Enlarge image
New show »99 - One beats them all!«: You must have been there
Photo: Julia Feldhagen / SAT.1
It is one of those dreary realizations that belong to the often humorless adult existence: The insight that the number of games is finite.
In terms of depth philosophy, this applies to life and, somewhat less tragically, to the classic game shows: You have long since seen all conceivable competitions, all variations of skill exercises and estimation tasks, and they basically only differ in whether these games are in a summer house or on a mountain pasture, whether celebrities or non-celebrities fight against each other, whether the combatants are semi-naked in a pairing format or dressed in a subtle family show.
And whether two people are vying with each other - or, as in the present case, 100.
Probably the first gendered show name
With “99 - One: r beats them all”, Sat.1 consequently does not win an originality award in terms of the type of games with which the winner of 99,000 euros is determined in no less than 99 rounds: it will be sooner In a sober circuit training-gym atmosphere, it is estimated how long 13.67 meters are, who is the most skilfully preening a clown's nose out of a plastic bottle and who can be the fastest to melt a whistle out of a block of ice using their own body heat (whereby sometimes unsavory tactical maneuvers too are marveled when, for example, a candidate sweats the lump of ice in the scrotum area and then rubs it over his face). After each round, the weakest player is eliminated.
Two other things are new, however.
On the one hand the title of the format.
"99 - One: r beats them all" is likely to be the first gendered show name, and considering how much not only television but also society has changed since "One will win," that only seems logical and appropriate .
And here on top of that, unobtrusively resolved, Johanna Klum and Florian Schmidt-Sommerfeld, who moderate the show, also speak of candidates.
Almost parodic
The second noticeable thing is how much a diffuse Covid feeling is woven into the show atmosphere.
Especially in the "low-contact Corona time" it is nice to be able to "play with others" again, says one candidate, while others repeat that in the course of the program.
In a round in which the classic catch is played, the fitter younger ones spare the somewhat slower older ones, for a competition format this is paradoxically solidarity. If somebody is thrown out, the grief of those who stayed is often so exuberant that it often seems almost parodic when watching.
How the actual competitors cluster around him or her in consolation dumplings, as if they were all orphaned, koala babies in need of clinging!
Those left behind say sentences like "We were a broken chain" and say goodbye, shaken by pathos, which to an audience seems a bit oversized, measured by the fact that the unifying experience of these people was to be on one leg for as long as possible to balance standing on a tin can while wearing a pink feather boa around their necks to simulate a flamingo.
more on the subject
"The Alm" is back: A bet in tubs with disgustBy Anja Rützel
"Middle Ages Camp" with Knossalla and Sido: smeary testicle humor by Anja Rützel
Dating show »Princess Charming«: riot in the off by Anja Rützel
Over the course of the three hours, you increasingly get the feeling that you must have been there in order to actually feel the charm and dynamism of the format (which comes from Belgium and is called "Homo Universalis" there).
Especially since at some point, coronally used to human beings, the endless chain of miniature introductory films and original sound snippets that are scattered between the games is annoying - shrunken portraits in which someone says "I like to play chess" and interviews in which someone auditioners the next round oracles: "Puzzling is not my strength now, but it will work out".
In itself entertaining short game rounds
One pays off good chances in a game in which confetti is to be swept off a carpet as a competition: "I do a lot of cleaning privately because my wife is currently doing her second state examination," says the man, and the nice gender neutrality kicks in to be on the safe side, backwards inconspicuously into the garden hedge, like Homer Simpson in the corresponding meme.
And as nice as it may be for the candidates that each and every one of them is bid farewell when they leave with a personal address: It takes a little longer, and it takes the pace out of the short rounds of the game.
Especially when after an hour you briefly estimate how long it will take to determine the winners because number 90 has just been knocked out.
Until you realize at some point that the show is actually supposed to have three parts of three hours each, broadcast on three Friday evenings.
Seen in this way, the pandemic could not be portrayed more appropriately in a show: It takes a lot longer than you suspected - and hoped.
Broadcast dates for the other two parts on Sat.1: Friday, July 16 at 8.15 p.m. and Friday, July 30 at 8.15 p.m.