Show Discussion: Cash Trapped

By | July 31, 2016

cash_trapped_01Weekdays, 5pm,
ITV

It’s The Chase Summer Replacement time, this year ITV have come at it with a slightly different strategy opening with a show with the same host but with a different format in a clever bid to not haemorrhage viewers – and being supported by Tipping Point for the entire fortnight as well no less. There’s two weeks of this before Alphabetical with Jeff Stelling gets a two week run and somewhere there’s 20 episodes of Rebound to go out.

This show’s big gimmick is not quite entirely original but certainly different enough – six people compete in a quiz to accrue a large sum of money, the winning player then has to try and defeat the five losers in a quickfire quiz – win and they leave with their money (and everybody else leaves with nothing), lose and their bank is wiped out and everybody comes back to play the next day – the losing five having banks that rollover. This comment suggests a mediumfire quiz with a large vindictive element – quick precis: questions on the buzzer, right answer wins cash and knocks someone out, last one standing gets a question for a large bonus, repeat until quickfire final followed by The Final Chase.

Based on one of Bradley’s own ideas and produced by Bother’s Bar favourites Possessed, it will be interesting to see if works well in terms of individual episodes or whether it takes a few rollover games to really get going and if it does is that too long? The Question Jury has beaten it to the punch somewhat in this regard and to me that game isn’t strong enough to tune into day after day. This has got two weeks to prove itself – it’s doubtful it will increase on The Chase but if it can hang on to 1.5m+ by next Friday then it’s done comparatively well.

Watched it? Let us know what you thought in the comments.

89 thoughts on “Show Discussion: Cash Trapped

  1. Brig Bother Post author

    One interesting thing about this that’s not so bad on a ten episode run but would need addressing if it came back for an extended run is that of contestant co-ordination. As far as I understand the endgame there appears to be no real way of stacking the deck to produce a result which means there’s no way of knowing how many contestants you’re going to need on any given recording day, and they might have availability issues. At least on 15-1 and Pointless you’d have a rough idea, for three recordings you’d need any amount from 0 (starting the day with rollover contestants) to 18.

    If it made to an extended series I wonder how you get round that? Could you film your three daily episodes as three separate flights giving overnight notice for example?

    I’m not going to get to watch this until later in the evening so I look forward to reading your comments later.

    Reply
  2. James

    Completely off topic (sorry), but Prosieben have confirmed three new episodes of Schlag den Star for the rest of the year. The next one is on the 17th of September.

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  3. John R

    The editing on this is awful so far, did it go through any quality control or has it been rushed to air?!

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  4. Peter Todd

    Brilliant show. Having loads of questions in each round is a great way. Lets see how many people will watch it.

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  5. Michael

    Noticed that they revealed a scene from later in the episode by accident in the first round.

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    1. Brett Linforth

      Glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed that – talk about a rookie error on the part of the editors!

      Reply
  6. Tom H

    So the show’s ruled as follows, if you don’t want to search out another explanation of them:

    Six players start the show.

    Round 1

    Quickfire questions on the buzzer, a right answer gets you £100 and the chance to ‘cash trap’ someone out of that particular set of questions. A wrong answer is an automatic ‘cash trap’.

    Repeat until only one player is left, who chooses from one of six categories on the big CGI board next to Bradders. Behind each one is a multiple choice question with six answers – only one is right and is worth £1000 and the chance to ‘cash trap’ an opponent out of the whole round.

    Repeat the sequence until five players become two – if one player gets the penultimate multiple choice question right, the other is ‘cash trapped’ by default and they answer the final one too.

    Round 2

    Everyone back in play – buzzer questions again, this time worth £200.

    When a player gets one right they choose one of six new categories on Bradders’ CGI board, and an opponent to play against. Again, each category has a six-answer multiple choice question behind it; the players take it in turns to give an answer until they stumble on the right one, worth £2000. The losing player is ‘cash trapped’.

    Repeat until the board is clear – although for the final question, to avoid finding the right answer by default, the last player standing only gets one shot at it.

    Round 3

    Everyone back in play.

    The person with the smallest cash pot plays 45 seconds of questions against the clock, with £500 for a right answer. No penalties for incorrect ones.

    Repeat up the leaderboard from bottom to top. At any time, anyone who’s played their quickfire round and isn’t at the top of the board is ‘cash trapped’.

    Round 4

    The player at the top of the board takes forward their pot from the previous rounds, and faces the rest of the team as the ‘escapee’. Objective is to ‘cash trap’ all five in 60 seconds to leave with that pot.

    Questions on the buzzer – if the ‘escapee’ buzzes first and gets it right, the clock stops and they ‘cash trap’ the opponent of their choice. 10 seconds comes off the time if they get it wrong.

    If any opponent buzzes in with the right answer, the clock keeps ticking although they don’t win any money for themselves. A wrong answer is an automatic self-‘cash trap’.

    At the end of the 60 seconds, if only the ‘escapee’ is left in play, they win their pot and leave the show with it – with the rest of the team replaced in the next show. If they’re beaten, the ‘escapee’ loses their entire pot, all the other players keep theirs, and all six come back the next show.

    So what’s there to like?

    They get through a LOT of questions, and get right down to it – we had the first question well inside two minutes of the show starting.

    But that’s about it.

    For a casual viewer, the pace is so quick and the rules so convoluted it’s obviously going to be difficult for casual viewers to keep up with what’s going on – that’s certainly been one of the complaints among the Twitterati. Worse than that, though, until the end the show doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere – at one point, someone was ‘cash trapped’ and the very next moment was back in play as the round had ended, rendering some of the gameplay pointless.

    Design-wise, it’s a bit of a mess – the six-screen shot of all the players is particularly poor, given how small the players are in relation to their boxes (reminded me of King of The Castle in reverse). The music was by Francis MacDonald, but apart from the very strange piano-led theme tune I barely remember hearing any cues during the show. The graphics had an angry look about them, with everything in Deluxe Gothic Condensed caps. We also had a lovely 12 Yard-style post-match interview at the end.

    As John R pointed out, the editing was probably the lowlight – social media’s had a bit of a field day with a mistake early on in the show where a six-way shot from much later in the game was spliced in, revealing a huge jump in everyone’s cash totals. Someone on Twitter also raised a possible factual error re: a question about Coronation Street, meaning there may be questions for the researchers too.

    I really didn’t like it. Bradders tried to keep things going along in his amiable way, and the casting wasn’t too bad – there was a bit of competitive spirit. But this feels like this got on the telly after a solitary dry run in a conference suite, and this would need a lot of work to be recommissioned, at a guess.

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  7. Andrew 'Kesh' Sullivan

    OK, first episode shown, so here’s the format run-down

    6 contestants play a variety of quick-fire question rounds to bank as much money as they can, with the overall leader attempting to escape with their winnings.

    Round 1 – Questions are on the buzzer and are worth £100 per correct answer, but you are frozen out of the next question if you answer incorrectly. After each correct answer, Bradley shows 6 categories on a giant video screen. You choose one of the categories and are then shown 6 possible answers. If you answer this question correctly, you win £1,000 and get to Cash Trap an opponent, but are Cash Trapped yourself for an incorrect answer. This continues until all 6 categories are used up or all 6 contestants are Cash Trapped.

    Round 2 – Questions are again on the buzzer, but are worth £200 for a correct answer, again frozen out for a wrong answer. For the bonus questions, you take on an opponent in a head-to-head, again with 6 answers to choose from. The winner receives £2,000 and the loser is Cash Trapped.

    Round 3 – Starting with the player with the least money, each contestant is given 45 seconds of quick-fire questions, earning £500 per correct answer. So in effect, a slightly scaled-down CashBuilder.

    Whoever has the most money then earns the right to try to escape the show with their winnings. They are given 60 seconds to try and Cash Trap the other 5 opponents. If they buzz and get a question right, they get to Cash Trap an opponent, but lose 10 seconds if wrong. If any of the other 5 players buzz and get a question right, nothing happens, they just waste the winner’s time, but Cash Trap themselves if wrong.

    If the winner can Cash Trap the other 5 players, they take their winnings home, but if they don’t, they lose all their winnings and the other 5 get to keep theirs. They will then all appear on the next episode to do it all over again.

    Overall, it’s very quick. There’s plenty of questions so there’s plenty of play-along value. The set is nice, consisting of a huge square floor with 2 banks of 3 booths along 2 sides where the contestants sit. Opposite these booths is where Bradley stands with a huge video wall to the side of him.

    That’s the good, now onto the bad. First off, Carolynne, who we had only seen last week on The Question Jury, was a contestant. I thought production companies don’t like people having appearances too close to one another. Also, should you happen to lose the escape round at the end, you’re going to have a HUGE disadvantage for the next show as you’ll have a lot of ground to catch up on the other contestants. I guess this is so that you don’t get the same person doing the final round on multiple episodes. Would it have been fairer to possibly halve their winnings?

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    1. David

      I’m wondering that too- maybe they start each show from zero, but whoever leads at the end that day adds their rollover amount (if any) for the final round?

      I think they should have had “lives” instead of time for the final round:

      Say the team of 5 have to spell out “Cash Trapped” before they’re all knocked out- if the team get a question right, they add a letter- if the solo player misses, 2 letters are added- so it’d be 11 lives for the solo player vs 5 lives for the team, which seems fair.

      Reply
  8. Weaver

    First episode impressions:

    * Fails the “can you come in halfway through and understand what’s going on” test.
    * Lots of questions.
    * First half has confusing visual cues for “in this question” (spotlight, light blue background), “out of this question” (silhouette, dark blue), “out of this round” (silhouette, red).
    * The “pick one from six” interlude allows for some interesting questions — but “which has most legs: one scorpion, two spiders, three grasshoppers…” was about as good as it got.
    * Visuals are poor: could we have the players’ scores above their head, a la Everybody’s Equal?

    The shot in round 1 is from roughly the same place in tomorrow’s edition.

    The Coronation Street question included characters played by Bradley and by Possessed’s head honcho Glenn Hugill. In-joke acknowledged.

    On first impression, not so promising. But I think we’ll have to judge this over the entire fortnight: it could be saved by the same big characters appearing each day.

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  9. Mart With A Y Not An I

    If as Brad said, they play this at his home amougst friends when entertaining, then evening must just fly by…

    There is a good format fighting to get out, but its let down by an under developed (and overly confusing) end game.
    Plus, stylistically, on screen it comes over as ‘Bradley Walsh’s Non-Celebrity Squares’.

    Need to watch again, to properly form a full opinion, but this (regrettably) could be 0-2 from Possesed for me.

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  10. Brekkie

    A boring show with a convulated format, and Bradley hijacking The Chase set and graphic designers only higlights how it just isn’t The Chase.

    And to top it all off you get to the end. nobody wins and they do the whole thing again tomorrow with the same people.

    It’s certainly no Take on the Twisters!

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  11. Daniel H

    I rather liked this though you definitely need to concentrate on it to understand the ins and outs of what’s going on and why.

    I liked the fact that it was all about accumulation – no stealing etc which would have been tempting in a format like this. I also like the fact that it’s quite “gamey” but whether that will sit well with the 5pm cooking-at-the-same-time audience I don’t know.

    It’ll be interesting to see how the reset to £0 plays out – it might not be as difficult to move up the leaderboard as people think as if you can stick around deep into rounds 1 and 2 you can score big while stopping others scoring at all – will probably still take 2 or 3 shows before the same person could get to the top again, mind.

    It’s nice to see a show with a proper continuation one day to the next though it’s yet to be seen whether seeing the same contestants day after day will build a sense of achievement when they win or become quite tedious.

    The editing cock-up already mentioned was very poor but it’s not the first time I’ve seen such an error, though if Weaver thinks it’s spliced from a different episode entirely then that might be a first.

    On the whole, I might be in the minority but I enjoyed it. My worry for it is that it was so structure-heavy that many viewers will have joined it mid way through, got confused and switched over.

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    1. Thomas Sales

      I checked, it’s from the same episode. To be honest, coupled with the cock-up last year of putting the wrong episode of Freeze Out online, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s deliberate to make The Chase look better by comparison.

      Reply
  12. David

    If I’m calculating it right, there’s £20,500 available in the first two rounds if one person got every question right:

    RD 1-

    5*100 + 1000
    4*100 + 1000
    3*100 + 1000
    2*100 + 1000
    1*100 + 1000
    1000
    ————
    1500 + 6000 =7500

    RD 2

    200+2000*5=11000+2000=13000

    13000+7500=20500

    And let’s be generous and say they might get 9 questions in
    the speed round- which at 500 each makes the grand total possible a nice round £25,000.

    So while it’s possible a person could rebound from zero, it’d take a perfect game or very close to it….

    Reply
    1. Brekkie

      Well the top score today was just short of £7000, so probably £13k would be the target tomorrow, though if you’re playing strongly you’re probably limiting opponents to adding £5-£6k to their carried over total at most – but of course still need to double that. I guess though they’ll be an advantage in having no money in the bank as people will be less likely to freeze you out.

      I think they’ve tried to sell this as a game of strategy but the problem is strategy doesn’t make great TV when you’ve six oontestants in isolated boxes barely able to interact with each other. Even The Weakest Link which limited interaction on screen (although there was more off screen) could sell that angle more as contestants were in each others eyeline, plus of course had Anne to bounce off as well. I do think for the intended game it is a very badly designed set.

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  13. Wrong Guess!

    Mark me down as one of the people who didn’t like it

    Found the first couple of rounds incredibly hard to follow at first which didn’t help for the rest of the show for me and it sort of felt like there was no jeopardy leading up to the end game.

    It didn’t help that it felt ‘cheap’ No atmosphere in the studio, the set looked like they had picked it up from leftover from celeb squares and it just felt so quiet – I don’t think there was any tension music at any point, was there?

    Incredibly disappointing for me, which is a real shame as I was looking forward to this.

    Reply
    1. Wrong Guess!

      Oh, it also didn’t help that none of the questions were on screen long enough for audience members to answer – that legs questions being the perfect example

      Reply
  14. Brig Bother Post author

    I’ll go against concensus here – I liked it. I reckon Bradley probably came up with round one which was the simplest and strongest idea which works well. Round two doesn’t feel quite so successful, Round three is Cash Builder times six and people like lots of questions, the end game didn’t feel quite tense enough although I suspect we won’t find out whether that’s a feature or a bug for a few days.

    What I’m really quite looking forward to is seeing how the game dynamic plays out now – the show has an inherent knobble the leader factor but we rarely see a show from the other direction which is forcing somebody to catch up, and these things will play off each other – nobody is going to be Cash Trapping Cat tomorrow which means if she plays her cards right she could sweep many of the boards and potentially get right back up there. And on Day Three we’ll have people on all sorts of positions.

    I’d be sorely tempted to make Round Two just round one with double money. I think answer question = knock someone out is quite gettable as an idea. As it is it does feel a little like throwing a twist in for the sake of it.

    Round Three is fine although I’m not entirely sure it’s played for stakes high enough to allow for enough unpredictability. Watching people jump up the leaderboard is quite fun. Please don’t leave questions unanswered if time runs out.

    I’m not quite bought into the stop start nature of the final.

    What’s worse than a gameshow with rubbish jeopardy? A gameshow with barely audible background music – seriously sort it out, give us a tune or nothing, something you can *sort of* hear is massively irritating. Good to see they’ve kept The Chase familiarity with the “collecting money” sound.

    Yes the editing mistakes – especially for the first show – were a pity. The intercontestant bantz were fine but threatened to push into irritating – I hope they stay on the level.

    Will be watching tomorrow.

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  15. Clive of Legend

    I’m surprised to see such a negative response to this! It’s hardly revolutionary, but it didn’t really do anything stupendously wrong, either.

    Much more solid presentation than the last couple shows to fill the slot, the set being a particular highlight in my eyes, and surprisingly for a pretty straight quiz I felt like I really wanted to play the game. As a test series I think it’s a solid start and I’d like to see where they’d take the show in the future.

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    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Agreed, I think this would be pretty fun to be involved with. It’s not a game of high strategy but there are mildly interesting decisions to be made and questions are about my level.

      Really interested to see how this does, it’ll probably take a week before it finds its level.

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  16. Brett Linforth

    So….Cash Trapped is an unusual show but I kinda like it. It’s an interesting dynamic in that nobody leaves until somebody wins BUT a failed attempt at escaping sees your score reset to 0 whilst your opponents keep their cash. Bradders, what a weird and wonderful mind you have. I personally think that the show deserves at least another, slightly longer series to give the format more time to bed in. Not bad, says I 😀

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  17. Brig Bother Post author

    There’s quite an interesting problem with the show as is, and that’s if it’s successful what do you do with it? The Chase isn’t going anywhere, you don’t really want Bradley leading into Bradley, August is a useful month to try things out so… what?

    It’d be a nice problem to have admittedly.

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    1. Andrew 'Kesh' Sullivan

      I’m just fed up of the usual bleatings that you see when ITV tries something new over the Summer:

      “It’s not The Chase! Bring back The Chase!”

      Then someone inevitably brings up the comments from the very first episode of The Chase saying it was boring and repetitive. I’ve mentioned before that I have gone off The Chase for a LONG time because of the minus offers, and I am glad to see something new in the Summer slot, albeit for a few weeks

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  18. The Stoat

    I presumed Bradley came up with the end game rather than Round 1. Surely Round 1 is not enough to pique commissioner interest. And the endgames’ complexity would indicate it wasn’t a Eureka moment for him.

    This got me thinking where else he might have got his inspiration from…

    Then it came to me… the endgame is simply the flip reverse of the endgame for the Chase. In that the Chase is a lone wolf attempting to stop a team of others getting home. This endgame is a team of others attempting to stop a lone wolf get home.

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  19. Brig Bother Post author

    Won it’s slot with 2.7m / 23.5%, very good and I’m pleased for everyone although loads of those will have been people expecting The Chase so don’t open the champagne yet.

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    1. Thomas Sales

      I’m looking forward to finding out what the ratings for the second week given that Pointless moves to BBC2 for the Olympics. (Eggheads moves to 7pm, University Challenge to 7:30pm. A ridiculous schedule if you ask me.)

      Reply
  20. Cliff

    I hated it, and actually bailed halfway through round two. It just seemed so lifeless and repetitive and undynamic. The basic round one mechanic of “keep playing until everyone’s frozen out, then one person gets frozen out for real, then do all that over and over again until all but one person is frozen out for real” is really boring to watch.

    That said, I’m not sure how I missed the contestant call for this one. I’d happily apply because there’s a good amount of money to be won.

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  21. John R

    The rollover banks aren’t on display! What on earth?! I can’t follow what on earth is going on any more with this show!

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  22. Brig Bother Post author

    I gather previous money in the bank doesn’t count towards who wins each daily episode.

    I’m fine with that. Although I dare say that whilst if Digital Spy misunderstand something that’s par for the course, if *I* misunderstand something then the message has got lost somewhere.

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  23. John R

    Another made up rule at the end there. This is a shambles to be honest :/

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    1. Joe

      Why is it a made-up rule? It was clear to me from the start that the clock doesn’t stop until an answer is given by the sound cues alone.

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      1. Crimsonshade

        Not to mention, this was made clear to the contestants at the START of the round, not just when it happened.

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        1. Brig Bother Post author

          Well it sounded like it was added in post, but I don’t doubt the adjudicator would have made that clear beforehand.

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  24. Weaver

    The same characters are appearing, and today’s show was much easier to watch. (Helped that I saw it a) from start to finish and b) knew the outline format.)

    Spectacular play at the end, though I fear there will need to be a rule tweak.

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  25. Brig Bother Post author

    I have no problem with the answer rather than the buzzer stopping the clock in the final (it’s the same on The Chase), but there’s no way anyone should be allowed three seconds to answer to eat the clock – it’s a bit like the endgame from Beat the Pack where they had to answer questions quickly as slowly as possible.

    I do think otherwise that the game getting gradually easier for the winner as it goes along can be quite exciting, like today.

    I ponder if allowing the top earner the option to pass the escape down would be worth considering.

    I agree with criticism that the multiple choice answers on the board, certainly in round one, need to be up for longer.

    I still think Round Two is a pace killing downer.

    I still enjoyed the rest. Although I do wonder if the contestants are going to get annoying for most.

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  26. Brig Bother Post author

    Incidentally, because it’s a fun thing to compare to, the first episode of Freeze Out last year got 1.53m, not helped with a lead in called Hello Campers which really tanked.

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  27. Wrong Guess!

    The time the questions are on the screen is really annoying me. You don’t have enough time to process the 6 answers and by the time you try and remember what they are the question has been answered.

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    1. Thomas Sales

      The easiest way of displaying it would be to display the categories on the whole screen for most of the time it’s being used, like they did on Wipeout. Or split-screen it – the answers one side of the screen and the contestant/Bradley the other, although that’d mean rearranging the grid.

      Reply
  28. Brig Bother Post author

    2.23m for Cash Trapped yesterday, a rather large slide of half a million. IT BEGINS, where will it level out?

    I think it’s an iteration off being great, will it get that chance?

    Reply
  29. Christopher McB

    I wonder would the show work if the winner of each day were to be eliminated if they don’t win the final round and someone new takes their place. I don’t mind the show, but the problem with keeping all 6 players in is that I worry it’ll begin to feel rather stale if you see the same players day in day out without anyone changing.

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  30. David

    I wonder now if they’ll get through all 10 eps without having to give away any money…the producers will be happy at least.

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  31. Stella

    Coming in late to this (have only seen today’s episode, and I wasn’t entirely focused on it), but it looks ilke an interesting show. I am wondering if there’s going to be a Friday twist of “if no-one escapes today, you all go home with nothing”. Would be a bit of a kick in the teeth, but I would have wondered if the contestants would’ve mentioned it by now. Then again, it’s possible that they have and it’s been edited out.

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  32. John R

    The problem with this show still being a bit too confusing for the casual viewer continued today during the end game

    With 4 seconds or whatever to go and one opponent left, what happens if the opponent buzzes in and lets the clock wind down to 0…are tbey ‘cash trapped’ meaning the finalist takes the game or does it mean because the clock has run out the finalist has failed to escape and therefore doesn’t win the money?

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      They’ve failed to escape. As Tuesday’s episode shows what happens after the clock hits zero, for better or worse, is irrelevant.

      Reply
  33. Brig Bother Post author

    Another editing cock-up in round one today, although this only affected the outcome of one player so not so bad.

    The idea of stopping the clock after every buzzer press in the end game is awful, it’s a solution for the last ten seconds that ignores that we have to go through fifty seconds to get there, you’d need to explain why it stops for three seconds after every two-four seconds, and it’d become the longest minute in television this side of Bob’s Full House. It’s already a bit stop start for my liking but at least there’s some sense to it. It’d be like American Football.

    Happily nobody tried unsporting maximum hesitation today. It is OK for a show to be *unjust* (up to a point), there’s entertainment value in that, but it shouldn’t be *unfair*, you shouldn’t be allowed to prevaricate once you buzz. Like in all other quickfire quizzes.

    If there are five seconds left and three people to knock out that’s too bad, but it’s not like The Chase is a nailbiter on a daily basis.

    Like I say, despite its faults I am enjoying it.

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    1. Thomas Sales

      The better solution would be to give the contestant slightly longer – 75 seconds, perhaps – and make it quickfire.

      Reply
  34. Brig Bother Post author

    1.82m / 17.3% for Day 4.

    Pointless at 2.4m, interestingly not really gaining viewers as CT is losing, although it’s share is up because evidently those CT viewers are turning off completely and that is how maths works.

    It would have been interesting to see how Cash Trapped would have done without Tipping Point.

    Reply
    1. Score

      1.80m/17.4% for day 5, versus 2.30m/21.4% for Pointless. Not too bad but probably not in a position where it can drop any further.

      Reply
      1. Brig Bother Post author

        No, although if that’s the level it’s not a bad level, and comments seem to suggest people are warming to it, will be interesting to see what happens after the weekend with new players.

        Incidentally I’ve heard from a source that ITV would be perfectly fine with Walsh leading into Walsh. Personally I think this would be something that hurts in the medium term if that’s a plan, but there we are.

        Reply
        1. Score

          I’d agree that it could hurt going forwards. Plus I’d say it’s unlikely Cash Trapped would do as well as Tipping Point at 4pm anyway. Perhaps they could put Cash Trapped at 3pm, going Walsh/Shephard/Walsh. They’ve tried a few 3pm gameshows lately so it’s clearly an idea they’re open to.

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  35. Daniel H

    Interesting quirk in today’s final as the final player buzzed in to answer but had a bit of a mind blank and took about 7 or 8 secs to say “pass” to stop the clock instead of the other day when the trapped players were being stopped after 3 secs of not giving an answer. I get that stopping after 3 secs would have saved him 4 or 5 secs but I think he was almost expecting the buzzer to come in after 3 secs (as I was) having seen what had happened on the other side of the fence earlier in the week.

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    1. John R

      …meaning towards the end I was scratching my head as to why the final opponent didn’t buzz in straight away to zap away the remaining time

      I’m probably being cynical but it felt a bit forced so that they have at least a second set of contestants on within the 2 week run, it almost feels like I’m watching a long run of pilot episodes which I suppose is essentially what it is, a summer pilot

      Wonder how many they filmed in a day, I would guess 5 a day as Brad looks knackered!

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      1. Simon

        There must be some limit to the amount of time a player has to answer otherwise technically one of the 5 could buzz at any time and just stay silent until the clock ran down.

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  36. Bring Back Breakaway

    Round 1 is the worst round. Requiring 5 players to be knocked out, before only 1 can be cash trapped and then having to go through this process a further 3/4 times is tedious.

    I’d tweak it so that the player who correctly answers a question can immediately cash trap an opponent. The player then plays for the additional £1000 via the multiple choice question, as is already the case. This then continues until all of the multiple choice question categories have been chosen. In other words, do away with the knock-out/turn-the box-blue-rather-than-red aspect altogether.

    Round 2 is more enjoyable than Round 1, but otherwise unremarkable.

    Round 3 is the most Chase-like, with the accumulation of money against the clock.

    I’d possibly tweak the final round by awarding money to those trying to cash-trap the person at the top of the leaderboard, for answering questions correctly. In their haste to obtain some more cash, the players may buzz in on a question they’re unsure of, thus risking cash trapping themselves which in turn, pushes the leader closer to escaping with their pot of money.

    I disliked this programme on not only first, but second viewing. I’ve only just managed to grasp the format after forcing myself to sit through a whole episode on ITV Hub. Maybe now that I have done so, I can enjoy watching live more but I do fear Round 1 will still be a issue in that regard.

    Reply
    1. John R

      I wish they would get rid of the bit at the end where the contestants roam around the studio as if they’re not being recorded

      a)It ruins the illusion of being Cash Trapped in their little box

      b)It sucked on The Colour Of Money too

      Still, at least there isn’t ‘Next time on Cash Trapped!’ I guess…

      Reply
      1. Brig Bother Post author

        I don’t mind it, or at least it ties in with the soap opera element, it doesn’t try and pretend that all the shows are done in a vacuum.

        Reply
  37. Brig Bother Post author

    1.72m/14.8% yesterday. It’s difficult to know what’s good against the Olympics really, it didn’t actually drop much from Friday, although the share is down as to be expected.

    Thank goodness The Olympics was around to inflate the overall audience, 15% would only be worth 1.5m usually etc.

    Reply
  38. basil brush

    There must be a lot of thick people out there if they can not understand the rules I am over 80 and my wife is over 70 and we understood it right away

    Reply
  39. Maureen

    The contestants wear the same clothes for 5 days straight so what’s all this about ‘being away from your family’ for a whole week????????

    Loads of questions but Bradley has to talk and talk and talk all the way. 🙁

    Reply
  40. Clare

    I’ve enjoyed Cash Trapped although am having serious withdrawal symptoms from The Chase. It took a couple of episodes to get into the game but now I look forward to it almost as much as I did The Chase. Love the humour between the contestants and Bradley and it’s fast paced with lots of questions. Definitely my kind of quiz show . . . and now, after two weeks, it’s gone and replaced by yet another quiz show call Alphabetical???? Won’t even be bothering with that one so over to More4 and Four In a Bed. I like continuity, not chopping and changing quiz shows every other week.

    Reply
    1. Alex McMillan

      They always try out new quiz shows in August, it’s quite fun to see the range of different formats they can go through. Last year it gave us the iconic “Freeze Out”, of course.

      Reply
  41. JANET

    Liked the number of questions [even though many had appeared in The Chase and other quizzes]. Game far too complicated and we were just beginning to get an understanding of it when it was taken off.
    It said it was recorded [the first week] over the period of that week. However, we suspected it had all been recorded on the same day as neither the contestants nor Bradley changed their clothes. They must have been a bit smelly by the end of that week if recording really did take place day after day
    So far as the game itself is concerned, please don’t bring it back. Stick to The Chase/

    Reply
  42. John R

    In a slightly strange twist, ITV are now repeating the first series of this weekly on a Saturday lunchtime slot. Don’t know if it signals anything regarding a future series…

    Reply
    1. Crimsonshade

      I wouldn’t read much into it. ITV’s Saturday Daytime schedule seems filled with repeats…

      Reply
  43. Peter B

    Unable to watch cash trapped, the rubbish background music gives me a headache

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      The background music (although music is a strong word) makes me laugh, it sounds exactly like the sort of thing I concocted in Garageband in about five minutes for my own podcast but without any sort of tune, and I’m no musician. I don’t get it really.

      Reply
      1. Brian Apperson

        I find it crazy to have that bing-bong music when Bradley is asking questions.

        I now only watch the last part of the programme where, at least, there is not so much irritating “background” music.

        Bring back “The Chase”

        Reply
  44. Mary J Tait

    Hi Just watching the show tonight. The question was what is the shortest note? A crochet, a quaver, a minimum, a dotted minimum, a breve, or a semibreve or a semiquaver. Bradley said the correct answer is a quaver. Are you sure its not a semiquaver which is a 16th of a note!

    Reply
    1. Brian Apperson

      You are quite right, but a Semi Quaver wasn’t one of the options.

      Reply
  45. Brian Apperson

    One of the WORST quiz programmes.
    It’s so annoying trying to listen to Brad with that awful background music (which isn’t in the BACKGROUND)

    Reply
  46. Brian Apperson

    How can the contestants hear the questions when that awful “doorbell” sound goes on incessantly ????
    And, someone has been credited with the music (duh !!!)

    Reply

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