c4countdown

What.

I hope this doesn't make ITV bankrupt.

We're just watching the first episode, having heard so much about it, and it's just awful. I was particularly amused by the arrow catching game (which is a pretty badass thing), but since it ended in a draw they then just had to basically do a coin toss, IT'S ALMOST LIKE THAT IS HOW THE WHOLE SHOW WORKS.

Matt Morrison wrote:I hope this doesn't make ITV bankrupt.

I hope it does. ITV is shite. And it can take TV3 with it.

I gave up after about half an hour of the first episode.

Low quality games/sport where there is no personal interest in the outcome. And those are the best bits. Most of it is elaborate randomness and padding.

Michael Wallace wrote:We're just watching the first episode, having heard so much about it, and it's just awful. I was particularly amused by the arrow catching game (which is a pretty badass thing), but since it ended in a draw they then just had to basically do a coin toss, IT'S ALMOST LIKE THAT IS HOW THE WHOLE SHOW WORKS.

Yeah, some of the stunts are kinda interesting to watch in their own right (like the motorcycle jumps, arrow catching and, to a lesser degree the tightrope walkers) but ultimately it's just too painful to watch it all, as there's too many rounds which aren't interesting in the slightest for the viewer (like getting a load of cars, and only one colour starts) and of course it has to be padded out with the obligatory X-Factor style back/sob stories, and the Deal-or-no-deal style "methods" behind choosing red or black. Last night I just watched the last few minutes to see the dude spin the wheel, and didn't really feel like I was missing anything by not seeing how he got there.

(That said I can't believe he chose red again last night, after 2 reds in a row we were clearly well overdue a black.)

Something that also seems slightly odd to me (having watched the first two shows in their entirety, so not sure if the third continued this theme) but all the "studio" rounds seemed entirely (and needlessly) fixable. If you play a game (DUEL) where you have a big wheel with (covered) coloured segments, why not have a big wheel with coloured segments rather than a computer graphic? Compare playing Deal or no Deal with proper boxes like on TV, and playing any electronic format. It's not as "nice" or "authentic". As the programmer of such a game, I could make the game just as genuinely random by predetermining the entire sequence of reveals (so that no matter what number they pick, I just show the next colour in my predetermined sequence), or pick the colour randomly only after they've announced their number. The end result is the same, but it makes it a bit shit from the player's POV. I'm not suggesting they are fixing it, but they've noticeably used a "look at me, this is truly random" wheel for the last bit, so it seems a bit odd not to maintain that ethos throughout.

Yep agree about the electronic thing, all it has going for it is that it's a bit shinier, but it loses a level of 'authenticity' -when I first saw the final game I thought it was an electronic screen and was a bit "wtf".

I reckon one thing they've really missed out on is the play along at home having the potential to win a prize. They could just make it that one of the people who guesses right all the way to the end will win £1,000, which is peanuts in the grand scheme of things, and boom, your viewer interactivity is suddenly not shit. Admittedly there is an element of trouble because half the show isn't live, but I still reckon there would be potential there.

Not seen this at all, can someone do a quick explain?

Sounds like start with x of people who get whittled down to 1 through a series of 50/50 physical challenges or pure luck games who then has to choose red or black on a roulette style wheel to win a prize?

Matt Morrison wrote:Not seen this at all, can someone do a quick explain?

Sounds like start with x of people who get whittled down to 1 through a series of 50/50 physical challenges or pure luck games who then has to choose red or black on a roulette style wheel to win a prize?

Close enough. The whittling down is basically You Bet style, although sometimes it's an entirely free choice (the first thing was two motorcyclists (one red, one black) trying to do harder and harder jumps, sudden death style, with the winner the winning 'colour' and all those who picked him go through), whilst others it's controlled (such as picking a fortune cookie of which only a certain number are the winning colour).

Later on they get to choose in order but are forced to be halved, so e.g. with 8 people left only 4 could pick red and 4 black when Leona Lewis sang a song. I wasn't paying that much attention but I thought "is Loena Lewis red or black?" was a bit of a joke round.

Cool. So how many start? And what does the one person left get to win? Is it a million pounders?

Matt Morrison wrote:Cool. So how many start? And what does the one person left get to win? Is it a million pounders?

1,000 to start with, apparently whittled down from an initial 100,000 applicants or something. And yeah, if you're the final one you get a 50/50 shot at £1m, so pretty good expectation as gameshows go, but still utter shite.

And they've done three shows so far with no winners?

Matt Morrison wrote:And they've done three shows so far with no winners?

Dunno how many shows they've done but the guy on the first show won

Jon Corby wrote: (That said I can't believe he chose red again last night, after 2 reds in a row we were clearly well overdue a black.)

This is ridiculous. Red is hot right now. You don't mess with a streak.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:And they've done three shows so far with no winners?

Dunno how many shows they've done but the guy on the first show won

The guy in the news presumably (turned out he was a baddie).

Oh yeah, I noticed this on the front page of all the "newspapers"... he hits his wife, TAKE THE MONEY AWAY FROM HIM!

The whole thing sounds retarded.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon Corby wrote: (That said I can't believe he chose red again last night, after 2 reds in a row we were clearly well overdue a black.)

This is ridiculous. Red is hot right now. You don't mess with a streak.

The chances of getting 3 reds in a row is 1 in 8, black was clearly the sensible bet according to the rules of probability.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Matt Morrison wrote:And they've done three shows so far with no winners?

Dunno how many shows they've done but the guy on the first show won

There's been three so far, which have resulted in Win, Win, Lose.

Jon Corby wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon Corby wrote: (That said I can't believe he chose red again last night, after 2 reds in a row we were clearly well overdue a black.)

This is ridiculous. Red is hot right now. You don't mess with a streak.

The chances of getting 3 reds in a row is 1 in 8, black was clearly the sensible bet according to the rules of probability.

If the wheel is unbiased, then after any number of reds, the chance of a red is still 1 in 2, as it has no memory built in - on the other hand getting two in succession makes it slightly more likely that it's biased in favour of red - so stick with red!

Yeah it's really just like saying a if you toss a coin and get heads twice, the coin becomes biased towards tails. The probability will always be 0.5 red 0.5 black as each spin is a distinct event.

You guys are mad. If red comes two days in a row, there's no way I'm going for red again... it's just so unlikely!

Jon O'Neill wrote:You guys are mad. If red comes two days in a row, there's no way I'm going for red again... it's just so unlikely!

You do have to remember this is only true if we believe the wheel to be fair from the outset; if we don't know this and we keep seeing reds, we can deduce that the wheel is balanced in favour of spinning red and therefore should always bet red. However, if we believe the wheel to be truly fair (which seems sensible as Ant & Dec can't run the risk of people doing a Derren Brown and working out the system, it would cost them a fortune), black clearly becomes more likely with each successive red that comes out.

Matt Morrison wrote:I hope this doesn't make ITV bankrupt.

Larsonesque!

Bring back Heads or Tails !!

Jon O'Neill wrote:The whole thing sounds retarded.

Precisely this

Jon Corby wrote:

Jon O'Neill wrote:You guys are mad. If red comes two days in a row, there's no way I'm going for red again... it's just so unlikely!

You do have to remember this is only true if we believe the wheel to be fair from the outset; if we don't know this and we keep seeing reds, we can deduce that the wheel is balanced in favour of spinning red and therefore should always bet red. However, if we believe the wheel to be truly fair (which seems sensible as Ant & Dec can't run the risk of people doing a Derren Brown and working out the system, it would cost them a fortune), black clearly becomes more likely with each successive red that comes out.

But we need to know how unfair it is. If it has a 90% chance of coming up red, then there is still less than 50% chance of getting seven in a row. So after six reds, always go for black! I love probability.

Gavin Chipper wrote:But we need to know how unfair it is. If it has a 90% chance of coming up red, then there is still less than 50% chance of getting seven in a row. So after six reds, always go for black! I love probability.

It seems we're not the only ones who were onto this; Ant & Dec released a statement earlier today stating that they were getting to the studios early before the show and running a load of dummy spins of the wheel in secret, so that people couldn't accurately collate all the stats to improve their chances of winning. I knew they'd have it covered somehow - they haven't made millions by being a couple of silly little Geordie imps.

Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you idiots? If someone gave you the sequence Red, Red, Red and asked you to guess what's next, would you say Black? I don't have a calculator to hand but the chance of the next one being Red must be in the region of 7/8 (92%), assuming Bayesian sub-sampling.

Let's not forget conditioning. If you fall asleep then wake up during red or black I'm fairly sure chances of red are 2/3.

Dinos Sfyris wrote:Let's not forget conditioning. If you fall asleep then wake up during red or black I'm fairly sure chances of red are 2/3.

Wait, that means you get two votes.

Anyway, isn't this show basically a rip-off of Tim Vine's Fluke, but much less funny and with an absurdly large prize?