{"id":4776,"date":"2011-11-15T23:29:36","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T23:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/?p=4776"},"modified":"2011-11-16T11:20:27","modified_gmt":"2011-11-16T11:20:27","slug":"cleverdicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/?p=4776","title":{"rendered":"Watching Telly: Cleverdicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is quite interesting, we have been sent a review of a show called Cleverdicks<\/em> by someone who was in the audience, Dave Matthews. Thanks very much, Dave!<\/p>\n

Programme is Cleverdicks<\/em> and it\u2019s a Splash Media production for Sky (both Splash Media and the Cleverdicks twitter account say it\u2019s for Sky Atlantic, but the Sky people at the filming weren\u2019t so sure \u2013 I\u2019d be surprised if it was Sky Atlantic, as that doesn\u2019t seem to fit that channel\u2019s brand and I can see it starting on Sky One and moving to Challenge at some point).<\/p>\n

The host is Ann Widdecombe \u2013 a formidable woman, who is clearly very clever and, unlike many hosts that feel parachuted in to a format, had no problems reading the questions.\u00a0 Her main problem was that she lacked any chemistry with the contestants \u2013 there was no warmth, which was a bit of a shame, but not a huge surprise.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s 6:30 recording was the first show proper (there were two \u2018trial run\u2019 recordings before this).\u00a0 Attendance was quite low \u2013 about 40-50 in a 120-seater audience \u2013 made up of SRO and Sky Rewards customers.\u00a0 We had squash, biscuits and portacabin toilets.\u00a0 Filming was due to finish by 8:30 and we were actually out by 8:45 \u2013 not bad considering this was the first \u2018proper\u2019 show.<\/p>\n

The set was quite nice.\u00a0 Contestants stand behind one long podium, side-by-side and Ann is opposite.\u00a0 There\u2019s a big screen where the questions show up.\u00a0 When there are no questions it\u2019s occupied by a red silhouette of a \u2018cocky\u2019 man in a suit, which seems to be the show\u2019s logo.\u00a0 There are lots of neon boxes suspended from the ceiling behind the contestants that changed colour occasionally.\u00a0 The podium has seven screens arranged in 3 Vs \u2013 for round 1, the contestants\u2019 scores are on screens 1,3,5,7 and they move to the lower screens 2,4,6 for round 2, which felt quite nicely done.\u00a0 The music was \u2018sting-y\u2019 and non-descript, but we didn\u2019t hear much of it.<\/p>\n

So onto the quiz itself.\u00a0 For question difficulty, think Mastermind<\/em> General Knowledge (or even UC: the Professionals<\/em>).\u00a0 Subjects were unashamedly high-brow.\u00a0 Questions on pop music and TV were very scarce and I\u2019d say there was a tilt away from science and towards literature.\u00a0 This fitted the contestant profile (one of the contestants – Andrew Frazer, I think – was on a winning UC: the Professionals<\/em> team, another (Shaun) wrote questions for Pointless<\/em> and I\u2019m sure the other two (Carolyn and Gareth) were familiar from other \u2018difficult\u2019 quizzes).<\/p>\n

For round 1, each contestant had 2 minutes to answer questions based on an initial category and 5 clues \u2013 you earned 5 points for getting the answer from the most difficult, then down to 4, 3, 2, 1.\u00a0 The contestant could pass the full question at any stage.\u00a0 This worked quite well, but the question quality was a little variable.\u00a0 For example, one category was \u2018name the continent from these places\u2019, which narrowed the choices somewhat and made the question easier.\u00a0 Another was \u2018name the Olympic sport from these competitors\u2019 with the answer \u2018lacrosse\u2019.\u00a0 Yes \u2013 you were expected to identify lacrosse from the names of 5 native American competitors from the 1904 Games.\u00a0 Aside from this, it worked quite well, rewarding obscure knowledge and a small strategy point about when is best to pass.\u00a0 Graphics were OK here too \u2013 each question appeared on the screen on a triangle crashing \u2013 complete with a nice \u2018thunk\u2019 sound – from the top of the screen (with a triangle on the left pointing at the question with the number of points on it).\u00a0 The lowest scorer left at the end of the round.\u00a0\u00a0 Before the round, Ann chats to each contestant (and name, occupation, hobbies, chat, asks \u2018why do you think you\u2019re a cleverdick?\u2019) and at the end, there\u2019s a bit of extra information and chat about one of the questions.<\/p>\n

For round 2, the same style of questions were asked but on the buzzers.\u00a0 If you got one right, you have first chance to answer 3 related bonus questions \u2013 one point each (this time in blocks, but again dropping from the top of the screen with a \u2018thunk\u2019), available on the buzzer if wrong.\u00a0 After 8-10 of these, round 2 finished and the lowest scorer left.<\/p>\n

The second half of the quiz is somewhat inspired by\u2026well, Tetris.\u00a0 It\u2019s head-to-head, questions asked alternately.\u00a0 Get it wrong and a triangle falls (\u2018thunk\u2019) on your half of the screen.\u00a0 Get it right and you clear a triangle.\u00a0 There\u2019s a white bar slowly scrolling down the screen and the first one whose \u2018tower of triangles\u2019 hits the white line goes home.<\/p>\n

The final round is the cash round – \u00a31,000 for the winner, but prize money rolls over so \u00a32,000 the next day if not won, etc.\u00a0 Contestant stands in front of the screen and triangles with questions on them fall down.\u00a0 Get the question correct to clear them, but you have two \u2018drops\u2019 that get rid of a question.\u00a0 Questions continue to fall as time ticks down (and start to stack up as you get stuff wrong and start guessing).\u00a0 Keep the stack below the white line at the top of the screen for 2 minutes and you win the jackpot.\u00a0 This is probably the big let-down as the questions aren\u2019t always guessable and if you don\u2019t know three in 2 minutes, you just get stuck and it makes for a bit of an anti-climax and a minute of really bad telly.\u00a0 If the show gets a second run, this needs a big re-think \u2013 in the meantime, just put the questions that have a range of options that most people will know first.\u00a0 Interestingly, the winning contestant comes back again as a defending champion – a nice touch, but we are probably denied quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals which may be better.<\/p>\n

One problem is the tone of the show \u2013 all the contestants stake their claim to be \u2018cleverdicks\u2019 at the start (which makes them seem a little big-headed when they\u2019re clearly not).\u00a0 As each contestant drops out, Ann tells them in a really corny way that they\u2019re not cleverdicks.\u00a0 It\u2019s not nasty \u2013 it\u2019s quite clear that the contestants are all very smart \u2013 but Ann\u2019s goodbyes are a bit pathetic and she looks really uncomfortable saying them (e.g. \u2018you\u2019re not a cleverdick, but I would call on you to help me with a medium sudoku\u2019).\u00a0 I hope these comments end up on the cutting room floor.<\/p>\n

All in all, not a ground breaking format.\u00a0 Interestingly, it\u2019s not trying to replicate The Chase<\/em> or Eggheads<\/em> (that almost need low brow questions to help contestants win).\u00a0 It\u2019s a difficult quiz for good quizzers, but I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s what Sky want (or need).\u00a0 I struggle to see if it will be popular enough for a second series.\u00a0 It\u2019s not as captivating as Grand Slam<\/em> or as play-along as 15-to-1<\/em> (I got half-a-dozen questions ahead of the contestants in the first few rounds), but I\u2019ll be glad there will be a challenging quiz in the same vein as these.<\/p>\n

Also, if anyone from the production team reads this, you really need to make sure your buzzers work and have a small screen out of shot so contestants know how long they have left to answer each question.\u00a0 They had issues with both of these tonight and, although I think the right person won, some of the contestants probably felt a little hard done by because these weren\u2019t really ironed out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cheers Dave.\u00a0Would this possibly fit on Sky Arts? I’m also fascinated by the look of the show from the description. The head to head and endgame sound<\/em> as though they\u00a0feel like quite a\u00a0clever\u00a0idea, although I wouldn’t like to judge until I’ve seen it all in action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is quite interesting, we have been sent a review of a show called Cleverdicks by someone who was in the audience, Dave Matthews. Thanks very much, Dave! Programme is Cleverdicks and it\u2019s a Splash Media production for Sky (both Splash Media and the Cleverdicks twitter account say it\u2019s for Sky Atlantic, but the Sky\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-watching-telly"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pLcmt-1f2","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bothersbar.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}