The British are Better Than Us: “The Weakest Link”
We started our “The British are Better Than Us” series with The Weakest Link, but I want to revisit it. The show’s still on to this day and I’m still a big fan. I see lots of people around here who have complained about it but I can’t grasp why beyond the fact that the host, Anne Robinson, can be mean to contestants. It’s the point of the show and it’s so different than anything else out there that I find it incredibly entertaining. They actually got a minor set adjustment, finally. Some color changing neon was added to the floor, and the British readers can correct me but that has to be the first set change in an incredibly long time, isn’t it? Anyway, enjoy the first segment of an April 2009 episode of The Weakest Link. I’d still love to see this show pop up in America again.
I do like that this game is still going strong in the UK. I am slightly disappointed Anne has toned down, though. I had the utmost respect for the fact she said exactly the type of things we say at home. She wasn’t there to be the contestants’ friends, she was there to enforce rules.
I too enjoyed The Weakest Link, at least initially, but I grew tired of the show when I realized that poor contestants would gang up on the intelligent contestants and vote out the stronger links in order to survive until the final round. If it came back, I would need to see the rules modified to discourage (but not eliminate) such behavior.
What I’d like to see is some sort of two-sided money chain, where if the contestants bank every dollar they possibly can, the maximum amount they can earn from that alone is 75% of the top prize. (Assuming a top prize of $1,000,000, the greatest amount of money that could be banked would be $750,000.)
The remaining 25% would be up for grabs only as a reward, a bounty of sorts, for voting out The Weakest Link. The show already performs statistical analysis of who is the weakest link; why not put that data to use? At the end of each round, if the team votes out either the round’s weakest link, or the game’s weakest link, they get a portion of the bounty. If they do it consistently throughout the game, they earn the full bounty (and the winner doesn’t leave with less than $250,000.) But the opposite is true as well. If the team votes out The Strongest Link (either of the round or the game), that round’s portion of the bounty is deducted from the bank. Ouch! That will teach them to play fair. If the team is filled with conniving backstabbers who don’t want to be sporting about things, hey, they can still win—but they can’t win more than $500,000.
In the event that the voted out team member is both the round’s Weakest Link and the game’s Strongest Link (or vice-versa,) the team would simply receive credit for voting out The Weakest Link and no penalty.
I would also see what I could do about the banking system itself. It always seemed flawed that one bad apple could bank low amounts, thus inhibiting the rest of the team’s potential, especially when you have no time to make an intelligent decision as to whether or not you should bank. I’d like to see one of two changes. (A) Each podium gets a “BANK” button, and it becomes a popular vote. If you want to bank the total, then you hold down the button, and if 50% or more of the team is doing so, the running total will be added to the bank before the next question begins. (B) Each podium has a screen in it, and while the other contestants are taking their turns, the contestant’s podium displays the category or even the first few words of their next question. That way, the contestant has time to think about whether they should bank the money or feel confident about a correct answer.
wow i think i’m in the majority when i say that was INCREDIBLY boring …
I know it’s low-dollar (er.. pound), but those questions are $100-grade WWTBAM questions .. (“children are taught to tie their … shoelaces or trouser-legs”.. seriously?) .. and after about one episode the whole dark cynical Anne gets really old hat for me. It’s not that I don’t mind a host being mean, but her dryness and coldness just simply isn’t funny to me. The girl who hosts Only Connect has a great air of that British sarcasm and uses it well to put the contestants in their place, but with Anne it’s tired ol’ schtick with these stupid non-sensical one-liners. I hate this freakin’ show, I have no idea why it’s still on out there in the UK (or why GSN continues to air the US version)..
I really enjoy this show, but the version in the UK and the Primetime version here were just slow. I am a huge fan of the syndicated version from the US. The money was just right, the timing was just right, and George Grey was great! In this day and age, the ratings that Weakest Link got in syndication (1.4′s if I remember correctly) would have kept it on the air longer than 1 1/2 years. Plus, Anne Robinson just didn’t translate too well in the US format. There is more commercial time here in the US, and her insults were always rushed. Plus, in the primetime version, the $1,000,000 top prize was a joke. That show was not meant to be a big money game show. The way they do it in the UK is fine.
On another note, haven’t we seen a few episodes posted from the UK version with the computerized displays for voting off contestants and an audience in the background, just like the American set? I remember seeing the all puppet episode (great episode if you have a chance to see it) had those podiums and the audience, IIRC.
The purpose of the easy questions at the beginning are to put them at ease, somewhat. Each show started off with an easy enough 9 questions that they could bank the max. Plus, if you ask someone a simple question, you’ll notice how off they get and confused. Try it. With a straight face, ask someone “Do children tie shoelace or pants legs together?” and you’ll see confusion.
I have the same problem with the end of the game being a “I have to play mediocre in order to not get voting the eff out” situation. I think the simplest way to prevent that is to declare the strongest link immune, tada! Now everyone has incentive to try their hardest, or at least not everyone will throw the penultimate round. Also, make it just the strongest link per round, so you can get the one rare round when a badly performing player did well in that round, so everyone has to decide on a different target, meanwhile the leading player better stay on his a-game otherwise he’s going home.
DXSSI: Woah there, I think the bounty idea is a little too overthought. Also, the whole point of the “bank” mechanic is for the exact purpose of getting people in trouble, making someone the weakest link and ruining it for everyone. It’s not a charity, it’s a game show :)
I am a big fan of the show.The rapid-fire questions with contestants racing against the clock and Anne’s sarcastic humor made the show enjoyable to watch.Too many U.S game shows drag out the time between when a question is asked and an answer is given .Millionaire was a good example of this until this season.I agree that the questions in the US version of Weakest Link were very easy but some contestants still couldn’t even get those simple questions right.They deserved to be insulted for their stupidity.
Regarding Anne’s hosting style,She did a great job on the 1000th U.K episode of Weakest Link.It had a studio audience of previous contestants and Anne played to the audience and acknowleged some audience members by name.She still insulted contestants but did so with a smile.She even laughed ,something she rarely did in the US version.I think if the series were brought back here in the US with Anne hosting in that style,the show might actually have a chance of winning back an audience..I would also eliminate the celebrity editions and the Theme shows .With the economy in bad shape,Game shows with Big money prizes would have no problem finding contestants.I would be in favor of seeing the show revived if they followed these suggestions and other suggestions that have been posted.
I really lost interest in the syndie version once the second season debuted. They just broke the format to within an inch of its life. There was no reason to keep the strongest link in the last vote between the last clock round and the face-off, and it showed. If there was one good player, they were gone. If there were two, the good ones would vote for each other, making the weakest link the decider. Just awful. All because they wanted a six-figure payout. Maybe I’m missing something, but there was nothing to stop them from just changing the stack and raising the goal for each round. So why not $10K-$10K-$20K-$20K-$20K(x2)?
I think my issues when this show came to America was that Anne was actually a little too nice. All of her insults here were somewhat benign and and generic. It felt as if producers were feeding her “approved” insults. It all felt kind of grade school.
Here she’s much more of a interrogator, and I think that makes it strangely addictive. She mocks, she probes, she directly insults them, but its all part of the game that they signed up for.
When NBC got their hands at this show, they threw money at the set, and created a money tree that was guaranteed to give the contestants a disparaging pay out. The audience got a little too rowdy at times (going AHH whenever a name was read). And the celebrity episodes were worse than millionaire’s.
I WILL SAY THOUGH, that the syndicated Weakest Link did seem to get its own sarcastic little mojo going. I thought George Gray was a great host for that show. He had a more cynical, mocking approach. I was sad to see that version go. Oh well. Maybe in a couple years they can try to reboot it here in the states. At least the BBC is keeping it strong.
Any chances for the other parts of this ep?
While I have absolutely no respect for the cruel nature of this show, I will say that the British version tops ours, and that’s mainly because of the contestants. It’s easier to find intelligent people in the UK. Americans in general are idiots. Every time someone would get voted off on our version, it was “ZOMFGBBQ THERE QUSTIONS WERE SO EAZY I HOPE (insert name here) GETS VOTED OFF NEXT THEY WONT WIN NO MONEY W/O MEEE! ! 1 1 1! !1″
I applaud Vanessa for being a good sport about being voted off the show. She chose the high road and came to terms that she was in fact the weakest link. She admitted that she played badly and deserved to leave. The ability to exercise that sort of humility, in my book, is far better than being able to win some trivia contest.
Here’s a fun fact for you guys. The original British version of “The Weakest Link” isn’t the only version of the show that is still around to this day. There are three other versions of TWL that still stick around, and those include the Mexican version, the Isreali version, and the Russian version. If you guys think that any of this is wrong, please let me know.
I think “Weakest Link” was partly caught in the gears at a bad time in the U.S.’ history. It came along in 2000 and then 9/11 happened, in which anything mean-spirited was considered undesirable.
But I think it’s also that middle-of-the-road Americans have a problem with the mean-spiritedness and unfairness of the show. They don’t get the black humor of having a drill sergeant berate contestants and that a smart player can be voted off because he/she is a threat to the more mediocre players. Such individuals are the type to watch the squeaky-clean by comparison “Wheel of Fortune” in droves rather than a harsh British taskmistress.
The Brits have much more tolerance for wit, particularly the witty putdown, as well as shows that genuinely challenge the mind. Americans hate being reminded of how dumb they are, which is why “easy” shows like “The Price Is Right” are still a draw, while venerated contests of academia like “College Bowl” have fallen by the wayside.
It’s no surprise to me that the UK is now the game-show capital of the world, but it never should have been that way. In the 70′s there were more than 25 different game shows on the air, most of them successful by today’s standards. I hope we get that crown back at some point, but it’s going to a take a commitment to producing games that entertain for their sake, not just something with a million-dollar payout.
I’d like to see a 50% decrease in the total bank if the strongest link was voted off
OK from someone who has been a semi-regular viewer since the start – and attended 5 primetime tapings (and know 2 people who have been on it – one of whom was voted off first)
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The set hasn’t really changed since the first programme apart from one to two minor changes
1) The lighting behind the contestants in the very early days used to be a standard spotlight, rather than varilite beam, and the lighting on Anne Robinsons MC podium is now squenced.
2) Also I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a neon oval around the contestants name either.
The voting name screens are only used for the primetime/special versions. The daytime version still has the contestant writing the name of the Weakest Link on the wipe clean board. This is despite both versions of the show being recorded at the same studio at Pinewood Studios (soon to move to the new studios at BBC Scotland), and a black drape covering the audience seating for the daytime version.
Great to read some of you guys also have spotted the flaw with the strongest link being voted off, and some ideas on how to stop it.
I still think the fairest way is for the last person to be voted off in the show to be decided statistically, rather than votes, with the person who answered the most questions wrong throughout the previous 7 rounds to take the walk of shame.
I’ve always kinda wondered why they got the cool looking chain logo, and the US got stuck with its (comparatively) generic looking one.