Cash Cab

John Moody drives around Britain's cities in a Black Cab picking up customers. While this may sound like an interesting idea for a docu-soap type programme, this is not the end of the story.

Cash Cab is a gameshow. When the unwitting contestants step into the cab, thinking they're about to fork out a tenner for a trip down the road, they are instead greeted by flashing lights, screaming sirens and quizmaster come taxi driver John Moody. He explains to them the simple concept: He asks them questions, they get money for getting them right. Get three wrong before they reach their destination and they get booted out, win no money; but they don't have to pay the fare, so that's nice. If they get to their destination without losing all their lives they leave the cab with a healthy wad of cash, smiles on their faces, and a 15 minute stint on one of the most original and quirky gameshows in a long time.

The original U. K. Cash Cab, finally checked this out after having watched the U. S. and Canadian versions for years. With much nostalgia for those I can help but compare, and having re-watched some of the New York version recently this review will be biased significantly from that. Hosted by John Moody, the format is much the same, picking up random passengers and quizzing them to their destination as they rack up dollar rewards. Three questions wrong and you're out, make it to your destination with any lives left and you've won. No video bonus double-or-nothing at the end, however the monetary prizes are about double to begin with, so it evens out the stakes. And lastly both the mobile and street shoutouts make an appearance. The questions largely pull from pub trivia rather than general knowledge so it includes both spelling questions (which I hated I'm aweful at speling), as well as listen-to-this-song music trivia. As this was the original series, the initial interactions surprising passengers they're on a game show are much more awkward and very view knew of the show prior, which was sometimes uncomfortable. And worse, the questions were not read out by Moody as he drove, rather he made some amount of small talk but all the questions were read by an automated voice recording. This really killed the casual format and while I understand the dangers of driving and quizzing but it really took away. They also repeat questions, multiple times, which I understand for filming so much gets cut, but for a trivia show I hope for always unique questions. Unfortunately Moody himself was less than ideal. He had very little personality, felt mostly there to drive the cab, but I didn't like his approach to hosting. He took pleasure in kicking some people out, and was a little creepy more than once with certain passengers, making comments or insisting on a kiss after winning on multiple occasions. Maybe worked in the 60s but in 2005 it was kinda gross. All in all, I was not impressed by most anything in the series, its amazing how a better host and some minor tweaks to the format can create a drastically superior show. Wouldn't necessarily recommend.

This original English version of this concept is the best version of the concept, but still not a good one. A lousy, lazy idea. The best are the cuts out of the taxi when you can see Great Britain for a few seconds.