Cube

Time for a little spiel on ITV's newest game show output, The Cube. I admit, I was hooked on this idea from the very moment I saw it advertised. It has all the makings of a videogame, specifically comparable to those on the Nintendo DS, Wario Ware comes to mind but even the Brain Training series must bear some of the inspiration for this programme. (Interestingly, a game show based around the latter has already been created: Britain's Best Brain) I like it the same way I liked the Krypton Factor when it was on, less so the modern version, because it challenged the contestants on it to use not just their knowledge but also their brain's more obscure abilities.

Just a simple summary for those who haven't seen it, the Cube is a roughly 10 foot perspex cube in which each player has to step inside to perform simple tasks like throwing a ball into a bucket or counting the number of squares on the floor. They begin with 9 lives, losing one every time they fail a task, but once they decide to go for a game, they must keep playing until they win or lose all their lives. While it sounds simple, the pressure is immense and the prizes are steep, and each game has the chance to take away everything as there are no safe zones.

The games, while they are simple, are more fun to watch the contestants do than answer any question or guess any value, because it almost feels like you could be there with them, or instead of them, performing these tasks and winning money. Most other game shows I've watched don't seem to get this; take Crystal Maze, one of my favourite activity based game shows out there. Instead of rooting for them to win, I always feel cringeworthy because they take the most idiotic selection of people and put them in these fun games which they almost inevitably balls up. It makes for very uncomfortable watching.

That brings us to these contestants. While we've seen only 6 or 7 of them on the show so far, they all have a likeable quality to them. This is down to the people producing it, who have selected some very fun or very entertaining people to watch. None of them are perfect, and each of them have come very close to losing the game, but they all are doing it for decent enough reasons and ease you into the spirit of the game. One guy on last week was 'wacky' enough to take his trousers off to complete one game, but he won £50,000 from it so all due respect to him!

As for the best and worst moments on this show, well the latter is clearly the over stylised camera zooming, slowing down and rotating, which tries some new things but ultimately comes across as trying too hard. On the opposite end of the scale, Philip Schofield is a top choice as presenter, as he makes plenty of brilliantly amusing noises every time the contestant comes very close to winning a game, with plenty of 'OOOOH!'s and 'AAAAAAH!'s, worth watching for.

If you'd like to watch it, currently all episodes are on the ITV Player (Which I think is the worst of the online catch up services atm, but at least it doesn't skip whole passage like it did before) but it's on ITV1 every Saturday at around the 8.30pm mark. Watch it.