Feel the buzz: the rise and rise of the quizshow in lockdown

There was the Zoom quiz, of course: a staple of the first lockdown during which many of us combined video-conferencing technology and general knowledge in order to stay both vaguely sane and in touch with our friends. But also, TV quiz shows seem to have colonised greater chunks of the schedules.

There is an obvious practical element to this: the quiz show is filmed in a controlled and contained environment and was, therefore, from a logistical point of view, easier to bring back under pandemic conditions than drama.

The quiz is the oldest TV format of them all; the earliest TV shows were quizzes adapted from the radio.

There are probably four rules to a good quizshow:

• The game’s got to work; there’s got to be something intrinsic about it that sustains itself, day in, day out. 
• It has to have an element of proper jeopardy: lots of the best ones hinge around a single decision – to play on or not, to take the money or not take the money?
• The hosts are key.
• There’s got to be something familiar yet slightly different about them.