When the teasers for new Channel 4 live game show The Million Pound Drop started to air it come across as one of those amazingly advanced TV programmes that would shake the foundations of the medium to the core and bring about a revolution in entertainment as the world knows it. Shame that it turned out to be a run-of-the-mill, get a couple of questions right in exchange for massive monetary rewards type of thing.
The variation on the theme is that the contestants are given £1million at the start and must make it through a series of eight questions with as much of the money remaining intact. The twist being that they must gamble all the money every round by placing it on a trap door relating to each of the multiple choice answers, the idea here is that they can spread it about if they’re unsure or place the whole lot on a pure guess.
Million Pound Drop Live
In presentation The Million Pound Drop tries desperately to appear as if it’s something entirely new and fresh but has the same feel as what’s come before. With the studio audience gathered around like Roman dignitaries baying for a coliseum of misery and host Davina McCall doing that random shouting thing, it’s similar to a bizarre mash up of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and Big Brother, two shows that have overstayed their welcome and the latter already facing the axe.
Unlike Millionaire (and just about every other ITV game show) The Million Pound Drop gets away with the “answer after the break” cheap shot as the whole thing is broadcast live thus making it a bigger slave to the advertisers.
Really bizarre too is the opening that bangs on about heightened security and pre-screen checks of its studio audience, or the continuity announcer claiming that “anything can happen really”. But it doesn’t, it’s all very familiar and coupled with the constant reminders of being interactive in that people at home can play along too...isn’t that what everyone does anyway? Or they tweet about how stupid the contestants are; one or the other.
Channel 4 Game Show
The Million Pound Drop has been thrown on Channel 4 every night of the week for a six episode run and then probably forgotten about. The draw of the show rests solely on whether the contestants are either a little annoying or very annoying.
In the end, regardless of the multiple choice aspect giving the couples the opportunity to spread the money out thus giving them the chance to leave with a least something, like so many other gamble game shows it’s greed that takes over and failure makes its obligatory appearance.
As of May 27 no one has managed to walk away with any cash and instead faltered through their blind assurance or their quest for more money so those bits are quite fun. Schadenfreude it might be but in this case it’s okay to laugh even in these harsh financial times, considering that none of the contestants lose anything they didn’t already have anyway. And that dear readers is how to end a review of a mainstream game show during a recession.
Steven Cookson - Steven Cookson is a writer and attempted journalist based in Howden. Originally from Chester, that Hollyoaks place in North-West of ...
