“The Bank Job” Returns This Friday, February 16th, with Updated Format
Channel 4′s live quiz show The Bank Job is already coming back for a second series. The first series aired as a six episode strip across one week. It culminated in a Prisoner’s Dilema game where two contestants shafted each other out of close to £500,000, awarding the prize to three runners-up, on January 7th. The new series will begin on February 16th, Friday, on Channel 4, and will run each Friday and Saturday live. The format has been updated. The Prisoner’s Dilema end game and the tournament format will not return.
On each show the winner, that being the one who leaves the vault with the most cash without getting “locked in,” will keep all the money they won that day and return on the next episode of The Bank Job. Hundreds of thousands of pounds could be won if the player can keep coming back and winning. George Lamb returns to host the show from inside a real bank vault in London.
I’m very curious to see what changes they ended up making. It wasn’t a bad show, but it had a large list of problems: they couldn’t sort out the clock, they had constant computer problems, the end game seemed tacked on, they didn’t carry the “Bank Job” vibe as well as they could, George had some big problems, etc. The Bank Job‘s sister show The Million Pound Drop sorted out its problems very quickly. Hopefully The Bank Job can as well. We’ll cover the show more as it debuts and more information is released.
This could become tremendously exciting if someone goes on a Jennings-esque tear through night after night, winning huge sums of money. The luck element of the format renders this unlikely, though.
Personally, I thought the Prisoner’s Dilemma game at the end of Season 1 was unfair, because you were relying upon a complete stranger to give you the money. And as we all saw, the Greed factor kicked in, and both winners ended up being losers.
I think the tournament format worked well. I’m not sure how well the show will perform as a series of standalone weekly episodes. At least with The Million Pound Drop, each episode, there’s another 1 Million Pounds up for grabs. But with The Bank Job, we often saw wins of less than 100,000 per episode, which is why the jackpot amount ended up being so low at the end. It had the potential to be 3,000,000, but the final jackpot amount was less than 500,000.
I hope it doesn’t run into the same problem as Duel did, which brought in millions of viewers due to the initial tournament format, but then saw ratings slide in Season 2 as ABC chose to go with standalone weekly episodes instead.
I think the slide in ratings had more to do with being stuck in the Friday night death slot. . . .
ABC does have a tendency to air game shows at the worst possible times…
I may be the only person on this board who liked the Hawk-Chicken twist, as I found myself rooting for Oonagh from very early on and, it seemed from the shot choices, the producers were, as well.
While the timer (with its constant stoppage and different length questions) made it more faithful to the online format, a constant timer could help smooth things out and make things more exciting. For the heads-up round, a Grand Slam-like timer could really get the heart racing.
I think there were some major flaws that could be easily fixed. Being able to finish a question when the timer sounds is idiotic. It should be like the online game – if the timer hits zero, too bad, you’re locked in (even if you haven’t seen the question/answers yet).
Prisoner’s dilemma seemed bolted on… I would have rather seen a face off like the final round of How Much Is Enough? – let them watch the money rise to the maximum value and decide when to leave the other person with nothing. Even just one more heads up round would have been better.
All that said though, I enjoyed the first series, and I love playing the game online. If I can find a way to catch the show here in US I’ll definitely watch again (my source for the first series has gone offline).
Come to think of it, that WOULD have been perfect . . . except that the show guaranteed they’d give away the whole amount.
I just wanted to point out that the date in the title is wrong.
Besides that I am excited about this new bank job. I can not wait to see what will happen.
I thought the new series felt a lot more polished than the previous one. I liked the upgraded game board (though I really think the reveal needs a bit of work), the contestant podiums looked a lot nicer, and it felt a lot less awkward and underwhelming than last series.
Agreed. It’s a nice touch to put the final 2′s winnings from the first 2 rounds into the final vault for them to find. The steals and bankrupts in the earlier rounds put a little twist in things as well.
So did it go to fisticuffs at the end of the first week or not? It seriously looked like it was going to once the cameras switched off – is this why they changed the final? Shame, that was the best bit!!
First, a big thank you to THE BANKERS NEPHEW, who has graced us here in the States with a great sampling of unedited game and panel shows from the UK. I’ve learned a lot. Thank you sir.
Seems our host is still having equipment problems with his (I think) iPad. For some reason, everyone seems a bit off their mark in this one. We’ll see how the series goes.
i agree with dan paschal, thank you the bankers nephew!