The Deadly Knowledge Show
Synopsis
A quiz "where pop culture meets posh culture", according to the publicity.
Two pairs play, firstly a round of five multiple-choice questions on the buzzer, then an individual round placing people or things into one of two categories against the clock (somewhat reminiscent of the endgame of Every Second Counts), ad break, then the multiple-choice round played again with the slight twist that players buzz in for their partner to answer, and another individual round played for double points. At each stage of the game, a wrong answer results in points being subtracted. One of the winning pair goes on to answer questions about six famous people within a minute to win a holiday and some other nice stuff.
Unfortunately, the show fails to deliver on its "Deadly Knowledge" promise. Yes, it does indeed feature questions on both "high" and "low" culture. The problem is, so does every other general knowledge quiz on the box. That's why it's called general knowledge (duh!). For all its bluster, the reality is that the questions are just the same level (and all too often, the very same questions) as, say, In It to Win It. A more appropriate title would be The Mundane Knowledge Show.
Dave Berry attempts to disguise the sheer averageness of the quiz by providing lengthy and entirely irrelevant preambles to the multiple choice questions, but frankly they're a bit boring and the show would be much improved by using the time to cram in some more questions. The individual rounds are much better, being fast-paced and reasonably challenging. In fact, they put the rest of the production to shame. As does the fact that Headjam did this concept so much better.
