(May Contain Spoilers)
Quiz is based on the cheating scandal from British quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, where Charles Ingram (Matthew Macfadyen) won the top prize of 1 million pounds! Episode one introduces us to quiz-mad Diana Ingram (Sian Clifford) and her brother Adrian Pollock (Trystan Gravelle) . Meanwhile, Paul (Mark Bonnar) and David (Elliot Levey) invent a new quiz show called Cash Mountain – later known as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – which Adrian tries to become a contestant on. It follows that, a gang of middle-class, eggheads cheat the system by helping one another get on the show, they do this buy telling each other the answers to the questions the programme makers ask on your phone interview to get onto the show. This results in Adrian getting into the studio four times; however, you are only allowed in the seat once and Adrian takes away £32,000!
Adrian, who is now in a lot of debt from ringing the phonelines to get onto the show, confides in his sister and brother-in-law how he got onto the show and built his fastest-finger-first machine to help him get into the seat. Adrian gives this knowledge to Diana, who then manages to get onto the show and later the seat and also wins £32,000. Paul and David, the quiz show inventors, begin to suspect some foul play as the contestants have all begun to look and sound the same and they notice Adrian has been in the studio fives time! Diana begins to call the phonelines for the show to get her husband, Charles onto the show and that is where we concluded.
What We Learnt:
Charles and Diana end up in court over cheating/stealing 1 million pounds from the quiz show
Charles and Diana move to Stratford Upon Avon to settle down and be closer to Diana’s brother and father
Diana and Adrian and big quiz heads and go to pub quizzes a lot
Charles starts a new position training soldiers in the army, so that he can give his family stability instead of moving around
Adrian calls up the phone lines to get onto the show
Chris Tarrant (Michael Sheen) becomes the host of the quiz show
Adrian and Diana meet a bunch of people who help Adrian get onto the show by giving him the answers, but in return for a quarter of the prize
Adrian gets into the studio four times, but only goes in the chair once
Adrian makes a fastest-finger-first machine and passes this information and apparatus onto Diana for her to get onto the show
Diana gets onto the show and wins £32,000
Adrian gets in debt and Diana gives him £14,000 of her winnings, which he blows on the debt
The channel begin to suspect there is foul play and begin to investigate into it
Diana calls the phone lines to get Charles onto play.
I thought this episode set up the premise of the mini-series nicely. I remember tuning into watch Charles win and thinking that a woman coughing in the audience was cheating. It’s funny how a drama mini-series has been made out of a scandal, which happened on a TV series of the same channel! I think episode one was well directed; I like the tension and the characters are very well played by the all-star cast, especially Sheen’s Tarrant (spitting image)! I am looking forward to watching the next two episodes which are on over Tuesday and Wednesday!
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