We’re getting ads for it here in Australia, it appears to be another reality show, it looks interesting but they don’t give any details for it. Seeing as most reality shows come from overseas, could you tell me what it’s about?
If it’s not on overseas, could you please post here anyway telling me so?
Thankyou.
Yes, it’s a British show (BBC). Kind of came out of know where as it is scheduled for late afternoon / almost evening. Very, very popular at the moment and has only been on air for a few months. Kind of interesting with a little tactical play towards the end. Surprisingly watch-able format. You can easily get into it.
“You are the weakest link
goodbye”
“Know where” - God help me!
The Game Show Convention Center has reported that a US version is also in the works. For the snotty host role, Richard Hatch (yep, the naked fat guy from “Survivor”) has apparently already been signed.
Um, details please? What is the show about?
Yeah, a snotty host is vital to the game.
Starts off with 8 or 10 people answering general knowledge questions and accumulating money collectively. At the end of each round they each nominate one of the ‘team’ to leave. The one with the most votes from the team mates gets thrown off and then whinges to the camera about how unfair it was.
Same thing is repeated for several rounds until only two remain when they then have a head-to-head for all the accumulated money. Interesting part is the tactical thing towards the end when no one wants the cleverest to make the head-to-head because the other one who makes it is unlikely to beat them. But you don’t know who’s voting for whom should be thrown off (bluff and double bluff).
Best part of it is the host who is pretty offensive to everyone throughout. Sometimes the actual ‘weakest link’ doesn’t get booted off and the host makes all kinds of disparaging observations.
Sounds a little lame but it works pretty well. Much hinges on the host, though.
Yes, it was in the UK - I get the impression it may have just ended a series, as the BBC website doesn’t seem to have much on it. It seems to have been (or still be) a sort of quiz with a very off-putting host. Here is a link that might suggest the mood of it, (although from London Calling’s description, it sounds as though it could have been quite fun to watch.)
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4085511,00.html
Damn - I don’t know how to make that link work. You could look at http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/
and do a search on “weakest link” while I go to hide my head in shame. Sorry.
Not yet, Celyn. It’s on BBC2 in an hour and ten minutes !!
I must disagree with London_Calling. IMHO the host is by far the weakest link.
Thanks London_Calling - I’m afraid I had actually posted my pointless gibberish before seeing that you’d given a full and sensible description, so I do feel I ought to watch it now (the existence of Anne Robinson (and of the TV Licence folks) having deterred me previously. Job application forms can wait! Here comes cultural awareness period.
Hmm. I have seen it now. So it’s basically a not-too-demanding quiz show with the far-from-unique selling point of having a narky, pushy, unlikeable host. It was sort of good for the traditional fun of shouting at the T.V. There was something oddly puerile and unstylish about the nastiness of the host, Anne Robinson, though. (Hey, where’s Thatcher when you actually have a job for her? 
) I suppose the idea is to be the quiz host we love to hate, but somehow it didn’t gel in the right way, if that makes any sense. (But then T.V. quizzes perhaps cannot compete with the SD for nice useless information.)
Bring back Magnus Magnusson, bring back Bamber Gascoigne, grumble, grumble, grumble…
Isn’t he the guy who wins all those World’s Strongest Man contests?
As others have noted in passing, the TV show has a catchphrase. At the end of each round of questions and voting, the quiz host turns to the person who has ben voted off and says “You ARE the weakest link. Goodbye!”. This is said in very curt, dismissive tones, and the person voted off has to do the “walk of shame”, walking past the host in silence and leaving the set.
This phrase has now caught on, and has become a fixed part of office and social life. Any time you want to witheringly dimiss someone, it’s “You ARE the weakest link, goodbye!”.
So what? Well, if you live in the US or OZ and want to be an ultra-smart trendsetter, start using this phrase now and then in a while, when the quiz starts airing, all your friends will be stunned that your catchphrase has been picked up by a major network quiz show.
I think Cleyn has summed it up perfectly:
There was a letter in The Guardian a few weeks ago which said something like, “I must congratulate the BBC on finding a programme format which makes Anne Robinson seem so much more likeable than she is in real life”.
I don’t have much to add really.
Other than that this show is bloody awful.