The British are Better Than Us: “Countdown”
Next up on our regular series The British are Better Than Us is my personal favorite British game show, Countdown. Countdown is a long running game facing two contestants against each other in a game of spelling and math. If you’ve played Text Twist, you basically know the spelling portion. In the math game, contestants are given six sets of numbers (either small numbers 1-10 or big numbers 25, 50, 75, or 100) and have to only add, subtract, multiply, or divide them to reach the randomly assigned target number, using each of the sets of numbers only once. I know we’ve talked about Only Connect being probably the smartest show on television, anywhere, but Countdown beats any other show for the sheer play-along factor. It’s impossible not to play along when watching. But it definitely gives a vibe of playability for anyone. Again, this is one of those formats I have no idea why someone hasn’t tried it in America in some shape or form. The only thing I can think of, as usual, is that some producers believe Americans aren’t smart enough for something like this. How do we feel about the format? Enjoy it?
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On an average episode of Countdown in the UK, there is a LOT of downtime talking to the special guest at the dictionary or random comments from the host. I’m not going to say this is a bad thing. The show is, on the whole, at a fairly relaxed pace (30 seconds of watching people write on paper? Noooo….), and many games are decided well before the final Conundrum (9-letter anagram, which is probably the only portion of the show with any excitement). It almost feels sometimes like a talk show where they seem to have thrown in a game for good measure. I don’t know how US folks would take the pacing of the show, honestly.
It is a lot of fun to play along, that’s for sure. I’d be curious as to how well the average viewer here in the US would do on the math(s) portion.
Attempting to jazz it up with special scoring or whatever would probably just kill what makes it fun.
Speaking of playing along, Countdown is one of the games available for play on http://www.wedigtv.com along with Family Fortunes (aka Feud), Millionaire, and one of the more interesting UK game shows, Bullseye (no relation to the US game show, Bullseye).
I love watching the show, but this clip really illustrates why it’s not an easy translate. I know it’s Jeff/Rachel’s first open in the clip, but I sat through the 4.5 minute clip waiting for gameplay, and didn’t ever get it.
When I download the show through the magic of the internet, I always end up fast forwarding right to the start of each round’s clock. Really, if they picked up the pacing and did away with some of the old-fashionedness of it, it’d probably have a shot in the States. Any comparison to Wheel of Fortune would pretty much kill it, and that includes the letter placer.
I’ve always loved this format, and would love to see it over here, but I’ve always clustered Countdown in among my list of excellent British game shows that wouldn’t make in in the States, on account of being too “highbrow.” I’ve been asked to give my definition of “highbrow” in this sense before but never really expressed it correctly, but Paul pretty much summed up what I’ve never been able to say. It’s a game show, but it’s a very casual, talkative game show. It’s not high stakes billion-dollar flashing-lights-of-doom exciting, but it’s fun, it’s intelligent, and it’s easy to play along with, though hard to master.
I love Countdown, but I think most Americans would probably disagree with me. I love the fact that there’s plenty of interaction among the people on the show, but this does slow the show down for most viewers.
That and the fact that most people hate math.
But I love the fact that this is for no money at all – the winner gets a teapot, and everyone gets a goody bag. That’s it. Very Olympic if you ask me.
I think this whole series just demonstrates how different you are from the American mainstream, Alex. British game shows to me are a bit too chatty, a bit too difficult, WAY too cheap and not terribly exciting. This, 15 to 1 and 100% should only be played at 1:00 am as a public service to insomniacs.
OK, this is getting a bit much.
You do know you can tweak a show and keep it the same, just a bit more exciting? You do know you can cut a majority of the inane and never ending talking, right? You do know you can replace points with dollars, right? You do know you can mix up a format that hardly anyone in America has seen, and people may accept it?
In its current form, no, most likely it won’t work. Trust me, I’m more in the American mainstream with shows than probably most of the people here. But there are ways to “adapt” these formats into different shows, tweak them, and make it work. Not that hard to do. I go out and pitch shows and work on shows. I’m around producers and executives constantly. I think I have a greater understanding of what the majority of Americans want than many here. Would I go after people with the show as it is now? Not a chance; I’d be laughed out of the room. But it’s incredibly adaptable.
Here’s a fun fact. Countdown was invented in France as Des Chiffres et Des Lettres. It was created by the late Armand Jammot (1922-1998) in 1965. It wasn’t until 1972 when it came to French television. In 1982, the Brits had their own version of the game. In fact, it was the very first game show (and program overall) to air on Channel 4. There is also a version in Spain and South Africa. The South African version ended its run after ten years in 2008. It would be interesting if Countdown had a version in the states. Same as Fifteen-to-One. I wonder if the show is going to be renewed becuase Countdown is renewed up to this year. You never know.
I don’t get why Jumble + arithmetic = “highbrow”. It’s just Scrabble with a couple of extra letters, right?
The reason for the slow pacing is that Channel 4 expaned its slot to 45 minutes when it was really only ever a 30 minute game. However, quite a lot of its viewers used to like the chatty bits, often sending in letters to the host which he’d read out at the start. There’s no reason why you couldn’t fit a full game into a commercial US half hour, and in fact the “bitty” nature of the format makes it ideal for advertisement placing.
First, I like their new set. Not sure about the new host, but we’ll see.
I’ve always wanted to see a “Countdown” here in the states. Unlike “Only Connect,” however, “Countdown” can’t be ‘dumbed down’ at all. It’s a format that derives its gameplay purely from the intelligence of its contestants. And I, for one, like that. As Alex wrote, it could do well to have adaptation to have a greater appeal – use dollars instead of points, for example. I wouldn’t be surprised if an American audience wouldn’t prefer a digital clock, as well :)
I heard they did pilot countdown sometime in the 1980s for US but networks thought it was too “brainy” and so they passed on it.
actually there are ways you can dumb down countdown at least in the numebrs game, for isntance, the big numbers could be 20, 30, 40 & 50 and/or the target can only go as high as 500.
if PBS still shows the world geographic bee and that’s not too smart there’s no reason they couldn’t give us a version of this, or in fact get re-run rights to the uk series. I can’t imagine it being all that much.
and fyi, if you think the pacing is slow on this version watch a ep.of Des Chiffres et des lettres, PAINFULLY slow paced but still fun.
Guy: I had actually seen Des Chiffres et Des Lettres before I had seen Countdown. My French was spotty, but I understood the numbers round right away. It was great fun.
Alex: Yes, thank you, we understand you can change a TV show format from its original form and put it on American TV, and it may even be a raging success. Take Coupling, for example.
I kid. Let’s take another view at this. DCeDL/Countdown has been around for over 43 years. In those 43 years, dozens, maybe even scores, of game show formats have come and gone in the US. I think it highly likely that at some point in the interim, Countdown has been pitched (and not in its original form) to someone in the US and died on the table.
If I’m wrong, so be it, but I’m more inclined to believe, as you said, that producers kibosh it as something folks wouldn’t be interested in.
I think, if adapted properly, Countdown or a show like it could work very well in the U.S. Geniunely smart people, or at least those perceived as such (I’m guessing most of the trivia kings/queens can more than hold their own, but not necessarily) can be a big draw; just see Ken Jennings :) I think it would probably work best in daily syndication with an unlimited-wins-allowed format, with Jeopardy-level prize money. I suppose a big-money weekly format could work, but I would hope the unlimited-wins part would be retained.
I’m absolutely fascinated by people’s ideas as to how to translate Countdown for a US audience. All the ones I’ve heard in the past sound amusingly comical.
Don’t be fooled, the way it gets talked about on US-centric sites I get the impression that there are people who think it’s the UK’s most popular gameshow or something – uh-uh, it has a core following and longevity on its side but ratings juggernaut it most certainly isn’t – 1.1m most afternoons. And students and the elderly at that.
I don’t think there would be any problem in having a digital clock for a US show. As far as I know, the large clock is unique to the Brit show. I remember the Spanish one used a representation of a sailboat going along the sea so let your imaginations run wild.
The South African show was pretty entertaining actually, and also fairly unique in that it was played in English and Afrikaans at the same time. There were three piles of letters, presumably one had a distribution more useful to English, one more useful for Afrikaans and who knows about the third.
You could, by the way, fit a “letters, letters, numbers, letters, letters, numbers, conundrum” within a US commercial half hour without too much difficulty I wouldn’t have thought, which would be the same basic format used in the UK’s Celebrity Countdown or in South Africa’s A Word or 2. Or half an old UK Countdown grand final. So why not use that for a starting point?
I don’t think adapting this format would be any more involving than just making the points dollars or just giving you some money for each point you score if you win the game. It’s not necessary to change this at all. The notion, though, that this is too highbrow for Americans. That’s just a nasty attitude that gives us shows like Show Me the Money or Set For Life.
I think if it went in some cheap afternoon format to someone with low expectations like GSN or one of Discovery Channel’s five million different channels, it would be OK. To think that it would be a hit is idiotic. But putting a cheap show like on a channel with low expectations could work easily. It’s worked for a lot of shows in the past.
GSN apparently shot a pilot for a US version of Countdown a while back, but it never made it past the pilot stage. If anyone here is a member on Big Jon’s PC Games forum, you’ll know that I host a netgame version of Countdown, (with a few changes) and I don’t have a problem finding contestants. I think Countdown could work in the US- Cut out the talking and some of the rounds, replace points with cash values, and maybe turn the Conundrum into a bonus round of some sort.
As for “Show Me the Money”–was that a bad concept, bad execution, or both? I would tend more towards the latter than the former. Even “Set for Life” had a pretty good concept (the Guardian Angel), although that was even more abominable. [As an example of bad concept meeting bad execution, I submit "The Chamber."]
I’ve always had an idea of how Countdown would be played if it were shown in the US. Here’s what I came up with:
Game structure: 2 rounds, each consisting of 2 letters and 1 numbers game. At the end of the second letters game in each round, a “Duel” is played. In the Duel, the contestants must either find smaller words within a 9-letter selection accompanied by a clue, or do some kind of mental math. Money is awarded instead of points. They do this on DCeDL.
Payout Structures
Letters Game: $50 for every letter in the word. 9-letter words are worth $900 (double score for getting a 9-letter word, just like the UK version).
Numbers Game: $500 for getting the target number right on the nose; $250 if you’re off by 5, and $100 if you’re off by 10.
Duels: $500 if you buzz in with the correct answer.
These amounts double in the second round.
Bonus Round: The Conundrum round from the UK version becomes the bonus game, albeit wiht a twist. Five conundrums of increasing must be solved within 45 (or 50) seconds. The first word has 5 letters, all the way up to the last one, which has 9. The letters in the words rescramble themselves every 2 seconds. Each correctly solved Conundrum is worth $5,000; getting them all pays $25,000.
Other Stuff:
-The 8 players with the highest winnings return at the end of the season for a $250,000 tournament of champions.
-Dictionary Corner replaced by a hostess with a computer.
-Letter board is digitized via a large screen. Contestants still pick letters, but the hostess’ computer randomly selects them. Same applies to numbers game. Basically, with the computer, the hostess can serve all three secondary functions (DC, numbers / letters games) at once.
-Set can stay as it is. The blue color with the letters and numbers background is awesome.
-Clock becomes digitized as well, via the large screen used for gameplay.
And that’s about it. Thoughts?
Your Conundrum round is basically the “Tournament” bonus (2nd devised) of that old chestnut “Caesar’s Challenge” (and what’s Ahmad Rashad (Bobby Moore) doing now, anyway?), and only gave you 30 seconds to complete. You had to be sharp to win that car.
Thanks to Keith Olberman, “Countdown (USA)” would be retitled “MindGames”, with perhaps the Conundrum renamed the “MindBender” (?) – just a thought…
You can digitize the clock, but you can’t replace the 30-second Countdown music – that is classic stuff and I can see that tune catching on quickly here in the US. Dada-dada-da da da da boom!
I like that name Mike: MindGames, and I could see producers calling the letters round: something like scramble, the numbers game: number crunch and the conundrum: super scramble.
my format would be for kids (I seriosuly think this could work on PBS)
the payoff for the winner is $250 + $25 per point in the difference of the scores (i.e. win 80-60 difference of 20, 20 * 25 + 250 = $750) consolation prize for the losing contestant of $1 per point plus the “goody bag”. octochamps (8-time champs) are retired and win a $2,000 bonus.
challenge of champions played for a grand prize like a trip or a computer and a $2,000 scholarship, a $1,000 scholarship for the runner-up.
I’d use a scoring system similar to the french scoring system which is 1 pt. per letter in the longest word, 9 pts. and a $100 bonus for a 9-letter word. numbers is 9 pts. for hitting the target, 6 pts. for being the closest, the conundrum is worth 10 pts.
lastly, as a host my first choice (I’m ready to duck): Levar Burton, no hostess (the letters and numbers will be posted by computer).
First let me just say WHY IS EVERYONE ABOUT A MILE AWAY FROM EACH OTHER ON THE SET?
Moving on, I think this would work fine on cable, as said before. It could use some sort of in-between round, but if LINGO can get away with just one game, then Countdown could get away with only two. I wouldn’t alter the main rounds at all, because that’s the essence of the game. Computer update would work well, also like LINGO (hell, have Chuck and what’s-her-face host :P). If a computer is used, the bonus/extra rounds could be similar to some flash games where you get a set of letters, and you create a word with some of them. Those used letters disappear while new ones fill in their blanks, and the old letters “age” in some way. Letting a letter stay on for too long invokes a penalty/foul. Could have the same thing with numbers.
I agree with Lex, everyone is too far away from each other on the set. Plus, I also agree that Chuck and Shandi would make a decent team. Chuck has plenty of word game experience, so I’m sure he’d do a respectable job. He has to recover from the disaster that was Freaking Million Dollar Cat Game Show somehow, right?
As far as the theme music goes, I find the current Countdown theme music and think music to be rather boring and flat. The current Countdown music is in dire need of a remix, IMO. I think a remixed version of the 1985 – 1995 Des Chiffres et Des Lettres theme music would work. I find it to be one of the best game show themes ever.
For those of you who are interested in hearing what the ’85 – ’95 DCeDL theme music sounded like, here’s a link for you: http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/Antenne%2B2%2B-%2BDes%2Bchiffres%2Bet%2Bdes%2Blettres/video/xnso7_generique-chiffres-et-des-lettres-a_ads
In my opinion, the format is fine for the game as is. It has something that all shows need to have that play along factor. As for a host maybe Pat Kiernan(No Alex I’m not sucking up.)? or some other Alex trebek type host out there. As for the set a modern look with flat screens and maybe a scrabble-like drop in box on the boards? if your gonna put in syndication or GSN I’d leave the format as is for the season. If you are going to make it a primetime network thing a tournament or a money tree would work best.
Thanks for posting that clip. I used to watch “Countdown” a lot when I lived in the UK, and it’s always interesting to see when it changes.
“Des Chiffres et Des Lettres” – we get that in Canada, though I’m not sure if it’s the original show or a Canadian version. Very similar to “Countdown”, but I think they currently allow 45 seconds on the math rounds as opposed to the latter’s usual 30 seconds.
Rachel Riley’s first episode as hostess. Long-running hostess Carol Vorderman, who was with the show since the beginning 26 years ago, was asked to take a pay cut this season by Channel Four Television, either 33% or 90%, based on what tabloid you believe, and decided to bow out instead. The tabloids have been all over it since, especially after a former producer of the show or someone threw a glassful of wine at Channel Four’s programming director at a resturaunt in protest. Pesky global economy.
The bellhop from Barcelona still looks great after all those years.
Thanks again.
“No one ever became poor under-estimating the intelligence of the American people.” I suppose the converse (contrapositive? I’m so far removed from my logic classes) replacing “poor under-” with “rich over-” might be true as well.
I would _LOVE_ an American game show renaissance where we start seeing more shows that celebrate intelligence, like University Challenge/College Bowl, Countdown, and heck, plenty of quiz game formats from the 70s and 80s. But clearly, the powers that be are under the impression that folks wouldn’t watch those shows. WE would, obviously, but we’re also folks who love game shows, so much so that we’re even willing to spend time commenting on a board devoted to them.
It has been the case recently that prime time game shows = big money game shows. A lot of formats fail when shoehorned into that. So, we’re left with the daytime option, but there you run into the choice of trying to displace some soap opera, Judge Pablum show, or Tyra-fraking-Banks.
The hope, as Alex did point out, is that there’s enough other channels out there doing their own productions that more game shows may become feasible (I’m surprised when I find people that would not otherwise watch other game shows that love Cash Cab). Fingers crossed, of course, so we’ll see.
I would gladly watch a US version, and for me they don’t need to play for cash. And they should use manual tiles instead of digital selection. TPiR uses trilons and eggcrate scoreboards and that works fine.
And I still believe each of the two rounds could have three letters rounds and one numbers round. For those who say the show is too talky, I must reply, weren’t talk shows what usurped game shows in the 1990s? Of course there weren’t that many great game shows created during that time (remember FAMILY SECRETS?). The casual atmosphere might work in its favor. And I’m sure someone like Danica McKellar would be glad to do this.
Anton, a master stroke – Danica McKellar was a math major in college, and would provide star power/curiosity factor…
Still undecided on a host…
Thank you for your compliment. Maybe Danica could host herself. I was also thinking of Cris Franco (from Square One TV).
And if this show seems too much like a talk show, maybe I should point out that the classic panel game shows (WHAT’S MY LINE?, TO TELL THE TRUTH, I’VE GOT A SECRET) were like that, focusing on interesting guests.