The Weakest Link
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Image:Bscap312.jpg The Weakest Link (now officially titled Weakest Link) is a television game show which first appeared in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 14 August 2000. It was devised by doctor and situation comedy writer Fintan Coyle and the comedian Cathy Dunning, and developed for television by the BBC Entertainment department. It has since been replicated around the world. It may also be called a "reality game show" because of competition similar to present-day reality shows.
Contents |
Format
Overview
The original format featured a team of nine contestants who take turns answering general knowledge questions. The object of each round is to answer a chain of consecutive correct answers to earn an increasing amount for a single communal pot of up to a thousand pounds ($125,000 in the U.S. show). However, just one incorrect answer wipes out any money earned in that chain. Before their question is asked, a contestant may say "bank" and the money earned thus far is safely stored and a new chain is initiated from scratch.
Banking money is the safe option, however not banking, in anticipation that one will be able to correctly answer the upcoming question, allows the money to grow as each successive correct answer earns proportionally more money.
When the allotted time for each round ends, any money not banked is lost, and if the host is in the middle of asking a question, or has asked a question but the contestant has yet to answer, the question is abandoned.
Detail
Voting
At the end of each round, contestants must vote off one player whom they consider to be "The Weakest Link": the one they believe wasted the most time, failed to bank judiciously or gave too many wrong answers. Until the beginning of the next round, only the television audience knows (via an announcer's narration) exactly who the "strongest link" and "weakest link" are statistically. While the contestants work as a team, they are encouraged at this point to be ruthless to each other. Voting presents somewhat of a tactical challenge for canny players seeking to maximise their chances of winning, and maximising the payoffs if they do. Voting off weaker players is likely to increase the payoff for the winner, but stronger players may be more difficult to beat in a playoff.
Strategies
Some players may consider incorrectly answering some questions so as not to appear so much of a threat — however, such a strategy is risky. One study suggested that the optimal percentage of questions to answer correctly is 60%. If you do worse, you risk being voted off for being too weak; if you do better, you are perceived as a threat in the final showdown. Mathematical analysis of the expected payoffs provided by various banking strategies suggest that the optimum strategies are to either attempt to go for the highest payoff, or bank after every question. Few teams adopt either — most choose to bank after three or four questions.
Final
At the end of the show, only two contestants remain for a final showdown. Only the winner leaves with the accumulated prize money — everyone else leaves with nothing. In special "celebrity editions," however, the losers leave with only a minimal sum of money donated in his/her name to his/her charity.
Success
Part of the show's success was due to the presenter, Anne Robinson. Already well-known in the UK for her sarcastic tone while presenting the BBC's consumer programme Watchdog, she found here a new outlet in her taunts to the contestants. Her sardonic summary to the "team", usually berating them for their lack of intelligence for not achieving the target, became a trademark of the show, and her call of "You are the weakest link — goodbye!" quickly became a catchphrase. (Originally, the devisors suggested the equally acerbic Jeremy Paxman, host of University Challenge.) The voice-over in the UK version is by Jon Briggs.
With elements inspired by Big Brother and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, the show differed from virtually all games shows before it by inviting open conflict between players, and using a host who is openly hostile to the competitors rather than a positive figure (though this feature of the show tends to be played for laughs, especially in the prime time version, where there is a studio audience for Robinson — and the contestants — to play to). Heavily criticised by the television press in some countries for its Hobbesian overtones, the show has nevertheless been a ratings success in most countries.
International versions
Image:AFRICA3.JPG Image:Weakest link countries.PNG Internationally, the show has taken off airing in at least over 80 countries world-wide, some with red haired, female presenters, some without, and some even with male presenters such as the US syndicated edition as mentioned below. Others include the Irish version hosted by Eamon Dunphy, the Italian version presented by Enrico Papi, the Chilean version (broadcast on Canal 13) hosted by local actress Catalina Pulido, the South African (broadcast on SABC3) with Fiona Coyne, the Polish version with Kazimiera Szczuka on TVN, the Filipino version with Edu Manzano, the Hong Kong version hosted by Dodo Cheng,the Japan version with Shiro Ito and the Australian version hosted by Cornelia Frances broadcast on Seven Network. The version in Mexico, El Rival Mas Débil, has been a success for two years and still running with her host Montserrat Ontiveros. The version in Norway was aired by the state-owned NRK, but did with Anne Grosvold as presenter only survive one season.
There are also other (confirmed) versions from Belgium, China, Taiwan, the Middle East (particularly Lebanon), Israel, Czech Republc, Greece, Finland, France, Denmark, Hungary, Moldova, Russia, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the Ukraine, India, Brazil, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, and Denmark.
American version
The American version of Weakest Link (without the "the" in the title) premiered in April 2001 on NBC, with Anne Robinson hosting. In this version, there was a team of eight contestants vying for a cash pot of up to one million dollars. Earning respectable ratings, even topping Who Wants To Be A Millionaire a few times, the show had garnered itself a place on the 2001-02 fall schedule. After the 9/11 attacks, the ratings went down. People were not interested in reality shows or game shows (at least until American Idol came out). The episodes now featured celebrities, rather than ordinary people. There were a few episodes with ordinary people in between, but they usually had themes (such as Halloween costumes, Christmas costumes, or contestants that looked like Anne Robinson). It got worse as the episodes were beginning to be pre-empted for NBA playoff games. The ratings continued to sink and the show was cancelled. The show aired its last episode in July 2002. It is still questionable if NBC had done this on purpose to get the show out of its lineup. A set of unaired episodes were shown later that year on the PAX Network. The last set of taped episodes remained unaired until the show ended up on the GSN schedule in 2003.
A syndicated version ran from January 2002 through September 2003 (it too ran only two seasons). It was hosted by George Gray. In this version there was a team of only six contestants. In the first syndicated season, the maximum pot was $75,000 and there were five rounds, while increasing to $100,000 (and the rounds decreased to only four all with a $25,000 top prize) in the final syndicated season. In contrast to Robinson's "dominatrix" tone, Gray was more playful and humorous to the contestants. GSN began airing the syndicated version in January 2006.
Both U.S. versions were produced by The Gurin Company, BBC Worldwide and NBC Studios.
Australia
Image:Australiarivaltripod.jpg An Australian version premiered in February 2001, on Seven Network. Presented by Cornelia Frances, the show featured 9 contestants vying for $100 000. It aired twice weekly in primetime. At the beginning, the show received a lot of feedback from angry people, complaining how rude Cornelia was, some even saying she was worse than Anne Robinson. After toning the show down, it continued to receive modest ratings until its cancellation in April 2002. There was even a special version where it was linked with the Mole where the Mole contestants were part of the show. In this episode, Bob Young won the playoff over Thao Nguyen and became the winner of this episode, where the prize was a free pass to the next episode on the Mole (aka immunity) and all money won went to the kitty. According to Cornelia Frances, they won $13400, the lowest amount won in any Australian episode of the Weakest Link. However, Grant Bowler, the host of the Mole rounded up to $14000 since all kitties of the Mole have been rounded by $1000.
Hong Kong
Image:Hkep63welcomenewhkwlwl.jpg The Hong Kong version of the show was licensed and started quickly by TVB, after rival ATV took the lion's share of ratings with the Chinese version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Per the licensing agreement, Carol "Dodo" Cheng initially had to act just like Anne Robinson — complete with the same style of voice and facial expression. Since Chinese culture typically does not value this kind of attitude toward people, TVB received complaints about the show. Bowing to public pressure, the broadcaster changed the style of the show, softening Carol Cheng's "character". As a result, ratings went up.
Philippines
Image:Wl phil.jpg The Philippine version of the show is produced by Viva Entertainment and ECM Productions. The show premiered on September 2001 on IBC 13 as a follow-up to the success of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in the country. It was initially hosted by actor/former politician Edu Manzano. Known for his villainy roles and serious acting styles, Manzano made a good and fitting host of the show (contributing to its popularity). He was later replaced by comedian/singer Allan K. His humorous hosting stint (along with the fire that razed the original studio the show was taped) led its show to its demise on October 2002.Image:Weakest Link.jpg
The show followed the eight-player primetime format with the money tree as follows: P1,000, P2,000, P5,000, P10,000, P20,000, P50,000, P80,000, P125,000. If the highest amount was banked successfully in all seven rounds, the highest amount possible would be a million Philippine pesos.
Mexico
Image:Foto2003.jpg The Mexican version of the Weakest Link, or El Rival Más Débil in Spanish, airs on the Mexican network TV Azteca. It is a success along with its hostess, Montserrat Ontiveros. Eight contestants have a chance to win $200,000 Mexican pesos, with a money tree of $500, $1,000, $2,000, $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, $25,000. As of 2006, the show continues with more than 100 episodes.
http://elrivalmasdebil.tripod.com [1]
Germany
Image:Germany.jpg In German, The Weakest Link would be Das schwächste Glied, but this could also be read as The Weakest Member (in a sexual sense). Probably that's why the show was called Der Schwächste Fliegt!, which rhymes to Das schwächste Glied, but means The Weakest Gets Booted (literally The Weakest Flies). March 2001, saw the appearance of the first non-English version in Germany. The show premiered weekdays at 3pm, hosted by Sonja Zietlow (who was already known for her tough-talking styles on her self-titled talk show from prior years). Just like the British version, the show pitted nine contestants against each other for a pot of DM 50,000. But by September of that year, the show was sinking fast in ratings, so in order to gain ratings, Sonja became much nicer to contestants. This did not help the show very much, and it was cancelled in December. However, in February 2002, the show was given one last shot in the latenight Saturday slot, this time with a newly revamped studio, that now featured an audience, and a higher prize of €50,000 euros, (100 000 Marks). It has been said though, that after the first few episodes, actors were paid to be contestants on the show, in order to make the show better. But whatever the reason, it did not bring in the much-needed ratings, and was cancelled one final time in March.
Hungary
Image:Matekriszta1.jpg In Hungary the show debuted on August 12, 2001 at 7 pm on TV2 under the name of Nincs Kegyelem - A Leggyengébb Láncszem (which means No Mercy - The Weakest Link) and was aired three times a week, on Monday, Tuesday Thursday respectively, with a maximum prize of 3 million forints (approx. 12000$ at that time). It was hosted by Krisztina Máté, a News at Night presenter, who took a very extreme turn with accepting this new role. She was probably chosen because of the similarities between her and her American counterpart. The whole show instantly became the most controversial program on TV that time, but couldn't profited with the sudden attention, because of the rude style and manner that the whole game-play was built upon, it shocked people and the hostess' reputation quickly changed into irritating and arrogant. Another wrong decision of TV2 was modifying the airing time to compete with the famous other quiz show shown on the rival channel (namely the Millionaire and its host István Vágó who is often refered as the "Quiz Professor"). The popularity of Weakest Link began to fade, and so the management decreased the number of players from 8 to 5, but it didn't help, and finally the show was cancelled on May, 2002. Though she have returned to News Krisztina Máté's name had been identified with the program and its tactless and cruel quizwoman for years.
Poland
The show is aired in Poland as well, 4 days a week (Monday-Thursday) at 8:10 PM on TVN channel. Najsłabsze ogniwo includes eight contestants and Kazimiera Szczuka as the host. Eight participants have to use their wits and nerve to win 27,000 złoty. The cain goes with 3,000 as the target, then 2,400, 1,800, 1,300, 900, 6000, 300, and 100 złoty. Polish website of the programme About the host
New Zealand
The show was produced by the TV3 network in New Zealand in 2001 and hosted by Louise Wallace. She was a blond-haired news anchor who specially dyed her hair Robinson-red for the host part.
Singapore
The show was first produced by MediaCorp in 2002 in its Chinese version hosted by Taiwanese host Cui Lixin. A similar English season was also produced by the TV station and hosted by Asha Gill from 2002-2003.
Thailand
A Thai version of The Weakest Link, known locally as Kamchad Jud Orn , was aired on the Thai Channel 3 from February 2002 to February 2003. It was hosted by Krittika Kongsompong. It follows the eight-person format.
This version was criticized even by the Thai government because it was said to promote traits that are "unbecoming and contradictory to Thai culture and morality," even to the point that it would be monitored. Like the Hong Kong version, the show somehow toned down.
Trivia
- Anne Robinson appears as the voice of the "Anne-Droid" in the Doctor Who episode Bad Wolf, which hosts a version of the show in the year 200,100 that has deadly consequences for its contestants if they are eliminated.
- Recently there has been a pantomime special in which pantomime actors were questioned, and amongst others, Basil Brush.
External links
- Official site for the BBC version of the show
- South African version on SABC3
- Mexican version on Tv Azteca
- French version on TF1
- Polish version on TVN
- Photos and videos of wl
- Photos of German version
- El rival más débil y Montserrat Ontiveros
- Weakest Link Philippines Unofficial website of the Philippine version with photos and video clips
- Official site for Paul Farrer - composer of the music for each show
- UK Gameshows Page: The Weakest Link
- Australian Game Show Homepage: The Weakest Link
- Strongest Strategies for The Weakest Link
- Personal account from a past contestant including a video and photosde:Der Schwächste fliegt
fr:Le Maillon faible he:החוליה החלשה nl:De zwakste schakel ja:ウィーケストリンク☆一人勝ちの法則 pl:Najsłabsze ogniwo fi:Heikoin lenkki zh:一筆OUT消