Remember when Brooke Burns hosted Dog Eat Dog? It was one of many contest shows where they tried to drag things out for dramatic effect. The Chase does a little of that, but, for the most part, the pace is speedy, due mostly to the timed rounds of questioning.
The Chase pits a 3-person team of strangers against The Beast aka Mark Labbett, a tested and proved British quiz expert.
First, each team member must independently answer questions in a timed round, accumulating money, and then defend his winnings by simultaneously answering multiple choice questions, hoping he gets more right than The Beast does. These rounds are handicapped, but The Beast can sometimes overcome the deficits. Failure to avoid The Beast in this chase results in elimination.
The contestants remaining after the eliminations join forces against The Beast to defend their accumulated monies. First, they must jointly answer as many questions as possible within a 2-minute time period. Then The Beast tries to answer more questions within a 2-minute period. The teams gets a lead of 3 questions if 3 team members survived the elimination rounds (2 if only two survived, etc.)
Part of what makes the game stimulating are the graphic depictions of "the chase" showing The Beast's marker trying to run down the markers of the contestants.
The questions asked are neither too difficult nor too easy. As I said, most of the gameplay has a brisk pace. And Brooke interjects encouraging comments and evaluations of the game's progress without slowing the pace too much.
The most welcome surprise was that The Beast, though a tough competitor, is not all business. He has a personality and a playful sense of humor. The previews gave me the impression that facing him would be like facing a stone-faced man without much personality.
Note that it is conceivably possible for one member of the 3-person team to do 90% of the work only to get 1/3 of the final winnings. But in my opinion, that is no worse than Jeopardy!'s format, which often allows a weaker player to beat a much superior player by virtue of the single-question Final Jeopardy round.
I will definitely continue watching The Chase (on GSN).
The Chase pits a 3-person team of strangers against The Beast aka Mark Labbett, a tested and proved British quiz expert.
First, each team member must independently answer questions in a timed round, accumulating money, and then defend his winnings by simultaneously answering multiple choice questions, hoping he gets more right than The Beast does. These rounds are handicapped, but The Beast can sometimes overcome the deficits. Failure to avoid The Beast in this chase results in elimination.
The contestants remaining after the eliminations join forces against The Beast to defend their accumulated monies. First, they must jointly answer as many questions as possible within a 2-minute time period. Then The Beast tries to answer more questions within a 2-minute period. The teams gets a lead of 3 questions if 3 team members survived the elimination rounds (2 if only two survived, etc.)
Part of what makes the game stimulating are the graphic depictions of "the chase" showing The Beast's marker trying to run down the markers of the contestants.
The questions asked are neither too difficult nor too easy. As I said, most of the gameplay has a brisk pace. And Brooke interjects encouraging comments and evaluations of the game's progress without slowing the pace too much.
The most welcome surprise was that The Beast, though a tough competitor, is not all business. He has a personality and a playful sense of humor. The previews gave me the impression that facing him would be like facing a stone-faced man without much personality.
Note that it is conceivably possible for one member of the 3-person team to do 90% of the work only to get 1/3 of the final winnings. But in my opinion, that is no worse than Jeopardy!'s format, which often allows a weaker player to beat a much superior player by virtue of the single-question Final Jeopardy round.
I will definitely continue watching The Chase (on GSN).
