The Inner Circle

Daytime quiz, a hotchpotch of elements from Golden Balls, Pressure Pad, The Weakest Link and, gawdhelpus, Shafted.

We start with six players, each of whom is assigned a "Secret Stash": £4000, £1000, £500, £100, £50 or £0. They then play four rounds, the winner of which is immune from being vcoted off that round, and favoured with a "power": the first round is for an extra £1000, the second for a peek at someone else's stash, the third for a swap (the winning player can stick with their own box), the fourth to choose who joins the winner in the final.

The first four rounds are chosen from a pool of seven:

Moving in Circles: Three or four possible answers are displayed on the Pressure Pad-style floor display, a question is asked and the players have seven seconds to stand in the section containing the right answer. Why seven seconds? Dunno, maybe someone on the show is a big Youssou N'Dour fan. It's certainly not because it's a sensible length of time, especially if a player has anything less than 100% mobility, and basically as long as a player is clearly on their way to a given segment at the end of seven seconds, they'll be allowed to complete their journey. One point for a correct answer, three if you're the only one who chose it.

Circle of Clues: Three clues are given to a person, place, thing, concept, etc. Players answer on the buzzer for three, two or one point.

Connecting Circles: Six possible answers are shown on the floor display, and each question goes to an assigned pair of players, who have to stand on the two correct answers. A point to each of the pair for one right answer, three if they get both.

Circle Circuit: Questions on the buzzer, the player who gets a question right gets a "random" score from 1 to 6, first to twelve points wins. This is represented as "rolling a dice" (yes, given we're into games, of course we know the singular is die, but apparently nobody on this show does) with the player's coloured dot moving the appropriate number around a circular track.

Sweet Spot (because they couldn't come up with another name that has "circle" in it): Two clues are shown, buzz in to give the answer that fits both.

Vicious Circle: Three concentric circles are shown on the floor display. Each player has a coloured dot which starts in the outer circle. Questions on the buzzer; a correct answer moves the player toward the centre circle. Once they're there, each subsequent right answer allows them to eliminate one other player, last one remaining in is the winner.

Circle of Light (celebrity shows only): A silhouette of a famous person is shown, and teams are given a choice of four possible identities. They answer on their touchscreens.

After each round, there is an extremely tedious process of people bluffing about their stashes and claiming to be great at general knowledge before somebody gets voted off, Weakest Link style. There will no surprises here: anyone with zero or fifty will claim to have loadsamoney (although players can stay a whole week, so if it's early in the week and you're stuck with a low amount, it would make sense to get yourself voted off and hope to be in a stronger position on another day) and everyone will claim to be there to share. It's the same every bleedin' day.

The final starts with the Cashbuilder - one minute of questions, one player keeps receiving questions until they get one right, then it switches to the other player. £100 for each correct answer, which in practice means you're going to add £300 on a bad day, £700 on a good one, a grand once in a blue moon.

And finally, a very dull, very protracted Prisoner's Dilemma endgame, Split or Shaft?, in which every possible outcome is an anticlimax.

Reaction to The Inner Circle has been overwhelmingly negative, and with good reason. Let's consider a few of its flaws.

Many reviewers compared the show to Golden Balls. There are certainly similarities to that show, but The Inner Circle, with its fixed stashes, reduces Golden Balls' variables to constants - and realistically there just aren't a lot of different ways of playing the game, leading to a dreary predictability. Perhaps one thing we could say in TIC's favour is that Golden Balls gave a quarter of its running time over to Bin or Win, a game of pure fluke. At least The Inner Circle doesn't do that.

The "figure out where the money is" element doesn't work anywhere near as well as on Chase the Case. The viewers have all the information, so there's no game for us - while the players have pitifully little information, so there's hardly any game for them either. The whole thing of "pick me because I'll be good in the cashbuilder" is idiotic - you're basically getting four to seven hundred quid in that round no matter what, so it doesn't make up for losing one of the bigger amounts from the game. Maybe if you had Control and you were sure your opponents had £0 and £50 then it might make sense to try to pick the one with better general knowledge, but otherwise it's a bit of a red herring.

The quiz rounds... well, they're alright. They do feel a bit stingy though - it's the only bit viewers can play along with, so pick up the pace and give us more questions in each round. Also, if you're going to name your games with "Circle" idioms, follow it through for all of them. "Sweet Spot" indeed.

Amanda: Which chemical element has the same name as the Lone Ranger's horse?
Contestant: Tontonium.