Wisdom Of The Crowd shows that BBC1 has a Casualty-shaped hole in their schedules, and after an overlong and complex introduction as to how the title came about – which I won’t bore you with – John Bishop returns to BBC1 weekend evenings since his stint ended on Doctor Who
For each contestant who comes on – sauntering along with a ‘dad dance’, or the female equivalent – they have to be more accurate than the average answer of both the 200 people in the audience, and the 1800 they’ve asked while out and about, so this resembles Family Fortunes, where “We asked 100 people…”
Oh, as well as trying for the same feel as The 1% Club, which it isn’t. The BBC also showed a version of 1 Vs 100 from 2006 to 2009, but that was a long time ago.
And… did they REALLY ask 1800 people on EVERY question? Or get ChatGPT to guess the responses?
For what they’re asked, I’ll give the first question as an example: “On average, how much do parents in the UK spend on Christmas presents per child, aged 0-6?”
Of course, the answer is: “Too much”… well, not really, since they’re looking for a monetary figure.
This involves an embarrassing, prompted chant of “Let the heads roll!”, as individual mugshots of the crowd roll across the laser display screen, to the opening of a terrible Rawhide cover version, or if you’re really unlucky, Steve Winwood’s Roll With It.
AND THEY DO IT FOR EVERY. BLOODY! QUESTION. MAKE IT STOP!!!
Depending on whether the contestant or the audience are closer to the answer, the money in the pot goes one way or the other, but either way, it’s just a tedious guessing game and soooooooooooo drawn out!
Plus, almost every bod in the audience – from which canned laughter is added frequently – who’s asked to comment just happens to be a lippy wanker, but at least because reasons, one of them might get kicked out by the contestant currently on stage.
Additionally, the audience also get a chance to win money accumulated into the ‘crowd fund’ cash. The highest performer ends up in the same spot on stage as all the others, and it’s a ‘Best Of 5’ against the audience.
And this is primetime Saturday night TV.
Obviously, no spoilers as to who wins or loses. If I had to sit through it, so do you.
Wisdom Of The Crowd begins tomorrow night on BBC1 at 9.15pm, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
After broadcast, each episode will be on the BBC iPlayer, but you can rewatch Series 1 in the meantime.
Creators: Dean Nabarro, Andy Auerbach
Music: Twin Petes
Host: John Bishop
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.