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One And Six Zeros sees a family of three (in the first episode) – Couple Steve and Stella, with daughter, Laura – given the chance to win a million pounds, and asked questions by comedian Dara O’Briain.
If they get an answer wrong, they lose a zero, so the maximum possible winnings go down to £100,000, and then £10,000 and so on. Get all seven answers correct, and you win the top prize.
In terms of the difficulty, if they don’t like a question, they get to swap it for another one. However, if you do that, the unit that the million is muliplied by goes from pounds, to 50p, 20p and so on.
Naturally, the opener is easy, as it lists 7 films and then gives the description of Men in Black, so it’s that one. They do get harder though, in terms of requiring more specific knowledge of niche topics. And as it goes on, the team of three goes down to two, and then one.
Annoyingly, this programme does not need to run for an hour. Deal or No Deal was just 30 minutes initially, with the contestant remaining sat in the chair throughout, but when it expanded to 45 and then 60 minutes, there’s a load of inconsequential chit-chat, hugging clasping of hands as they wait for an answer to be revealed, etc. Multiply that ten-fold, here.
That’s where The Chase far excels, as there’s a ton of questions to go through in each programme. Tipping Point isn’t too bad by comparison, but then it’s not meant to be as complex.
However, when there’s an ad break, that’s when this show chooses to drag out confirming the answer to a question… which The Chase occasionally does.
One And Six Zeros is a daytime afternoon gameshow saved for the weekend tea-time, for some reason. Okay, so you’re not going to give away a million pounds on a weekday at 4pm as the audience is much smaller – hence, The 100K Drop, for example.
Now, shouldn’t the last word in the title actually be spelled “Zeroes”?
One And Six Zeros continues on Channel 4 next Sunday at 6pm, and after broadcast, each episode is on All 4.
It’s unlikely to ever be released on Blu-ray or DVD. Oddly, no trailer is online.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.