The wicked witch of the Weakest Link. (The Weakest Link)

Member Name: Holidaying

Product:	The Weakest Link
Date:	06/04/09 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting format for a gameshow.

Disadvantages: The hostess; gets boring.

The Weakest Link is a television game show that is on the BBC. At the moment it is shown on BBC1 on weekday afternoons, at 5:15pm until 6pm.

The host of the show is the very well known Anne Robinson, a former journalist and now television presenter who is known for presenting shows such as Points of View. As far as I can remember, she has always been the host of the Weakest Link.

The show has been running for nearly nine years now and is obviously popular (otherwise why would it still be on?).

The Weakest Link is a quiz show, where ten contestants collaborate to answer questions to build up a prize fund but also compete to be the winner of that fund. This concept works because Anne Robinson asks questions to the contestants, who are awarded increasing amounts of money for every question that is answered correctly, until someone says 'bank', when the amounts awarded go back to the bottom of the scale, but the amount that had been built up goes in to the prize fund. Also, if someone gets a question wrong then any money built up that had not been banked is taken away, and the next contestant has to start building it up from zero again.

Each round lasts for a couple of minutes and at the end of the round the contestants have to vote for who they think is the weakest link. We are told who this is statistically and it is calculated by the number of questions that everyone got wrong, and the number of times the contestants failed to bank when they could have.

The person with the most votes, not the person who is statistically the weakest link, gets voted off. Often it seems that the contestants do not choose the person who is statistically the weakest link, but perhaps someone who made a memorable mistake by getting an easy question wrong.

The show continues in this format until two players are left. At the stage the players have five questions to answer and whoever gets the most correct becomes the winner and goes home with whatever has been put in to the prize fund.

I like the format of the show. I think it is interesting that the players have to work together to make money but are competing at the same time. Sometimes I think tactical voting goes on, whereby people will vote off who they think is most likely to win in the hope that they will have more chance of winning. This annoys me but in such a gameshow I suppose it is human nature.

I think that with ten contestants and therefore eight rounds plus the final the show does get boring and seems to go on for a long time, because it is the same thing over and over again.

The questions vary greatly in difficulty with some of them being answerable by a two year old and others needing a scientific genius to figure out. I think this is silly and it would be better if the questions got harder as the contestants got eliminated in each round.

At the start of the show and punctuating the rounds is Anne Robinson with her nasty remarks about people. At the start of the show I thought they were quite mild but as the show has gone on they have got more offensive and I think they are often really mean. I don't see why this is needed in the show and it does make her out to be a real witch!

Whenever a contestant is voted off, Anne says 'You are the weakest link, goodbye'. This is said very coldly and I think is a fair part of the show.

The prize fund can be anything from about one thousand pounds to ten and I think this is a lot of money for contestants to win, so from the perspective of someone who is looking to win some money I think this gameshow would be a good choice.

Overall I like watching the show but I will only ever watch part of it because it goes on for too long and I cannot stand the wicked witch!

Summary: The Weakest Link.