Red or Black? is a British television game show which was broadcast on ITV from September 2011-2012. It was created by Simon Cowell and was inspired by his time hearing of a story of someone gambling all their belongings and winning the jackpot.
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About
1000 (eventually twiddling down to 8) contestants can win upwards of £1 Million or higher simply by answering "Red" or "Black" within a series of various stunts and games. In Series 2, only eight contestants played at a single time.
Why It's Neither Red nor Black
- The show's format is bland and repetitive; all the show consisted of was a bunch of luck-based stunts and games that have already been seen in shows like Deal or No Deal. Such examples include the many coin toss-type challenges as well as the roulette table seen at the end of episodes. All of this completely wasted the show's £15 million budget, which is the most expensive for any game show in the world.[1] Not only that, as the games were played upon almost every episode, it didn't feel special to watch any more episodes as once you watched one, you saw them all.
- The show's jackpot was £1 million, which isn't that exciting to write home about due to the luck-based formula that the show had going. This meant that throughout the seven nights that Series 1 aired, four players won the jackpot.
- Overridden to the brim with filler and padding only done to fill out its time slot (75 minutes in Series 1, split into two parts or two 45-minute parts in Series 2). Such examples included random celebrity cameos and performances from singers signed to Cowell's record label Syco. However, as they co-produced the series with ITV Studios it makes the performances feel more like extended-length commercials for the singers and Syco themselves.
- The show's set, much like the format, is also lacking. It is mostly just a selection of LED walls all around aside from the audience seating and nothing else.
- The second half of episodes in Series 1 were broadcast live, of which there wasn't any reason for it to be recorded as such. For Series 2, the show was changed to be entirely pre-recorded.
- The show's producers and production team were known to have allowed contestants who had criminal charges through the auditions without any issues, even though they knew about the charges. This gained noteworthy attention when a contestant who had previously been imprisoned for assault against a woman; won £1 Million in the first episode. After the news came out of his prior actions and ITV let the contestant keep his money (which the reason ITV gave out was because they didn't know who it was that he assaulted) the producers decided to take action on checking contestants for criminal charges then on, which led to at least three contestants who passed the auditions being removed.
- The show's advertising heavily relied on Simon Cowell's name and its £15 million budget for ratings; making the show nothing more than a big ratings ploy from ITV. Instead, it led to ITV airing a ratings bomb, as for the reasons stated above, every episode worsened in ratings than the last. Series 2 didn't fair any better, if not worse; leading to the show's quiet axing.
Redeeming Qualities
- Ant and Dec were good hosts, as to be expected from the two.
- The second season's reformatting improved the show slightly from the first series, but not enough to fully redeem it.
- Almost all the luck-based games were entirely removed including the roulette wheel (the reason why Simon Cowell created the format, to begin with), with the new games focusing more on skill and challenge.
Trivia
- It is the most expensive game show ever produced anywhere in the world, with a budget of £15 million.
- The £1,500,000 jackpot won in a Series 2 episode is the highest top prize that a UK television game show has given out.
References
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