Viewers of The Chase were left furious after watching a contestant have his 'correct' answer rejected, prompting debates about where the exact line is between a right and wrong answer.
It's a situation in which anyone who has participated in a quiz will have experienced. How spot on does your answer have to be in order to considered correct? And how do we judge the responses which are on the right track but aren't 100 percent right? Let them off? Or teach the contestant an important lesson about how life is unfair?
This is the exact predicament fans of ITV gameshow The Chase found themselves in yesterday (30 October).
During the episode, the latest group of hopefuls were racking their brains for random general knowledge facts when 20-year-old student Max thought he had a home run, after host Bradley Walsh asked him: "LeBron James is one of so-called playmakers for what console brand?"
Now, while many of us would probably be left scratching our heads at what an earth a 'playmaker' for a console brand is, Max appeared to be a keen gamer and confidently answered: "PS4." (An abbreviation for the PlayStation 4 console).
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However, this answer wasn't enough to see the student awarded the correct answer by Walsh, who informed him that he was looking for the brand name 'PlayStation' instead of a specific console.
Accepting a nearly but not quite answer may seem like something which defeats the entire object of a quiz question, however, fans were feeling pretty generous last night when they decided to share their complaints online.
"I was waiting for them to allow that!! PS4 is PlayStation," one person wrote on X, with another person agreeing: "Surely you’d accept PS4? #TheChase."
However, other viewers were not feeling as generous and pointed out that the question had asked for the console brand, not a specific model, which meant that Max's 'PS4' answer was incorrect.
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"PlayStation is a gaming brand of home video game consoles - consoles like PS4," one user clarified, while another defended Walsh by writing: "Complaints about the PlayStation question, Bradley asked For BRAND, NOT A SPECIFIC CONSOLE! He shouldn't have got through."
Whether or not the viewers would feel any different if they were stood behind the podium trying to bag themselves a tidy sum of cash remains to be seen.
In the end, it didn't matter too much that Max was denied the 'PS4' answer as he was rejected, as the student would find himself booted out of the competition by Chaser Shaun ‘the Dark Destroyer’ Wallace during their head-to-head battle while his fellow teammates would fall down at the final hurdle.
Better luck next time, guys.
Topics: TV, TV and Film, The Chase, Bradley Walsh
Brenna Cooper