The joys of intellectual game shows

Throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I’ve loved watching game show TV. From watching Tipping Point with my grandparents when I was a tween to just a few years ago, when I got into University Challenge (now that I am at Warwick and our team seems to be fairly decent). I’d actually say I may have watched at least an episode of every game show on the BBC and ITV.

One of the staple game shows I used to watch with my family on weekend nights was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. We would record episodes and go through a couple as a family, playing along with the contestants. I remember being on the edge of my seat as Jeremy Clarkson revealed whether the contestants would be moving on to the next question or not.

I enjoy how the skill level ranges, allowing me to test how niche my general knowledge gets.

Intellectually, it worked rather well for testing my general knowledge skills. The questions start fairly easy, asking things like ‘What does the H in NHS stand for?’ and ‘Which Disney Character leaves a glass slipper behind at a royal ball?’ to much harder middle-level questions like ‘Which of these religious observances lasts for the shortest period of time during the calendar year?’ and then the hardest million-pound question. I enjoy how the skill level ranges, allowing me to test how niche my general knowledge gets.

Of course, it is slightly annoying when the participant gets a question wrong that you got right and then the game ends. I’ve always wanted to see if I could ever answer the million-pound question, but because this is so rare, I have never been able to.

From writing this section, I got really into the game show and actually just played a quick few games of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (online version) and kept getting middle of the pack, so maybe I do need to put a bit more practice in! Another classic game show that I still play along to is The Chase. Perhaps the most iconic British TV show of all time, I have been hooked on this ever since I was a young kid.

My uni friends and I have actually spent hours debating who our favourite chaser is. Mine is Mark Labbett (The Beast); he is just so iconic and is actually an original chaser! And this is one of the game shows which, by me watching it, has actually helped our pub quiz team answer a few questions right. For some reason, pub quizzes love to have a question about The Chase in them.

The cash builder round is one of my favourites, with questions still being asked when the contestant gets one wrong, meaning I can test how much better or worse I am at answering the questions than the actual competitor. The most interesting part for me is the head-to-head rounds, when you get to see what amounts the chaser offers to the contestants as the high and low amount. I’ve sometimes seen crazy high amounts and sometimes even negative amounts for the low numbers. And then there is the final chase where the contestants try to win the money they have amassed in the first two rounds. I think the most suspenseful part of the show has to be when the chaser gets close to the contestant during the chases, as then the contestant has to be perfect to escape with the money.

But it is safe to say this game show is iconic, and it is probably my favourite one.

A final few classic game shows that I think deserve a quick honourable mention that I haven’t been able to go into depth in here are Pointless and Tipping Point.

Pointless for me is a great one for trying to get niche answers to questions with lots of answers to them. I think I have only ever gotten a pointless answer once and have only seen contestants win the final game a few times, showing just how difficult it is to get those pointless answers. If there was a question on darts players who have played in the Modus Super Series, I would definitely have gotten a few pointless answers myself, but alas, not! And then Tipping Point is also amazing! Although this game is a bit more luck-based than the others, with the contestants who make the most money falling from the machine moving into later rounds, making the game a bit dependent on the coin pusher machine, it is still a good test of general knowledge.

And then there are so many other game shows that I haven’t even mentioned! But if, like me, you love playing along to TV game shows, maybe you too would like to watch and play along with a few of these shows.