Weekend Replay: “Face the Clock”
Airing now on Channel 4 in the UK is the new quiz show Face the Clock. Each show sees six contestants race against an unseen mystery clock in a game of quiz “hot potato.” Have control when the clock expires and you’re out and lose all your money. The day’s champion faces the clock one final time to go for all the money won through the day. The show seems to be struggling and is losing its time slot this week for the new quiz The Common Denominator. Reception hasn’t been great. However, what do you, personally, think? Here’s a clip of the show. Our thoughts are after. I’m curious what you think though.
Take a look.
Well…it does have a nice set. I don’t have a lot to say beyond that. It’s got a lot of flaws in it. I’m also stunned at how cheap this is. I know it’s not all about the money. Countdown and Mastermind manage to be fun without cash. But if you’re going to offer it, having a usual daily payout of around £900 is slightly embarrassing. When’s the last time any game has been this cheap? Especially since, in its current time slot, it comes before Deal or No Deal where getting £900 is an awful, awful thing and you’re usually given at least £7,000 in the first five minutes. Decent idea in there, but it’s executed strangely.
I hate this…and that is saying something. David should of won because he had the answer and it was correct and i haven’t seen a show where they have to confirm an answer to prove it was true…from the clip i saw trash the show and find something else cause this will not work since it is you lead in to Deal.
Alex is right. Too many problems. No one loves quiz shows more than I do, but some of these contestants are embarrassingly bad in general knowledge, so you have to wonder how they ever got on the show at all. In the final round, some of the questions are too long. Whoever is the chief question setter should make sure there are no more than six or seven words per question. When Rory takes five seconds to read a question, you know the contestant won’t win the top amount. And yes, the payoff is too little. Even “1001 Things You Should Know” does better in that regard.
Yeah, while I trust that the production attempts to be even-handed with the handling of the time mechanic, it has the potential to come off badly sometimes and this episode sort of showcases that fault.
Most of the rest (music, lighting) was okay, but my biggest remaining criticism is a little odd — between his wardrobe and his demeanor (casual? friendly?) the host doesn’t really look like he belongs on that high-tech set.
Basically Hot Potato trivia edition
This is interesting, but I think I prefer the strategy of The Bank Job’s round of two. Stay in and hope you can get another question right? Leave and force the target? That two had its flaws though (notably finishing a question when the buzzer sounds), but I don’t think a hidden clock is a good enough gimmick to base a show around.
This would work better as a game for two teams of three. Teams “with control” have to answer a question correctly to pass control to the other team—but let the other team “jump in” to try to saddle the other team with another question. (Of course, jumping in and getting the question wrong “steals” control.)
Jackpot builds progressively, with each correct answer adding to the base amount of future questions. Start at $25 in round 1, $50 in round 2, etc. Go for as many rounds as time permits.
Bonus round: The winning team has 2 minutes for each player to get 5 questions correct. But questions are of three difficulty levels: easy questions are available to all players, medium questions to two of the players, and hard questions for only one of the players who can answer medium questions. Questions cycle in turns: easy, medium, hard. When player 1 completes her contract, easy questions are gone; after player 2 completes her contract, medium questions are gone; after player 3 completes her contract, hard questions are removed. Correct answers are $500 each, unless the team completes its goal, in which case it wins the jackpot (progressive: base $25000 + $250 for each question asked until it’s won).
This looks like they combined Russian Roulette’s regular game play with it’s bonus round with an element of Weakest Link. Minus the trapdoors, of course, or a plenty for incorrect answers.
Boring show— an unfair format filled with faux strategy. It’s all about the luck of the clock, yet they make it seem like there’s some kind of mastery to the game by passing to certain opponents.
My thoughts: Like The Bank Job, somewhere buried in here is a good format trying to get out, but it’s rubbish. Except The Bank Job’s problems were generally just in execution, while its concept was solid (aside from the Prisoner’s Dilemma). Here, I like the set and the chess clock rules of the face-off, but that’s about it. Everything else about it sucks out loud.
Questions are really inconsistent in both difficulty and length, and I don’t think there’s any strategy involved. I’m fairly sure the optimal strategy is simply to pass after every correct answer, except at the beginning where you can be absolutely sure of a lower bound on the time left. This is a clear example of how NOT to do a risk vs. reward element, making the risk way too high and the reward way too low.
I was the winner of the first episode and won £2750, which to me is a nice amount, the show has been running six weeks now and to date the amount I won has been the largest. It was enjoyable to make and we were well looked after, Rory Bremner was very genuine and took time out to talk to all of us and make us feel welcome. Disappointed it has been moved to an earlier slot, worries me that it wont make a second series. It was my first time on a tv quiz and hope to do more in the future.