The Cube (game show)

Show name	The Cube
Caption	The Cube logo
Format	Game show
Picture format
Runtime	60 minutes
Creator	Adam Adler
Starring	Phillip Schofield
Narrated	Colin McFarlane
Theme music composer	Ken Bolam Nick Foster
Network	ITV (ITV1/STV/UTV) (also ITV1 HD/STV HD/UTV HD)
Company	Objective Productions
First aired
Last aired	present
Num series	2
Num episodes	19 (as of 2 January 2011)
Country	United Kingdom

The Cube is a British television game show which first aired on ITV on 22 August 2009. Presented by Phillip Schofield, it offers contestants the chance to win a top prize of £250,000 by completing challenges from within a 4x4x4 metre Perspex cube. The show is based on the idea that even straightforward tasks become extremely challenging when confined and put under pressure in front of a large live studio audience. Once inside contestants can feel both claustrophobic and disoriented. Using "state-of-the-art filming techniques" the show aims to demonstrate the intense anxiety which contestants undergo as they progress through each task. Colin McFarlane provides the evil, disembodied voice of The Cube, who explains the rules of the games.

On 1 October 2009, it was officially announced that the show had been re-commissioned for a second series by ITV. The second series started airing on 19 September 2010, and finished on 2 January 2011.

Towards the end of the second series, there was a contestant call for a potential third series of the show with filming to take place in the New Year. It has now been confirmed that there will be a third series of The Cube with filming in January 2011. It is still unknown as to when the new series will air on TV.

Format

All of the games take place from inside The Cube. Contestants are set a task to complete which can range from testing their agility to more simple procedures like stopping a stopwatch after 10 seconds. If they successfully complete the task, they will move up the money ladder and closer to the top prize.

{| class="wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0 0 0.5em 1em; text-align:center;" !Game!!Value |- | 1 || £1,000 |- | 2 || £2,000 |- | 3 || £10,000 |- | 4 || £20,000 |- | 5 || £50,000 |- | 6 || £100,000 |- | 7 || £250,000 |}

Each contestant is given nine lives. Each time a contestant fails a game, one life is lost, and the contestant must repeat the game. Any contestant who runs out of lives while trying to win a game loses all of the money he or she accumulated. Contestants may stop after any game and take the money they have won, but once a contestant decides to play, he or she cannot back out until after completing that game.

Before each game, there is a short demonstration by "The Body", a faceless female character described as an expert in all the games. Her demonstrations allow the contestant to see how the game is played and formulate a strategy to succeed. Her face has not been seen; her outfit is a metal plate over her face (like a fencing mask), revealing just shoulder-length hair, and at one time, she revealed her mouth to demonstrate Drift.

Helps

The Cube offers players 2 helps, each of which may be used only once:

* Simplify, which can be used at any time, will make the game easier to complete. It can be used at any point during the games, not just before the first attempt. Also, it remains in effect for all future attempts of the game until the contestant completes it.

Trial Run, which may only be used from the second game onwards, gives the contestant a chance to attempt the game without any consequences. If the contestant completes the game in the Trial Run, they will have to complete again and will not advance to the next game. In contrast, if the contestant fails to complete the game in the Trial Run, they will not be penalised for it. Taking a Trial Run does not mean the contestant is committed to playing the game.

Both helps (Simplify and Trial Run) are disallowed in task 7 (£250,000), even if the player has one or both of the helps remaining.

Also, to help contestants, the host will sometimes provide the player with statistics about the game they are facing, such as the average number of lives it takes for players to win the game, the percentage of people that completed the game on their first try, or whether one group was better at the game than other (such as males or females or taller or shorter people).

Records

With the exception of one episode, all episodes in Series 1 contained two contestants. One episode featured just one contestant, Johnny, who reached game 7 but didn't play it, even though he had 3 lives remaining. He struggled to complete the first game, Direction, using up three lives and his Simplify. Game 7 was the same game but the path was ten centimetres narrower than the original game. He went home with £100,000.

In Series 2, there were rollover contestants, instead of each show featuring 2 contestants. The most notable episode of Series 2 featured Paul, who reached the £250,000 game with 5 lives remaining. His final game was a replay of Structure, in which he had to build a construction of blocks with a time limit of 12 seconds instead of the normal 15 seconds. However, since he struggled to complete the game previously, he chose to leave with £100,000.

So far, eight contestants have lost all their lives and five of those players left with nothing: Rhian who lost £2,000 on the first episode of Series 1 playing Drop Zone, Martin who lost £20,000 on the third episode of Series 2 playing Side-Track, Alex who lost £2,000 on the fifth episode of Series 2 playing Descent, Christian who lost £20,000 on the eighth episode of Series 2 playing Pinpoint and Zoe who lost £1,000 on the ninth episode of Series 2 playing Stabilise. Dame Kelly Holmes was the sixth contestant to lose all her lives on the first celebrity special on game 2 which was Gradient. Joe Swash was the seventh contestant to lose all his lives on the second celebrity special on game 5 which was Pinpoint. Jenny McAlpine was the eighth contestant to lose all her lives on the third celebrity special on game 3 which was Blind-Shot.

Games

The games are placed in the categories by when they were first introduced. If the game has been played at any other levels, the levels they have been played at have been placed in brackets. Currently, there are a total of 65 different games that have been played so far.

Games featured in the show so far include:

Filming

Objective Productions first approached Channel 4 in 2008 with the format. It was made into a non-televised pilot by the channel, and was hosted by Justin Lee Collins. Channel 4 eventually decided not to commission the show because it would have been too expensive. In February 2009, ITV purchased the rights to the show and filming began during April 2009 at Wembley's Fountain Studios.

The Cube is one of the first shows to use the game freeze filming technique on a frequent basis, such as when a contestant jumps. Using specially designed cameras, it allows the viewer to see one side of the Cube before the action is frozen, spun to another face of the Cube and then resumed. Slow-motion shots are again common to show action replays of the task a contestant just completed, or the critical moment of a game (such as placing the final balls into the container in Multisphere or catching the ball in Gradient) to heighten the excitement of whether the contestant will succeed or fail. The show makes extensive use of CGI to project images onto the walls and ceiling of the Cube (such as a red haze that appears when the next game is being announced, and the amount of money the player has won after each successfully completed game which appear as giant green numbers above The Cube), while a screen on the floor is also capable of showing images. These film techniques make the seemingly simple tasks that are put before the contestants seem much more exciting than they would normally be.

International versions

{| class="wikitable" |- ! Country !! Name !! Host !! Channel !! Prize !! First year aired |- | | O Cubo | Jorge Gabriel | RTP | €30,000 | April 2010 |- | | المكعب
Al Moukaab | Faisal Al Issa | Saudi TV 1 | SR250,000 | 24 March - 8 July 2010 |- | | The Cube | Neil Patrick Harris | CBS | | 2010 Pilot |- |}

* The Cube UK is also currently being broadcast in Ireland by TV3.

The second series of The Cube UK began broadcasting in Australia on the Nine Network on 1 January 2011.

All versions of The Cube, even those that air outside the UK, are filmed at Fountain Studios in London.

Celebrity specials

The celebrity specials of The Cube were very similar to the standard episodes of The Cube. The only difference is that if a celebrity lost all their money because they played a game but didn't succeed, The Cube allowed them to take home £1,000 for their chosen charity.

First celebrity special

The first celebrity special of The Cube aired at 19:00 on ITV1 on 21 November 2010. The celebrities that faced The Cube in this episode were:

* Double Olympic gold medallist, Dame Kelly Holmes. She succeeded playing Stop Zone in game 1, but then failed to complete Gradient in game 2, even though she used her Simplify in this game. She didn't use her Trial Run at any point. She went home with £1,000.

TV presenter, Jenni Falconer. She succeeded playing Pulse in game 1, Dual Reflex in game 2, Aperture in game 3 and Pathfinder in game 4. She used her Trial Run in game 5 which was Fracture, but then chose to take home the money. She didn't use her Simplify at any point. She went home with £20,000.

Second celebrity special

The second celebrity special of The Cube aired at 19:00 on ITV1 on 18 December 2010. The celebrities that faced The Cube in this episode were:

* Actor, Joe Swash. He succeeded playing Perimeter in game 1, Revolution in game 2, Quantity in game 3 and Multisphere in game 4. He used his Trial Run in game 5 which was Pinpoint and then committed to playing it. He put his Simplify into action immediately on this game, but failed to complete it. He went home with £1,000.

Media personality, Kelly Osbourne. She succeeded playing Memory Flash in game 1, Tilt in game 2, Exchange in game 3 and Quickfire in game 4. She used her Simplify in game 3 and her Trial Run in game 4. She took the money after being told that game 5 would be Void. She went home with £20,000.

Third celebrity special

The third celebrity special of The Cube will air at 20:00 on ITV1 on 2 January 2011. The celebrities that will face The Cube in this episode will be:

* Actress, Jenny McAlpine. She succeeded playing Pursuit in game 1 and Direction in game 2. She used her Simplify in game 2. After using her Trial Run in game 3, which was Blind Shot, she chose to play on even though she only had 1 life remaining. Unfortunately, Jenny failed to complete game 3. She went home with £1,000.

Boxer, Ricky Hatton. He succeeded playing Time Freeze in game 1, Expulsion in game 2, Velocity in game 3 and Rapid Fire in game 4. He used his Simplify in game 3 and his Trial Run in game 4. He took the money after being told that game 5 would be Construction. He went home with £20,000.

Online game

An online game has been created for viewers to attempt 3 games from The Cube. The games that are available are Stop Zone, Cylinder and Multisphere. The player starts with 3 lives and has 3 chances to beat The Cube. Players also have the opportunity to save their high scores in the games and also use Facebook to challenge friends.

Merchandise

An electronic game of The Cube is currently being sold in Argos and Debenhams stores. The game comes with an electronic base with an LCD screen for playing 20 electronic games such as Time Freeze and Stop Zone, as well as plastic and card pieces, red plastic balls and a 7x7x7 plastic cube for playing a further 30 physical games. An iPhone, iPod touch and iPad game has also been released, selling for £1.79 in the UK. It contains 15 games from the series: Balance, Cylinder, Descent, Drop Zone, Focus, Multisphere, Perimeter, Precision, Quantity, Reaction, Revolution, Shatter, Stabilise, Stop Zone and Time Freeze.

Transmissions

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" |- ! Series !! Start date !! End date !! Episodes |- | 1 || 22 August 2009 || 3 October 2009 || 7 |- | 2 || 19 September 2010 || 2 January 2011 || 12 |}

References

External links

Category:2009 British television programme debuts Category:British game shows Category:ITV television programmes Category:2000s British television series Category:2010s British television series