Million Dollar Secret

This gameshow starts off with 12 contestants who visit a massive mansion, Peter Serafinowicz calls The Stag. All of these contestants get given a box and one of the boxes contains 1 million dollars in cash. Whoever has the money has to keep it a secret from everybody else and try to survive each elimination dinner where each contestant votes for who they think is the millionaire. To help the millionaire out they are given certain advantages like gaining an extra vote at the elimination dinner or getting the chance to randomly move the money to another player's box (which is good because then they don't have a secret to keep and they can try to find the money later,) but they only get these advantages if they complete a secret agenda like hugging every other contestant or getting at least 3 people to say "Justin Timberlake" without referring to one of his songs.

But at the elimination dinner there's not much incentive for the guests to find the millionaire because if they do the millionaire leaves and their money just moves to another random box. It would be better if everyone who voted for the millionaire got a little prize like 10,000 dollars. At one point this resulted in some of the contestants wanting to vote out another strong contestant who they knew wasn't the millionaire instead of doing what they were supposed to do and voting out the millionaire.

Inbetween the elimination dinners the contestants also have to play games and the winners get to go to the Trophy Room where they get a clue about the millionaire. These games start off good, for example the first game is very intense because the contestants are split into 6 pairs and in each pair one person has to unlock 3 padlocked gates each with a set of four keys next to them before the other person releases a dog from behind a coded gate. But as time goes on the games get a bit boring to watch and it makes you think the producers started to run out of ideas. For example in one of the later games the contestants are split into 2 teams and each player has to choose between a dish with a yummy desert on it or a yuck dessert on it which looks nice but is actually made from disgusting ingredients. And the other team has to guess who choose the yummy or yuck desserts.

For me this made the middle episodes of the gameshow seem a little boring but as time went on the millionaire had to play more strategically in order to keep their secret. As more people got voted out the millionaire also found it harder to keep their secret because the other players had a higher chance of guessing who they were.

I also thought it was a bit ridiculous at times how emotional the guests got when they got voted out and in between games when they would argue about who they thought had the money. So I would have preferred them to show more game time and less emotions on screen. So overall the gameshow started off good, went a bit bad in the middle and then got more intense and exciting at the end.

Bored and nothing worthy to watch. So decided to watch this show, and so pleased that I did.

Firstly Peter Serafinowicz as the shows host was a class act and delivered an amazing performance.

The show content was really good with twists and turns, keeping you guessing or shouting at the tv in happy frustration.

I binge watched this because I was hooked and back to being bored at the poor tv Netflix is releasing I hope they will make a second season and quickly.

Give it a whirl, I hope you won't be disappointed I wasn't. Just give it the chance it deserves.

Role on a second season 9/10 perfection.

6 episodes in, I'm giving this show a generous 9 stars because it delivers where it matters most: entertainment. It's a fun watch, and I've genuinely enjoyed it.

That said, there are a couple of issues with the game itself.

This is one of those reality shows where the producers seem to have immense power to tip the scales however they like-handing out advantages or disadvantages to players as they see fit.

Want an early millionaire with heat on them to stay in the game? Give them an easy secret agenda with the reward of moving the money. Want a millionaire to go home? Give the winning team a hint that practically spells it out.

Of course, producer interference is par for the course in reality TV-but it's a bit next level here. There have already been a few questionable moments, one in particular that felt especially egregious.

Another flaw in the game design: there's no real incentive for identifying the millionaire early. If the group were 100% sure who it was from the start, they'd actually be better off not voting them out-because all that does is transfer the million to someone else (randomly, supposedly) and reset everyone back to square one. There should be some reward or bonus for correctly voting out the millionaire early-maybe $10K for each person who got it right.

All that aside, it's the kind of guilty pleasure I'm here for. I've enjoyed it a lot so far. Perfect for a lazy weekend binge.

Firstly, to address my main gripe with Million Dollar Secret, I personally think a million dollars is an obscene amount of money to offer as a prize for winning a gameshow that lasts only 8 episodes. If it was just $100K it wouldn't make any difference to the watchability of it and that's still a life-changing sum of money. The issue with stupendous prize money is that you really want someone deserving and likeable to win it, but reality show contestants are very often the opposite, especially after they've been forced to lie and deceive in acts of sheer selfishness in order to win. It hardly endears them to the viewer.

Anyway, with that out of the way I do like the concept. 12 players have a box, but only one contains the cash. At the end of each episode there is a Traitors-esque banishment in which the players try to eliminate the current 'millionaire' in order to randomly shift the cash to another persons box (preferably their own!).

Along the way there are games and challenges with a chance of rewards and secrets for those who win, to help them either follow the money or hang on to it.

On the whole I'm enjoying it, it's entertaining and it fills a gap until the next season of The Traitors!

The biggest flaw of this reality show is that (at least so far through 3 episodes) there is absolutely no incentive to lie or manipulate if you're not the millionaire. This essentially just turns it into X number of contestants against 1 person.

Lying can only be used against you here, as the person who gets the most votes against them is voted out. If the millionaire gets voted out, the money just cycles back to someone else.

Want to stick your neck out and lie about something someone said or did? Well now you've just put suspicion on yourself and, more importantly, accomplished nothing.

If there were reasons for people to lie like extra money, votes, immunity, etc this would be a lot more entertaining. However, with the way it stands the people "making waves" are just putting targets on their own backs and getting themselves voted out.

The best strategy in this game would be to tell people you're the millionaire, and be honest about every piece of information you get. Have to make a smiley face out of your food at dinner to get 3 extra votes? Tell everyone you're going to do it. Why would anyone vote you out right away when you're relaying all the information? Vote people out who question the method, and then mix it up when there's 3-4 people left. I realize the producers would never let this happen, but the fact that it would be the best chance to win is bad design.

I doubt I will revisit this when new episodes drop, but it's not the worst.