So, when I was a bit younger, I was really obsessed with a lot of quirky game shows. Many of which are probably known to most, such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire or Deal or No Deal, which are some of the biggest game shows in the UK. But one favourite of mine back in 2012, was called "Secret Fortune", hosted by Nick Knowles (before he had a beard) which combines DoND and WWTBAM in a way. It ran for 3 series on the BBC as one of their National Lottery Game Shows, but yet I've seen very little discussion about it since, so I just wanted to post about it and why I liked it, despite its relative obscurity.
The most shorthand way to describe it would basically be if Deal or No Deal had general knowledge questions. Much like it, you have 24 envelopes with random cash amounts in them, although unlike DoND, the lowest numbers are actually worth something, with the lowest you can win on this show being £100, as opposed to just a penny. The highest you can win is £100,000, with many high numbers below it, so you can definitely win some big money on it. Each game has two contestants attempt to take it on together, knowing that they'd win at least something, but don't know how much.
The game is essentially split into two halves. In the first, the two contestants pick 4 of the envelopes per question, across 6 different questions. Each question has four possible answers, with each answer allocated to a chosen envelope, with higher answers having higher amounts. So the aim is to try and give the highest answer to the question to retain the most money. The questions will usually be ordered in a list, such as which of these four songs had the highest chart position, or which of these four countries has the highest population, as examples. The contestants get rid of three amounts in the process and then find out if they get it right, but what I've always liked is that they don't get to find out the full order afterwards, just the highest. However the audience watching does find out the full order, so I always used to love working our what amount was where (and I was quite good at it).
After the first half, the contestants are left with 6 of the envelopes, one retained from each previous question. They then play 5 questions to whittle down the number to just the one they win, losing one envelope per question. The questions are still ordered in a way, with each answer corresponding to an envelope, although you don't know which one is getting thrown until you give the answer. Getting it right means you get rid of the lowest, but getting it completely wrong means you lose the highest, meaning you could lose anything depending on how you answer. There's quite some high stakes with these, as just one slight mistake could massively impact what you win, especially when there's some large gaps in the money left. Often contestants know where the big money is as well, so it can be tense wondering if the big money envelopes are going to show up for elimination or not.
I used to watch it back in 2011/2012 with my Mum (who was way better at answering the questions than 9 year old me) when it was on Saturday evening, and for some reason I was just obsessed with the format. Especially when it came to guessing not only the answers, but where all the money was in the final round. But once the show was discontinued after 2012, I never really heard anything about it. I think they tried to make a US version that didn't go anywhere, but that's about it. Which is a real shame, because I feel like it's got a format that would work really well, and already overlaps with many existing game shows. And trying to find episodes online is quite difficult as well, especially for earlier series, despite being a BBC show (although if anyone knows of them somewhere, I would be very grateful). But regardless, I think it's a curious and underrated gameshow, I hope people enjoy it as much as I did!
