Jason and I have been hard at work developing our idea for a history-based time travel game show. We kept a lot of ideas from the original format, such as the name 'Time Trap', but we focused in on the viability and finer details of the format.
Script:
Jason and I have come up with a concept for an original educational game show, aimed at a peak time audience of both adults and children.
Here is our topline: “An adventure spanning through the ages in which contestants battle through challenges to escape the Time Trap”
We like to think of it as Doctor Who meets Horrible Histories meets Pointless, combining elements of time travel with fun historical facts, wrapped up in a competitive atmosphere.
The show will involve four average Joe’s competing against each other - they have not met before and should not come from a background in history or any historical studies.
The show is aimed at a peak time audience consisting of both children and adults, and would air around 5 and 7 PM. We imagine this is the sort of thing that parents and children could watch together after work or school - tea time telly.
We’ve seen in the last few years, particularly since 2013 that general knowledge quiz shows airing around this time have been a success with audiences. In particular, Pointless and The Chase have led the way with viewing figures and have both been nominated for and won NTAs for Best Daytime Programme in recent years.
We feel that the Time Trap will add a new and exciting twist to the quiz show by introducing the trope of time travel and most importantly, a more focused aim toward educating the audience.
So onto the details of the show itself:
We want to go for a science fiction / steampunk sort of aesthetic. ‘Time’ and ‘history’ are the key themes of the show so we’d like a lot of clockwork and historical imagery in the set.
We feel two presenters would work well for the show’s format. It is important to note that they will be playing characters as well as presenting the show itself and that their portrayal of the role works in play to drive the show forward.
We have the nameless ‘Time Traveller’ - an eccentric and swashbuckling genius, sort of like a cocky Doctor Who. In the presentation this character is male, but could easily work for a female as well. He or she is joined by Larry - the Time Traveller’s long-suffering assistant. I feel he should be the Igor to Dr Frankenstein, but also be the loveable idiot - like Baldrick. I picked out this clip which I feel illustrates the sort of dynamic between the two that I would like to see.
The show itself will consist of four rounds which we’ll go into a bit more detail shortly but in the meantime, we’ve worked out a rough running order for how the show will fit together.
HAND OUT RUNNING ORDER
We have a rough layout of how we envisage the set layout to look: we have the seating area by the hydraulic door… We want to put a screen here through a “window” in the set to look like the Time Traveller’s “computer”.
We also have a green screen backstage, which will be used when contestants are eliminated. They will stand in front of the green screen as a looped clip of a particular time period is played in the background - creating the impression that they have been trapped in time.
Onto the first round: “Who Said It?”. In this round, a sound clip of a quote from a famous historical figure will be played aloud to the studio - the first contestant to buzz in and answer correctly is through to the next round. Another quote is played for the remaining three contestants, and again until there is only one contestant left that has not answered a question.
Now we have a few quotes to test your knowledge and to get a better grasp at what the round is about:
1 - “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” KARL MARX, author of the Communist Manifesto and architect of Marxism
2 - “Trust in God - She will provide.“ EMMELINE PANKHURST, leader of the Suffragette movement
3 - “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” MAHATMA GANDHI, activist and leader of the Indian independence movement
This round will also end with a short sketch involving the three figures and our presenters getting up to some mishaps to add to the entertaining element of the show.
Round 2 will involve our contestants watching a clip of our presenters living in another time period - this draws on experiential shows such as The Victorian Slum which took ordinary people and put them in the lives of people living during the 19th century. Our clip will last around 2 to 3 minutes and we will see the Time Traveller and Larry living the lives of ordinary people in the given time period - the contestants will then have two minutes to answer questions about the time period and the clip, the contestant with the fewest points is eliminated.
Afterwards we have round 3: Artefact Analysis. The two remaining contestants are each showed two different historical artefacts. We see a VT clip of the first object with hints to facts about the object, such as what it was used for - they must guess where the object is from and when it was found, made or invented. The second contestant does the same with another VT clip, and whoever answers closest to the real answer wins the round and is through to the final.
Just to help demonstrate the concept, I’ve brought along an object for you to guess where its from and what year it’s from:
I’ll give you a few clues: this belonged to my great great grandfather, John Reade. He was a stretcher bearer for the army and its place of origin is often referred to as ‘the forgotten front’
It was found in Thessaloniki, now known as Silonika, Greece in which the Allied Forces entered the region to fight back against German and Bulgarian forces after the collapse of Serbia in 1915 - World War 1.
We feel that this round, as well as being educational would work as a nice segment to bring about small fun little anecdotes such as this in which my great great grandad found a horse hoof in the war.
The university has contacts in the Rochester Guildhall Museum so there is potential to ask for objects from there, but I had this in my house - history is everywhere and I feel we could achieve the same thing with objects from crew members, from antique shops; practically anywhere, and we don’t necessarily need to rely on external contributors for obtaining these artefacts.
The final round is a simple 90 second quickfire answer round based on the time periods covered previously in the show. They must answer 10 questions correctly in order to win the trophy - the Time Core - the power source for the Time Traveller’s time machine. If they fail they may walk free, but without the Time Core trophy.
So that’s the show and a just to clarify a few things to consider in terms of logistics:
We will need to find locations to shoot the VTs depending on which time period we are shooting. We would also need to hire actors to work alongside our main cast. Props and costumes are something we would also need to consider, and as I said previously the objects can be obtained through a number of routes - through museums and historical societies or from people’s homes and antique shops.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to our pitch - we feel that Time Trap stands out for being both educational and entertaining with an appeal to all ages. We want to use aspects of experiential formats combined with the competitive nature of a quiz show to add tension and life to fun and learning. Any questions are welcome.
Overall, I am very happy with how the pitch turned out. I feel that both myself and Jason really sold the concept well and the panel seemed to like the concept and potential for the idea. The main drawback was that we had chosen to pitch a gameshow, which has been done for the last two years. This is something I knew from the start, but as we were passionate about the idea, decided to carry on and despite it not being chosen, I am thrilled that it was still runner-up despite the saturation of gameshows over the last few years.
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