d be interested in sharing your thoughts via a short video or Zoom today or tomorrow to potentially be used in our show? If so could you email pov@bbc.co.uk ? Thanks! Jet – Points of View Team
One of the worst things the BBC have ever made. It’s completely unwatchable.
Terrible! Every single thing about it was terrible! The awful music! The repetitive format! The terrible final! The stupid balls! The ugly graphics! It’s the most fun I’ve had watching game shows in eons. Thank you BBC!
Hi Clive, I work for BBC’s Points of View and saw your comment about Wisdom of the Crowd. I wondered if you’d be interested in sharing your thoughts via a short video or Zoom today or tomorrow to potentially be used in our show? If so could you email pov@bbc.co.uk ? Thanks! Jet – Points of View Team
Would you have rather liked The Celebrity Inner Circle instead?
Unironically yes.
Oh dear had high hopes for this but it was utter tosh.
Bishop was a really bad choice to host this. Not witty or quick enough to be funny, not accomplished enough to host. Somebody like Tim Vine would have been a better choice.
Trying to make it Saturday night by adding music is fine but when you only have 3 songs gets repetitive.
At the heart of it it’s just a guessing game with a lot of chatting not my cup of tea won’t be back.
Absolutely dross television.
Did a run through for a pilot last January and lots of things have been kept the same; the set, the logo, whatever in the eldritch horror is going on with the marble faces rolling around the screen.
Format has changed quite a bit though. Was originally meant to be five questions per contestant, as opposed to three. If the contestant failed to beat the Crowd on the first question, they could only progress if they had beaten the 20 worst Crowd members (as seen after the third question now). Repeat for questions 2-5, beating 40, 80, 160, then the entire crowd respectively. The end game was also planned to be “guess how many sweets in the jar,” because that screams Saturday primetime BBC One apparently.
It’s a Saturday night gameshow with all the gravitas of something that’ll be in the weekday afternoon repeat slot on BBC Two in about 10 years.
Someone make the prod company aware of the BBC blanket music agreement because I do not want to hear Rawhide any more after tonight.
Awful switched off after 2 questions. I usually enjoy a quiz but this was unwatchable
Considering how many ITV shows got cancelled this series after 1 series I’m impressed the BBC have managed to outdo them all by making such a terrible show.
Just terrible. Amateurly hosted, amateurly produced. The rolling heads isn’t the worst part of the show but having everyone’s faces and the way they’ve also gone about displaying the results is cheap and tacky. The amount of prize money up for grabs doesn’t seem to matter, quickly given a mention, no sense of awe.
Many people on here are completely writing it off but like all new programs we need to give it chance, Honestly it’s definitely NOT the next big entertainment show which I hoped it would become. It’s got the randomness and silliness of the questions just like Picture Slam which is no bad thing and some questions are fairly relatable to some of us! I personally liked John Bishop he’s rather quick witted with the contestants similar to the presenting style of Lee Mack which brings a likeness to The 1% Club yet it wasn’t as good as that.
Not sure about anyone else or whether I missed something but found it rather confusing with the different money amounts per question how can one question be worth £7,500 to the individual contestant then suddenly the next question is worth £2,500 I thought it was £10,000 per question, X3 questions = £30,000 for each contestant which gets added to the combined prize pot for the crowd which they play for at the end. They could have made it a much bigger scale jackpot combining the three contestants £30,000 for up to £90,000 for the end game for the member of the crowd if none of the contestants win anything that would have made it more exciting. And yes all the contestants are there for all 8 episodes but £90,000 split between 200 contestants only roughly £450/£500 per player which seems fair.
Rather interesting format can’t put my finger on whether it’s for me but will definitely be watching the next episode. The music was fun but might get annoying if the same tracks are played over and over again each episode.
Put it this way, ITV are currently being extremely lazy putting on endless repeats even during prime-time Saturday night (1% Club and Parents’ Evening) so personally I’d much rather watch this program which is fresh on the market than watch old content ?
Let’s be honest guys Wisdom of The Crowd seems better than The Celebrity Inner Circle (which was a car crash) ? Right ?
“Let’s be honest guys Wisdom of The Crowd seems better than The Celebrity Inner Circle (which was a car crash) ? Right?” – That’s like saying being slapped in the face is better than being poked in the eye.
It’s fine if you think both are just as bad but this is just my opinion, I generally would rather watch Wisdom Of The Crowd than The Celebrity Inner Circle. Not everyone agrees with everything, each to their own!
While I didn’t bother with series 1 after the first episode I actually think they have made some really sensible changes to series 2. It’s a much more watchable show.
Fair enough, I did actually flick through the first episode of Series 2 on I player to see if anything had changed and yes they do seem to have made some good changes, I might try and watch some of it if I can be bothered BUT Amanda Holden puts me off, as much as I don’t mind her being on the judging panel on BGT her laugh is extremely annoying and also her shimmying and dancing every few minutes is also annoying, She doesn’t seem to put the viewers at the heart of the show it seems to be all about her, I really don’t warm to her on this.
1.9m overnight for episode 1 which for 9:15 isn’t too bad I don’t think, but you would also assume the 5.3m from Strictly is doing quite a bit of lifting Survivor-style.
I was expecting around 2.5m especially off the back of Strictly but still good enough. (at the moment) Over 1M better than The Celebrity Inner Circle last week. Did it do any better this week before Strictly ?
The Inner Circle did 1.9m
Thanks, So quite the jump but mostly background noise viewers i’d expect.
Maybe it’s because it’s Sunday morning but I was expecting WOTC to be offensively awful and it just isn’t. There’s plenty about it that’s quite annoying – yes the music, yes the non-catchphrase, yes the buyout feels a bit weird and the reveal is a bit crap – why aren’t we using the balls again? It is a bit weird that the biggest winner is someone who barely featured in the previous forty minutes. It seems a strange choice not to do Power of Ten style reveals.
But it is amiable enough, Bishop chatting to the best/worst answerers after a question seems like the obvious thing to do and the chat is *fine*. Questions have a real life element to them so they’re not too abstract so you’ll have a guess. I think already having 1,800 people answer the question is a bit of a cop out. I didn’t feel it drag, although god knows what they’re going to do if there’s an episode where they get three £10k winners – I presume they stack the deck so the 200 probably won’t affect a decent answer from the 1,800 too much for the first question. I’m not the biggest John Bishop fan but I think his everyman persona suits here.
I wish someone would explain to John Bishop that the question is “How many pairs of knickers does the average woman own or how much does the average parent spend on birthday presents according to data provided by the organisation named” rather than “How many pairs of knickers do you personally own or how much do you personally spend on birthday presents?”
Are there any more new shows this year apart from maybe Big Break?
I actually enjoyed the show. The format is more light-entertainment gameshow than quiz gameshow. The format thankfully wasn’t spelled out word by word throughout. The set is beautifully designed from a technical perspective. Every part of the design is used for something.
The annoying parts (mainly the length of the head rolling, catchphrase and music rather than the concept of them) were notably less present as the show went on. I like the dilemma of the contestant to either play-on for question 3 or try and usurp someone in the crowd.
Also the titles – they’ve tried something different and I wish to praise them for it. I’m not a fan of the standard production gameshow format which is used all the time.
I watched Win Win after and thought I’d rather be watching Wisdom of The Crowd, and Win Win is basically fine, if not must watch.
Now that the first episode has aired, what is the complete format rundown of this show?
Three individuals try and beat a crowd of 2000 (200 in studio all series and 1,800 previously polled) in answering estimated guess questions usually based on domestic subjects. Each player gets three questions to beat the (average of) crowd, if they do it on the first attempt they win £10,000, the second £7,500 and the third £5,000. All unwon money goes towards the Crowd Fund. If they are not confident of their answer for Q3 they can opt instead to Join The Crowd, in which case provided they have given a better answer than 100 of the crowd the crowd’s worst performing member of the show thus far is kicked out.
After three contestants have had a go everyone plays for the Crowd Fund. Everybody in the Crowd is given the option to play for the lot, giving up their spot, or staying in the Crowd. The person who performed the best and agreed to risk their spot comes down and plays against the other 199. Players are asked true or false questions usually based around statistics, the crowd votes on the same questions, whoever does best out of five questions wins – if it’s the player they take it all to themself, if it’s the crowd they split the money between them.
Edit: Except it turns out the crowd don’t split the money, it rolls over to the next episode, presumably they’ll split whatever is going at the end of the final episode. Which is terrible! Especially if Magnum aren’t paying expenses like The 1% Club.
I’ve had to mute it when new players come out and when the balls come across the screen. It’s just too annoying.
Tonight’s episode has been pretty poor too as not one player beat the crowd on any question.
It’s the inherent weakness in the format/what makes it a challenge (looking at it very generously!); one person having a better estimate than the average of 2000 people is incredibly unusual! Like 2000 is so many people that someone in the crowd was able to guess £2600 when the answer was ~£100 and still win. Presumably production tried doing it with just the 200 in studio and it was too easy for the lone player? Perhaps they’ll find a balance with the sample size if they get another series…
Is it correct that
first number is the contestant’s answer
and second number is the average of 2000 (the pre-polled 1800 and the 200 in the studio audience) answers?
What is source of the final ‘actual’ answer?
The contestant’s answer is the one with their big face above it, the crowd’s answer is the one with a big W above it, the source of each answer is listed in the bottom corner of each question.
Thank you.
You have resolved a marital dispute – in my favour – neither of us had noticed the answer source in the question.
It would be interesting to know the sample sizes of the responders supplying the ‘actual’ answers.
Watched it again tonight. The problem this show has is that the science they’re putting to the test science is proving correct. It’s nigh on impossible for solo players to beat the crowd so it leaves you just waiting for the final round to for the true/false shoot out which isn’t that rewarding. Not sure what they can do to improve this, maybe add a lifeline or something, but it’s not grabbed me.
I’m also unsure whose side John is meant to be on. With Bradley, we know he’s with the players against the Chasers, when Danny Dyer was on The Wall we knew he was with the players against the Wall. Is John meant to be with the solo player or the crowd?
Utterly ghastly.
Moronic brain mush.
Boring.
Annoying.
Low IQ patronising simper-fest.
Is John Bishop being put out to rest now?
Nope.Nope.Nope.
I’m not saying I hated this. I think the basic idea of this show is sound, and there’s been some very interesting stylistic choices, some of which actually really work (the set design is gorgeous; the graphics have clearly had some love put into them; the title sequence is a brave departure from the kind most game shows have these days and is charming even if it’s factually misleading)… but my god, is it tedious to watch. The exact same game played three times, the annoying rolling heads animation and music – which takes FAR too long, btw – and at the end, it all just feels so inconsequential. Even when a contestant wins money, it feels like they don’t really give any real emphasis to the fact. I watched one episode fully and skipped the second after I heard about how absolutely no-one got anything right all episode, and I’ve felt no desire to put on any further episodes.