“Red or Black?” Awards Second £500,000 Prize Under Controversial Decision
ITV’s Red or Black? cannot shy away from production issues or controversial decisions. The skill/luck game show hosted by Ant and Dec sees eight contestants narrowed to one by making 50/50 decisions. The sole survivor plays for a rolling jackpot starting at £500,000 by guessing if a ball will land on a red or black light. The prize was given away last week, so this week’s jackpot was £500,000 Contestant Chris made it to the Vortex. Chris chose Black and released the ball. It was close but the light changes at, quite literally, the last possible instance. The decision on set is that he lost. They wish him well, but a few moments later cut to a recorded moment at Chris’s house where they reverse the decision and award him the £500,000.
Because the show was recorded with the thought that he lost next week’s jackpot is still £1,000,000. It was good of them to look into it more. However, it does beg the question…why did this happen in the first place? Check out the win-slash-loss below.
This series is pre-recorded. It’s not live. For the amount of money being pumped into the show I’m trying hard to figure out why tape was not stopped, why they didn’t go frame-by-frame seeing when the balls lands and when the colors change, and why they decided to go with this route of the reveal. At absolute best it comes off as a manufactured production technique and another instance of Simon Cowell trying to, unsuccessfully, shove his reality show trappings into what is a traditional game. The only options here are that they have a crew that decided it wasn’t worth checking in to the results, that they knew they’d have this situation and decided to milk it with the at-home reveal, or that they have a faulty machine. I’m not sure which of the three they’d prefer.
Again, I appreciate the fact they looked into it. They did the correct and responsible thing so the adjudicators and legal team on set deserves to be commended for that. However, this is an embarrassing production mistake that looks borderline amateurish for such a great production company and group behind it. This isn’t like a quiz show where extra research from the question’s writers have to be done to figure out a ruling. This is just going through the 24 frames in that second, hitting the left and right keys to adjust the frame, and figuring out the timing. I don’t believe I’m over-simplifying it and if I am I’d appreciate to know. They clearly have cameras all over including under the Vortex. There’s just no excuse for it to come off like this.
Red or Black? averaged 3.56 million viewers between its two episodes last night. It’s just not going to be the hit ITV wants it to be. Time to let this one go away.
Just cancel the bloody show.
Agreed.
Not to sound like an expert after the fact. But I had a fear something like this would happen after seeing how they changed the endgame where it would be left to judgement calls. The roulette wheel was definitive in the sense the ball either landed in red or black without question. This “the color changes at a constant rate” opened the door where a judgement call could be needed if the ball falls at the split second the color changes. They should have left the roulette wheel alone.
I can’t believe they don’t have some sort of pressure sensor can can say exactly when the ball landed in the hole.
You have to wonder why they didn’t call for a second opinion at the time of recording, it was way too close to call. I looked at the replay and if you pause it at the right time you can tell that the ball has bounced on his colour so the money was his. It really isn’t obvious at all from the overhead shot where it’s just writhing around in the bottom of the vortex.
Shabby ITV!
Why don’t they have the adjudicators give the production team the win or loss signal before the sound effects? Simple fix.
Another problem with how they handled this. What if the situation was reversed? What if they called it a win, but he actually lost? Would they have edited in a post production visit to his house asking for the money back? They should’ve declared it “too close to call” first and checked the tape before making a decision.
The right decision, handled the best they could, I suppose. Why would they have that camera available live? That, at least to me, would seem to be the most important camera to have!
When I watched the first episode with the vortex, I KNEW something like this might occur…
The wonders of what you can do on youtube is amazing. You can go just about frame by frame now and it’s very telling that he did win the money. The ball lands on black for about 2 or so frames before it turns red. 5:11 in if you want to take a look yourself. Obviously it’s no certain to us what other cameras or devices are used in accurately telling when the ball actually landed on a color, but it looks like a win to me. Hopefully they’ll straighten it out for next time or just get a whole new endgame. Because this doesn’t seem all exciting to me.
Helps if I actually watch the whole video first. @7:38 the ball bounces for the first time on Black.
Alex (and everyone else)…TOTALLY agree with you!
It’s not the fact that he won the money that’s the problem (it seems pretty clear he did, even though it was SUPER close), but how it was done.
They simply should’ve ’70s game show-ed it, with Ant and Dec saying the producers/judges will check the “tape,” cutaway shots of the audience, came back on cam and corrected it then. It also would’ve been SO much more exciting that way. It just felt VERY blah the way they did it.
Really, really, close call. They should’ve have gong back to a wheel, at least they don’t have to double check the tape and wait for viewers or player to see if it won. I don’t know if the show will ever see the light for third season.
I had to look at it a couple of times and recognize from that camera angle when the light was actually red or black, because it’s not totally clear how to read it down there. Once I figured it out, then yes, the freeze frame shot does show it hit in the black. So they got it right in the end.
HOWEVER, yes, it needs to be said, they blew it from the start. Whether you agree with the Vortex or not, this was a perfect moment to ratchet up the drama with the audience right there. Heck, there’s a Super Password video on YT where Richard Simmons screws up by saying two words too quickly together and it costs the player the money, and they had to check & edit right there on the spot to confirm it. It’s easy to do, there’s no excuse for any pre-recorded show not to do this.
I do not understand this endgame. It seems to be more of an arbitrary crapshoot than the original roulette wheel, because you’ve added a level of subjectiveness the old one didn’t have.
I would forgive all of this ambiguity…if it wasn’t for the camera angle they used during the “we messed up” bit that CLEARLY shows what happened. Why would you not use that the night of? Sans this simple fact, I could see this being a forseeable, yet understandable gaff.
Some folk might not know this. Turns out this episode was the last to be recorded from the batch of seven. I knew about the incident back in July as it was reported on one website but didn’t get leaked to others.
That just makes things even more suspicious. It renders the decision to still roll over the jackpot moot, since there would’ve been no next episode to roll over to. Which would also mean they would’ve had to swap the airing order of this episode with a genuine 500K loss.
It’s clear why this occurred. The light was so close to changing that it happened less than 1/24th of a second after the ball landed and thus they weren’t able to initially catch the mistake on camera. I’m personally just glad that they’re still rolling over the jackpot so that if someone loses next week they could crown the biggest money winner in British television history the week after.
Do they only show the above-shot on the show? It’s clear that because of the big drop through the hole, there’s no way you can tell from the above-shot whether it’s red or black.
What would surely be sensible is that there should be a sensor on the landing surface and the moment the ball hits it, the colour fixes. This would make it clear what the result is without the need for slow motion replays. Simples.
Does anyone remember an eerily similar situation on another Simon Cowell vehicle: The X Factor?
Simon Cowell just happened to eliminate Melanie Amaro, the eventual winner, at the judges’ house. Then later in the episode Simon, with a “guilty conscience”, decided to make an emotional surprise visit to her house to break the news that she was BACK on the show?!?!?!
Hmm… that sounds awfully familiar…..
Sorry, I think Simon’s producers knew EXACTLY what happened at the Vortex and just decided to take advantage of that moment of doubt to manufacture a touchy feel-good moment. They could have simply reviewed the tape (like all of us did on *YouTube* for crying out loud) and made the correct call within minutes. Instead, they deliberately played dumb.
This show is awful.
Gripe all you want, but panned shows like MtWI etc, as cheesy and chippy as they were would not of done this. For once, we have a *The British ARE NOT better than we are*
Why “for once”?
I don’t believe the British are better at Wipeout…
THIS is how this should’ve been handled. A true game show gem…and another reason why this version of this show should be revived ASAP!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VinW8M3bab8&feature=g-all-f
I’ve been defending this show as good entertainment, just not a good game show. This certainly proves my point that they are more focused on the entertainment aspect. They are either grossly incompetent or manipulating the result for better TV. Needless to say, a quality production should do neither.
It won’t matter what will happen in the upcoming weeks with this show anyway as Doctor Who will be back on air this Saturday and taking up all of my time. =;-)