Yeah, up here in Canadaland, Discovery Channel, who recently used a new provision in their license allowing it to air game shows (having used it too to broadcast their own version of Cash Cab), debuted a new quiz show on Saturday called Qubit. For a Canadian game show, its rather decent. The presentation, is very striking. You got a futuristic looking set, uneven lecterns, epic music, and the centerpiece of the set is this "holographic" cube, which I must say looks rather wicked. All the questions are about science, nature, geography, etc. It's a condition of their license, but it does give it a niche.
It, is your typical four-act quiz show, three players, yadda yadda. First round, is the obligatory "Oh we are so
not ripping off Jeopardy!" round, 6 categories (one for each "side" of the cube), and 4 questions on each side (250, 500, 750, 1000). However, you cannot pick your own categories, all categories are randomly picked. You can however ask for a category change (leading to what could be considered the show's catchphrase "que the cube!"). Two of the questions are actually "Wild Sides", which in the episode I saw, one contained a 1000 point "we'll reveal a picture of the answer but you'll lose points the more of the clue we reveal" deal, and a 30-second minigame called "Versus", where the player got 30 seconds to quick-fire answer a question with different pairs of answers (i.e. Which was born first?).
Then we play the "let's eliminate the third place player" card, with no word of any parting gifts...but still. Remaining two play a time trial round, one gets sent to an isolation booth (here, in the episode I saw, player actually got asked what it was like in there
), 12 questions, you can only answer once. You get up to two clues (first is a clue, in one case it was that the answer was also a Bruce Springsteen song, and then 2 possible answers, then a time penalty of 10 seconds). Fastest time goes to the final round, where they get to "crack the cube" for $10,000, and a minimum of $250 (you'll see).
Picking one of 6 categories, its more questions. However, in a brink of originality, you get a stepladder of $250, $500, $1000, $2500, $5000, $7500, and $10,000. Right answers raise the minimum you can leave with, wrong answers lower the maximum you can leave with. So getting 5 right gets you $7500 (check that, make that Millionaire without lifelines, go home early, and chances to go on even without getting something right)
I got the
page here in the Discovery Channel Canada website too, if anyone is up there, its good to at least check out. With some adjustments (like say, general knowledge questions, larger payout, a first round that is actually
original), it could work good as a nice syndie quiz. And I must say, the presentation really is as good as I say it is, I think it
might also be produced in HD (since it was letterboxed, AND they have an HD channel for it here, but I don't get Discovery HD so there)
Oh yeah, speaking of Discovery Channel, down here, although they had been using that "The World is Just Awesome" campaign for awhile now even with the old logo, they recently did adopt the new US logo alongside the debut of the new season of Canada's Worst Handyman.
That, and its sister Canada's Worst Driver, would be excellent shoe-ins for say, NBC mid-season?
