Today's Review: Red Or Black?

I must confess I got a bit suckered into this one. The ads didn't look too bad, with daredevil motorcyclists jumping over ramps and shit, all the fireworks and deep announcer voices. "Red Or Black?" looked pretty awesome.

I've been watching old game shows on Challenge the past few days, and have been reminded of such classics as Family Fortunes, Catchphrase, Crystal Maze and The Generation Game. Those were all awesome shows, and at least relied on some skill on the part of the player, not so much in Family Fortunes, but definitely in The Crystal Maze. But as I grew up these old shows faded away, and while we still see some things in the form The Cube or Hole In The Wall, there's nothing really that challenging around anymore.

"Red Or Black?" is no different. Following hot on the heels of the inexplicably popular Deal Or No Deal, it's one of those "make a guess and you might win" kind of games. Basically there are a shitload of people, who each have to choose either red or black. Then some event happens involving red or black, and the winner determines the half of the contestants that goes through to the next round. I say half, because although more than half may want to choose the same colour, they're pretty much forced to go half and half throughout.

The show started off quite nicely with the aforementioned daredevil bikers, then we saw David Hasselhoff being launched into the sky by Louis Walsh, because that's just what is classed as entertainment nowadays. All of this had been filmed before today though, so when we finally got to the live part with the few remaining contestants things suddenly got a lot more boring. Especially the bit where Leona Lewis sang a song and then opened a briefcase. Ooh, how dangerous and exciting.

The bit that made me laugh was when the people in the show congratulated people for getting through, saying it has not been easy. It's been pretty easy for them actually, they've just had to stand there and say one of two words throughout the entire process. They're probably the most lazy game show contestants to have ever existed. At least a nice guy got through to the final, and actually won the million pound prize that's up for grabs each evening it's on. He did just have to choose between red and black for one last time though, with the decider this time in the very subtle form of a massive roulette wheel. In fact, Wikipedia states "Simon Cowell said that Red or Black? was inspired by the game of roulette". Well, I could've guessed that, Sherlock. No need to wave it in my face right at the end too.

"Red Or Black" is just boring. Despite the fireworks and stunts going on throughout it's still just a bunch of people standing around saying either "red" or "black" and then crying if they don't get their own way. I can't blame them too much though, a few of them don't seem like the kind of people who know what such alien concepts of "luck" and "statistics" are.

My rating: 1/5