Brad Rutter and Mark Labbett are Chasers for Fox’s “The Chase”; Pilot Details Revealed
We’ve had to bite our tongues for a long, long time but we can finally reveal some information about Fox’s pilot of ITV’s hit quiz show The Chase. We already knew that host Bradley Walsh would be sticking around from the British version. He’s not the only one, though. Two pilots were taped, one with an American Chaser and one with a British Chaser.
The British Chaser taking on contestants is Mark Labbett. He’s arguably the most popular Chaser on the British version, and definitely the most intimidating and engaging, so good choice there.
Taking the role of the American Chaser is Jeopardy! champion Brad Rutter. Brad Rutter is the winner of Jeopardy!‘s “Million Dollar Masters” tournament, the “Ultimate Tournament of Champions” where he won $2M more, and helped win his team $600,000 on ABC’s Million Dollar Mind Game. He’s won just about every modern intelligent game show out there, and he’s got a great on-screen persona, so great fit.
According to reports from the set the format of The Chase has largely stayed the same. A team of four takes on one of the Chasers in an effort to bank more money for a team. The team first plays a 45 second Cash Builder, where each right answer banks the contestant $5,000 to start. High offers, to tempt the contestants to come closer to the Chaser and risk being eliminated if caught, have been said to reach $250,000. Over $500,000 could be banked and split between the team.
No time table has been set for the show, obviously, given the show just taped. We’re hoping it gets picked up for a full series because I would like to believe that a fast paced, exciting quiz show can survive on television today. If you want one, The Chase is currently as good as it gets. We’re crossing our fingers. Stay tuned and we’ll let you know what happens with it.
Geez… I thought they would increase the prize money given the idea of it going to Fox screams prime-time, but $250K offers? Wow! Would love to see how it played out.
Sounds great, but would love to see Anne join the American version as well.
On the other hand, this is a FOX game show done right. That says to me that if it makes it to air, it’ll be gone in a few episodes.
Well, considering what they did to Greed and Million Dollar Money Drop, my hopes aren’t too high at the moment. Considering how FOX works, they’ll start by only producing 10 episodes, then airing 5 of them in a 1-week special Christmas event.
But then again, prove me wrong FOX. Prove Me Wrong.
I’m not sure if you know this, but Greed went the other way, from America to Britain. The American version was first.
Mark and Brad are great fits for the role of Chaser. I’m very curious to learn the other two Chasers – I still think there’s room for Ken Jennings just because he and Brad are arguably the face of Jeopardy and you could definitely have both.
The fact that one of the best recent formats in the UK game show world has a chance of making it to primetime has me very, very excited. I definitely want to see this make it to air – because it sounds like they got it so very right.
Glad to see Brad Rutter on this version, as well as the increased money for primetime. It’s going to be exciting. I’d also love to see John Carpenter as a chaser; I feel he’d fit the mold well.
Interesting tweaks here. I do hope that the show succeeds here. I’ve always thought that to be a distinct possibility, given the format.
Wonder if the US producer(s) will try to get Bradley Walsh to tone down his cheer-leading of the contestants, especially during the Chase round. Over here, game show hosts are expected to practice a certain degree of neutrality. (This may be a hangover from the days of the Quiz Show Scandals, but I’ve not seen enough pre-scandal quiz kinescopes to really tell.)
So, the Cashbuilder will be forty-five seconds, eh? Let’s see, that saves fifteen seconds per contestant, which makes for an extra minute–which will surely be filled in by commercial messages!
And if the Cashbuilder is only forty-five seconds, does this mean that the Final Chase(s) will be only ninety seconds? More commercial time there. . .
I fear that, like Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter may come off as too nice a guy to be an effective Chaser. There is no doubt about Rutter’s quiz smarts–the credentials mentioned above should tell you that. But does he have that intimidating, mean quality that marks Labbett?
The prize money is what you might expect from an American prime-time show these days. Seems some folks are not impressed unless there is a life-changing amount of money on the line. Put at least two, and preferably three, digits to the left of the comma, and folks prick up their ears!
Much will depend on what kind of time slot Fox gives to this show. IT’ll also depend on how much Fox promotes it, and whether they try the old, tired stunt of running it on five successive nights–which didn’t help “Million Dollar Money Drop” any more than it helped “Red or Black” over across the proverbial pond.
In my mind, the behavior of the Chasers and their interaction with Bradley and the contestants is what keeps the show from getting boring.
If they can keep that great element, then it will be fine
Good chaser choices. Brad Rutter is good, but if the show gets the green light, I wonder who Mark Labbett does against us Americans.
I’m just wondering what kind of Nickname they will give Brad, considering that they give nicknames to all the chasers (I.e. “The Beast”, “The Dark Destroyer”, “The Governess” & “The Sinnerman”). Maybe Brad can be “The Brain”?
Ok first off i am still mad about them canning my favorite JJ Aberham show (wasn’t a lost fan) but this right here made me go “FUCK YEAH!”. Second I am gonna to put a point in my win column because i said Mark Labbett should be part of the American version or it wont do well. Third, Thank you for not choosing Ken! i agree Ken is too much of a nice guy to be a chaser and Brad was a great choice. now for all the haters saying brad is too nice put him around Mark, Ann, and Paul and see is that doesn’t change very fast. I just have to overall say while i am not happy that we lost about 2 minutes of show for 2 more in commercials i will say if American don’t get into this show and get behind it the their is no hope to save T.V.
No hope to save *American* TV, I agree. There is the odd one or two current American shows I do enjoy but for the most part my mantra now is OBJC: Old, British, Japanese, or a Combination.
Holy Crap throw some video games and school (college) in their and it sounds like me
I am quite honestly scared for this show. There’s a reason why this site has had “The British Are Better Than Us” series. Then again it might have that same British feel to it seeing that 2 of the stars are British. I just hope FOX doesn’t botch this show up too. My fear is that like so many shows before it, it will spend too much time worrying about the contestants backgrounds.
For those interested, my comments on the pilot filming are over at Bother’s Bar: http://www.bothersbar.co.uk/?p=5723&cpage=1#comment-35831
To address some specific questions…
James: I oddly found the opposite, Bradley is quite possessive of the team, going so far as to call them “my team” and have a more adversarial relationship with the chaser. Of course, in terms of asking questions, especially during the final chase, he keeps up the same quick-fire rate on both sides.
Speaking of the final chase, it is still 2 minutes long for each side.
Adam: generally the questions were quite internationally unbiased. There were one or two somewhat americanized questions, but Mark seemed to keep up.
JK: according to someone who I know saw his recording, his nickname was indeed “The Brains” (which I think is a little demeaning to the other chasers really)
George: They did take quite a while on contestant backgrounds, but the gameplay remained the same (save for the time change on the cashbuilder) so I don’t know how much they’ll shoehorn in.
Congratulations, Fox – you may have a success on your hands; please don’t fuck it up…
Exactly.
Did I read the post right? Only 45 seconds for the cash builder? That’s a shame because it’s always been 60 seconds in our beloved British version.
Yes, having the Cashbuiulder set at forty-five seconds (instead of sixty) will allow the insertion of another commercial or two. (Sometimes we here in the States have so many commercial breaks that it’s an old joke of having the announcer say “We will return to our commercial after this brief interruption for a program!”)
On the UK version, the most questions anybody ever got on the Cashbuilder was eleven (per Wikipedia). At forty-five seconds, this would suggest that nobody will get more than, say, eight questions right. At five grand a throw, that means that nobody will be bringing more than forty large to the Table–and then come the Offers from the Chaser.
Yes, that sounds plausible – I think one contestant got to answer nine questions in my recording, one who interrupted a lot might have snuck ten in (I wasn’t counting that one), and the most correct answers I saw was seven.
I suspect that most will bring between $20k and $35k to the board, the low offers will be in the $5-10k bracket for the most part, and the high offers will be around $150k for the first contestant and then varying based on how each player fares.
Incidentally we got clear evidence that, for this version at least, the producers set the offers and the Chaser just communicates them – Brad got a couple of them wrong, feeding a $10k offer as $20k and a $265k offer as $165k, before apologising each time and being corrected (cue retakes). I presume the same thing happens in the normal UK episodes.
I’m really hoping they don’t cheese it up that we’re prone to do with so many shows. =/
That said, Brad seems like a good chaser at first thought. I don’t personally believe Ken Jennings would fit well for the show, he doesn’t strike me as someone who can play the role of being mean.
It’s old school, and just my opinion, but I’d like to see how Ben Stein would fare as a chaser. Judging from his old game show it seems that he could pull the attitude off and he’s fairly intelligent.
Sounds pretty good.But please do not mess it up.And please treat our Chasers with respect.
Because you mess up most things
I predict that the show will do well but Fox won’t be willing to renew it for prime time and it will become a syndicated show that offers money in the same field as the british version.