''Going for Gold'' is a
British television game show
A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...
that originally aired on
BBC1
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
between 12 October 1987 and 9 July 1996. It was revived for
Channel 5 from 13 October 2008 to 20 March 2009.
Background
1987–96
''Going for Gold'' was originally broadcast on
BBC1
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
from 12 October 1987 to 9 July 1996, usually, after the lunchtime broadcast of
Australian
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
''
Neighbours''. It was presented by
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
broadcaster
Henry Kelly, and its defining concept was that it featured contestants from different
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
an countries who competed against each other to answer questions (all in English) to win a prize. The show's theme tune was composed by future multi-award winning composer
Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmer (; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars and four Grammys, and has been nominated for two Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living G ...
.
The show was shown on BBC1 in the UK and on
Super Channel (later NBC Super Channel) in
Continental Europe and on
BBC TV Europe (which carried a mix of
BBC1
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
and
BBC2 output up to its dissolution in early 1991).
The 1987–1996 run of the quiz show each week had seven contestants that spoke English (each representing a different European country, although each of the home nations of the United Kingdom fielded their own contestants) who would compete against each other for a place in the finals. The show followed a
repechage
Repechage (; french: repêchage, "fishing out, rescuing") is a practice in series competitions that allows participants who failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round. A well known example is the wild car ...
format (now common, but then, unusual), whereby unsuccessful contestants from Monday's show would return on Tuesday, and so on throughout the week. Each episode lasted for 25 minutes, including four rounds.
There were ten series in total (two in 1992). The first five series were broadcast during the winter, and many of these were split in half by the Christmas break. The (second) 1992 and 1993 series went out in the autumn, the last three were broadcast during the summer. The 1996 series featured competitors from the United Kingdom only and was moved to an earlier time slot, immediately before the 1.00 pm news.
While the show didn’t award a winners trophy,
David Baddiel
David Lionel Baddiel (; born 28 May 1964) is an English comedian, presenter, screenwriter, and author. He is known for his work alongside Rob Newman in ''The Mary Whitehouse Experience'' and his comedy partnership with Frank Skinner. He has als ...
had one despite not even appearing on the show. He offered this up for the prize task on
Taskmaster series nine, which won him 5 points.
2008–09
The show was revived and produced by
Talkback Thames
Talkback Thames (stylised as talkbackTHAMES) was a British television production company, a division of Fremantle (part of the RTL Group, which in turn is owned by Bertelsmann). It was formed by the merger of Talkback Productions and Thames ...
and aired on Channel 5, premiering from 13 October to 19 December 2008. The new version featured only contestants from the UK and Ireland, was broadcast live and hosted by newsreader
John Suchet
John Aleck Suchet ( ; born 29 March 1944) is an English author, television news journalist, and presenter of classical music on Classic FM.
Suchet has two brothers, one of whom is the actor Sir David Suchet.
Early life
Suchet was born in Lon ...
. Former
ITV Play
ITV Play was a short-lived 24/7 participation television channel in the United Kingdom owned by ITV plc. The ITV Play name continued as a strand on the main ITV Network until December 2007.
It was launched as a standalone channel on Freeview ...
host Alex Kramer, did the newly introduced viewers' phone-in question section from 17 November 2008 until 20 March 2009, repeating the questions several times and talking to the selected phone-in contestant. The set questions involve many clues to an item or person, and the phone-ins were notorious for taking up significant amounts of time during the show.
The show continued its run between 5 January and 20 March 2009. Vicky Letch temporarily replaced Alex Kramer as the viewer's phone-in host whilst Alex was on holiday. When John Suchet was unavailable, the programme was hosted by Dean Wilson. At the end of the series, the sixteen winners with the most daily wins contested four semi-finals, the winners of which competed in the series final on 20 March 2009, won by Iwan Thomas.
Format
Elimination round (Round 1)
Each edition began with a short general knowledge round to all seven contestants. Out of the contestants who started the show, four would go through to the next round (always referred to as the "first round proper" by Kelly). These four would be the first who managed to answer each of the four general knowledge questions correctly. These questions would usually take the form of a 20 to 30-second description of an object, person, animal or place (usually beginning "Who am I?", "What am I?", etc.), with progressively more details being revealed by Kelly until someone was able to identify it. By the Thursday show, there would be only four contestants left to play the opening round and so several questions were asked and the first person to two points would join the previous days' winners in "the first round proper".
This round was not played in the 2008 version.
Beat the Buzzer (Round 2)
The Beat the Buzzer round was a general knowledge round, played with hands on plungers. Questions were worth one, two or three points. Beginning with a general knowledge question worth one point, a contestant who gave a correct answer would be told the subject of the next question, and got to choose the value to play for. If nobody answered correctly, it restarted with another general knowledge question worth one point. The first three players to reach six points, or nine in the 2008 version, went on to play the next round.
If a contestant buzzed in and got a question wrong, the question would be offered to other contestants, signalled by a buzzer sounding. But a contestant buzzing in and giving no answer at all would result in a doorbell sound and the answer was revealed.
Four in a Row (Round 3)
In this round, each of the remaining contestants were asked to pick a category (out of a choice of four). The order in which they picked the categories was based on the order in which they progressed from the previous round. Each would then have to answer questions on their chosen category for 40 seconds.
Players scored based on the number of consecutive questions they got right – if an incorrect answer was given, their score returned to zero. The score taken from this round was the highest point reached over 40 seconds. After this round, the two highest scoring players went through to the final round. A "first to two" general knowledge playoff was held if there was a tie, using the same style of questions from round 1.
Head to Head (Round 4)
In the final, every question was worth between four and one point depending on how quickly they were answered. Again, the questions pertained to a famous person, place, thing, fictional character or event. However, only one player at a time was allowed to the buzzer, as indicated by a timer graphic running down the center of the screen. If a player gave an incorrect answer, their section of the time was passed over to their opponent and the time (and the question) continued; in the event that a contestant was passed control of a zone and also gave an incorrect answer in the same segment of time, then the next lower segment was also passed over to their opponent.
In the original, the first player to score nine points won the game. While in the 2008 revival, this round kept on playing until time was up. When time was up, the player with the most points won £1,000 and competed against three new players on the next programme.
Progression to the finals
The first player to reach nine points in this round won the daily game, and went through to the end of week final (an automatic place in the 'first round proper' on Thursday), from where, the winner progressed to the later stages of the series. The losing players all came back the next day, starting with the same pool of players each weekday, minus the winner of the week's earlier shows. The weekly final had the three daily winners directly through to Beat the Buzzer with the final spot decided in the Elimination Round where the first to answer two questions correctly progressed. The winner of the weekly final advanced to one of two Semi-Final weeks.
The Semi-Final weeks occurred at the end of each half of the season with between 7–10 weekly winners (depending upon season length). Each week was made up of four daily heats with the winner of each heat advancing to Finals week and the losing players returning each day (there was no weekly final). By this point the contestants were buzzing in noticeably earlier as the standard of competition increased.
The Finals week consisted of eight winners from the Semi-Finals (four from each week) competing in a standard week format of three daily heats with the winners advancing to the Grand Final (directly to the Beat the Buzzer round). The Grand Final episode would start with a "First-to-Two" Elimination Round amongst the remaining five contestants and play as normal to the Head to Head where the winner would receive the star prize holiday (as described in every episode) and the runner-up would get a consolation prize (e.g. a colour television, or a gold-plated Going for Gold plate).
The 2008 revival added a Finals week inviting back sixteen contestants from the series (all winners of the international special episodes and contestants with the most daily wins). This week consisted of four daily heats with the winners earning £1,000 and advancing to the Grand Final episode where that week's prize money was rolled up to award £5,000 to the champion. All shows ran using the normal format for that series.
Transmissions
BBC1
Channel 5
International versions
''Going for Gold'' began its life as an American pilot, ''Run for the Money'', hosted by
Bill Rafferty and produced for
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
in 1987, at
ABC Television Center
The Prospect Studios (also known as ABC Television Center est'') is a lot containing several television studios located at 4151 Prospect Avenue in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, at the corner of Prospect and Talmadge Street (named ...
. The pilot did not sell in the States; however, Grundy took it to Europe where it became what is now ''Going for Gold''. ''Run for the Money'' would have been played with four contestants (one a returning champion) starting with the Beat the Buzzer round. The winner of each episode received $5,000, and any contestant who won five consecutive games retired undefeated and had their winnings increased to $50,000. Another American pilot was called ''American Know-it-All'', hosted by
Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris (born June 15, 1973) is an American actor, singer, writer, producer, and television host. Primarily known for his comedic television roles and dramatic and musical stage roles, he has received multiple accolades throughout ...
in 2008.
The programme has been adapted in France, where it became a very famous game show ''
Questions pour un champion'', which still airs today on
France 3
France 3 () is a French free-to-air public television channel and part of the France Télévisions group, which also includes France 2, France 4, France 5 and France Info.
It is made up of a network of regional television services provi ...
, is hosted by Samuel Étienne since February 2016, replacing long-time fixture
Julien Lepers (November 1988 – February 2016).
The
Channel 5 quiz ''One to Win'' was a half-hour show whose format was effectively based on the latter three rounds of ''Going for Gold'', repackaged and with a different host (initially, Paul Roseby, who was soon replaced by
Robin Houston
Robin Houston (born London, 1947) is a British voiceover artist and former announcer, radio and television newsreader and quiz show host. After starting his career as an announcer and stage manager, he became one of the pioneers of commercial ra ...
, known as the 'voice of the computer' on another
Channel 5 quiz show, ''
100%''). Unlike ''Going for Gold'' but like ''100%'', ''One to Win'' featured low cash prizes for the first player to reach 21 points in the head-to-head round – just £200 per episode but with a bonus for five consecutive wins – and offered its champions the option to return on the next edition of the show.
References
External links
*
*{{UKGameshow, Going_for_Gold
1987 British television series debuts
2009 British television series endings
1980s British game shows
1990s British game shows
2000s British game shows
BBC television game shows
British television series revived after cancellation
Channel 5 (British TV channel) original programming
English-language television shows
Lost BBC episodes
Television series by Fremantle (company)
Television series by Reg Grundy Productions
Television shows scored by Hans Zimmer
Television shows shot at BBC Elstree Centre