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The Cube: An Acrylic Review
What do you get when a channel has an empty prime-time slot and acrylic plastic surplus to requirement?
ITV‘s prime-time acryli-fest gameshow: The Cube. That's what.
Back for a second series The Cube fulfils the part of ITV's remit which states they must use the abundance of Poly(methyl methacrylate) stored in the warehouse since Simon Cowell‘s Plastic Death Dungeon of Doom was officially decommissioned in late 2006. Oh, you didn't see that one?
Contestants are tasked with completing games within the confines of The Cube. There are 7 games in total, and contestants are issued with 9 lives in which to compete with. Lives are lost if a contestant fails a task, and they then have to repeat that game. Each game offers a greater sum of cash upon completion. The final game offering £250,000, which for a few minutes of frolicking in a box seems like a nice earner. But as with anygame show, it's never that easy. The draw of The Cube is that the games are deceptively simple, inspiring the sort of ‘I could do that‘ mentality that hangs on the very best shows, allowing families to sit at home wincing as they debate tactics, commanding contestants how best to proceed. The studio audience are infinitely more encouraging than you will be at home. They clap and cheer everything. Every success, every fail, every decision. So much so that I question their humanity. They're probably plastic automatons, like everything else on the show.
But despite a lack of technical proficiency and the stunning simplicity of the games, the games are surprisingly difficult to master. The skill-set needed to successfully make £250,000 is higher than that required to govern most countries. Agility, concentration, determination, dexterity, memory, reflexes and nerves of shatter-proof acrylic are a must.
Games are attributed with the sort of enigmatically simple names that encapsulate everything about the show. The names somehow convey exactly what the game is, whilst giving away absolutely no information about it at all. Casting everyone down a paradoxically perplexing Perspex spiral. Contestants can expect to encounter:Construction, Drift, Perimeter, Quickfire and Reversal.
Expulsion, for example is a game in which contestants are faced with another acrylic box, this time containing 500 small plastic balls. Contestants then have 20 seconds to expunge all 500 balls using only their hands. But that's just one example. The games may vary in difficulty but they all maintain the same glorious lucidity. The sort of rudimentary games a prisoner would devise to amuse himself had he only had access to a pencil, a penny, a matchbox and some string.
In case the participants come undone, they have two options at their disposal to ease their ascent.
The first is Simplify. When chosen, The Cube proceeds to make this particular game easier, for example by increasing the target size, or reducing the speed of an object. The option can be used at any time, but can only be utilised once.
The second option is Trial Run. This gives contestants the opportunity to attempt the current game whilst eliminating any risk or reward. The only thing gained by completing a game using is the option is the piece of mind that comes with knowing one can successfully complete the task.
Before each task, it is demonstrated to the viewers and contestant by another faceless anonymity: The Body. Not Elle Macpherson. The Body is essentially The Stig‘s sexy daughter. She's apparently an expert of all the games, showcasing unparalleled skills during the demo. Clearly unhuman, she's a spandex-clad sex machine with a smooth silver face. She's like a Cylon proficient in ballet. She's a robotic supermodel who's dipped her face into a freshly pressed puddle of Terminator T1000.
Far less erotic than The Body is the host; Philip Schofield, who plays the spectre of the cube. The eternal silver keeper. The perennial grey guardian. The kind of decrepit old expert that you encounter in Hollywood films. That clichéd, often bearded character that warns the naïve explorers of the dangers within. Only to reappear later to sacrifice himself for the good of the world after the young travellers fail to heed his advice. Y'know the one I mean? Yeah, that kind of character. Except nowhere near as grim. If only. Instead he just offers useless statistics and perpetual personifications of the big plastic box. "Don't let it rattle you." Look out for his hysterical failures at raising tension before an ad break too. His technique is flawless, ask a question, then abruptly cut to a break before the contestant has had adequate time to answer.
Of course the star of the show isn't the contestants and it's certainly not the presenter, the real star is The Cube itself. The Cube is an ominous, sinister and frustrating acrylic coffin. An immense structure standing 4x4x4 metres. A box that sends people to despair. Competitors go insane within this plastic prison, losing their minds, worse still many of their 9 lives in one task. Failing to roll a big plastic coin into yet more acrylic.
Personally I found the production values of the show more entertaining than the games. Tension is conveyed to the viewer through painstaking, often hilarious editing techniques. Contestants are constantly thrown into unnecessary slow-motion. The bullet-time camera sweeping around the perimeter of the cube as their distressed and wrinkled faces are exposed in HD. Cuts are made quickly between the contestant's chewed fingernails and the faces of their family, faces paralysed by terror. If you look close enough you can see the greying of hairs as families watch on through their parted fingers as their once-loved one pisses away £50,000 because they can't swing a ball properly. Scientists estimate that simply viewing The Cubeactually increases the ageing process of the skin by 16%.
But as good as the show is, there's a problem. A problem that plagues all game shows. There's not enough jeopardy. Nothing to lose. Even if you do lose money, it's only hypothetical money. Money you've never really had. There's nothing tangible on the line. I desire higher risk, but with it, higher reward. While the reward could be say; £5,000,000, the risk could be a finger. A foot. A major organ…
Whilst watching The Cube I couldn't help but long for the lasers of Resident Evil to make an appearance. Shove a contestant into the box and make them spend 20 seconds avoiding deathly death lasers of death. If they succeed, they'll not only have a renewed opinion of life, but the princely sum of £5,000,000. Alternatively make them diffuse a bomb or confront contestants with a burning block and issue them a single wet towel. Of course the helping options would be allowed. Simplify could make the lasers move slower, increase the timer on the bomb, or issue contestants with TWO wet towels!
Being the generous Brits that we are, you'll be glad to hear we haven't kept all the fun to ourselves. The format has been recently purchased by Portugal, Saudi Arabia and the US, where it will be presented by Neil Patrick Harris. But what we really want to see is ITV ship the format to Japan, along with this article. Their ethical regulations are somewhat slacker than those here in the UK. Who knows, maybe we'll get deathly death lasers of death sooner than we'd hoped. Oh, and raptors. Acrylic raptors. Lots of acrylic raptors.
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