Loaded in Paradise

Revision as of 18:24, 14 March 2024

Synopsis

Take five pairs of young people. Fly them to Athens. Tell them that, somewhere in the city, there's a gold card loaded with € 50.000. Whoever gets to it first can use it for their two weeks in Greece – so long as they can keep it. Whoever gets the card is loaded, in paradise.

The other pairs of young people can take control of the gold card; all they've got to do is lay hands on the spenders. The chasers are told every time the spenders use the card, both the amount and where they are. But can the chasers use this information to their advantage? Hijinks ensue.

While the spenders lived the life of Riley - € 7000 for a night on a yacht, € 500 bottles of Champagne - the chasers were limited to € 30 per day, and slept in one-star hostels. Most of the series asked "Where are the spenders? Find them! Nab them! Grab them! Get the card for us!" Couples were sometimes given a "spender location reveal", which did exactly what it said.

From time to time, all the teams were brought together at a "safe house", where there would be news about the series' overall prize. They didn't know about the prize when they arrived, but one team would leave Greece with € 30.000. Friendships were formed, there were eliminations, some grousing, and the show ended with a hunt around Rhodes for local landmarks.

Loaded in Paradise benefitted from 2022-era tech. The teams got smart watches and phones, which go "poing" every time there's a message from Plutus. He was the Greek deity running the game; he loaded the card with 50 grand, acted as concierge to the spenders, informed the chasers of every spend, provided cars once the show left Athens, and acted as a benevolent referee. He also laced the show with quotations from Greek philosophers, which were inevitably mangled by the teams. The show also had some very clear maps, the teams' locations are shown on CGI terrain maps of the area.

The show gained from Kae Kurd's narration. Sharp and witty, tells us what we need to know about the show, cheers for the teams, snarks at the teams, says what we're hollering at the telly. As we learned from The Traitors, shows like this stand and fall on their casting, and they managed to get some big and likeable personalities.

For all that, Loaded in Paradise felt like an uneven marriage between two very different shows. The chase for the Gold Card allowed teams to live in the moment, but pressure to keep the card made the moments less enjoyable. Dangling a large cash prize at the end of the series offered hope to all, but it was a different show from the one we expected. Still an enjoyable - and surprisingly substantial - watch.

Champions

2022: Paige and Rianna

Trivia

All fifteen episodes from the first series were first made available on ITV's revamped VOD service ITVX on 28 December 2022. They were given a television broadcast on ITV2 from 14 to 31 March 2023.

See also

Weaver's Week review

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