Beat the Brain
| Beat the Brain | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Quiz show |
| Presented by | John Craven |
| Voices of | Josie Lawrence (The Brain) |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 30 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production companies | Over the Top Productions and Objective Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC Two |
| Release | 11 May 2015 – present |
Beat the Brain is a BBC quiz show that has aired on BBC Two since 11 May 2015 and is hosted by John Craven with Josie Lawrence as the voice of "The Brain".
Gameplay
Each contestant plays one subject. There are six subjects; Logic, Memory, Orientation, Language, Observation and Multi-Tasking. The Brain selects one subject, and one player is selected by the team to play. Each subject contains two games, each containing three questions each, in which three seconds can be won. This means a total of nine seconds can be won per game, eighteen per player. When this contestant has played, they move back to next to their teammates and another contestant is selected. This process repeats itself until all the contestants have played. Seventy two seconds are up for grabs throughout the game.
In the endgame, the number of seconds won in the main game are added to two minutes. For example, if the team have answered nineteen questions correctly, fifty seven seconds is added to make a total of 2 minutes 57 seconds. The team must give eight correct answers - two from each player - to win the jackpot of 3,000 thousand pounds; each contestant must give two correct answers for The Brain to move on to the next contestant. When the clock dips below two minutes, each second expired loses £25. The games here are only the games used in the main game.
Critical reception
Critical reception for the show has been mixed; Ian Wolf of OnTheBox.com described it as "perfectly enjoyable" but at the same time lamented the asininity of the questions being posed by The Brain, further berating its low prize fund of just £750 per person. He also commended the fact that "just about anyone can have a go. Whether you know all the prime ministers or the elements of the periodic table is irrelevant. It is all about mental ability, short-term memory, basic arithmetic, spelling and so forth".[1] On the other hand, Christopher Stevens of the Daily Mail was more negative, commenting that "the show still needs a bit of work" and that its graphics resembled that of "one of Alan Sugar's old Amstrad PCs", further berating the show's "childishly easy" challenges. He summed up by saying that "the show has potential, but its computer brain just wasn't clever enough. It was obviously a mistake to use an Amstrad".[2]
References
- ^ Wolf, Ian. "A new logical, mental workout with John Craven and Josie Lawrence". OnTheBox.com.
- ^ "CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Benefits Street and Beat The Brain". Daily Mail. 11 May 2015.