The Chase
The Chase is a British television quiz show broadcast on ITV and hosted by Bradley Walsh. Participants play against a professional quizmaster, known as a “stalker,” who tries to prevent them from winning the cash prize.
The six stalkers are Mark Labbett, Sean Wallace, Ann Hegerty, Paul Sinha, Jenny Ryan and Darrah Ennis. Labbett and Wallace were both chasers starting in Series 1, while Hegerty joined in Series 2, Sinha in Series 4, Ryan in Series 9 and Ennis in Series 13. With few exceptions for special episodes, only one chaser participates in each episode.
A team of four contestants individually tries to accumulate as much money as possible, which is later added to the prize pool if the contestant survives the chase. The chaser must attempt to catch each participant during the chase, eliminating that person from the game and preventing money from being added to the collective prize pool. In an individual chase, the player must choose between a higher offer, his earned money, and a lower offer. Later, in the final round, participants who survive the chase play together as a team against the chaser for an equal share of the prize pool.
With a regular audience of three to five million, “The Chase” is one of ITV’s most successful daytime shows ever. The show has been nominated six times for a National Television Award, winning in 2016, 2017 and 2019. It was also nominated for the inaugural Best Daytime Award at the 2021 British Academy Television Awards. The Chase has also become a successful international franchise, with regional versions released in Australia, China, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Israel, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Turkey and the United States. Labbett and Hegerty appear as hunters in the Australian version (with Wallace appearing as “guest hunter” in 2018). Labbett was the only hunter for the 2013-2015 U.S. version and joined the 2021 U.S. version starting in season two.
Each participant individually tries to accumulate money for the team’s prize pool in two rounds. In the first round, known as the Cash Builder, the contestant answers as many questions as he or she can within one minute, with each correct answer worth £1,000 and no penalty for incorrect answers or omissions. Once the Cash Builder is complete, the contestant enters a one-on-one round trying to move money to the bottom of the seven-step board and into the team prize pool (the “house”) without being caught by the player. the hunter. In the first series, there were eight steps on the board.
The chaser gives the contestant three opportunities at the start of the face-off round; play the Cash Builder and start three steps down the board (requiring five correct answers to get home), take a higher offer and start two steps down, or take a lower offer and start four steps down. The lower offer can be zero or even negative if the team has already contributed money. Once the starting position is chosen, the facilitator asks a series of multiple-choice questions to the contestant and the Chaser, each of whom individually selects one of the three answer choices on the keypad. After one participant fixes a guess, the other must do so within five seconds, or he or she will be blocked for that move. A correct answer moves the person who gave it one step lower on the board, while a miss or lockout leaves him or her in place.
If the contestant successfully makes it home and is not caught, he gets into the final chase and his money is added to the team prize pool (or deducted if he took a negative amount). If the chaser catches up, the contestant is eliminated and the money is cancelled. If all four contestants are caught by the chaser, he designates one contestant to play the Final Chase alone.