Impossible (game Show)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Impossible'' (stylised as ''!mpossible'') was a British television quiz show created by Hugh Rycroft and produced by Mighty Productions for
BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...
. Hosted by
Rick Edwards Richard Edwards is an English television presenter, journalist, and author. Edwards presented T4 for four years, and has also presented ''Tool Academy'', ''Freshly Squeezed'', '' E4 Music'', and much of Channel 4's 2012 Paralympics coverage ...
, the show has a maximum prize of £10,000 and features questions in which some answer choices are "impossible" or inconsistent with the given category. Episodes of ''Impossible'' are also seen in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
on the over-the-top internet television services
Plex Plex Inc. is an American software company that runs its namesake over-the-top ad-supported streaming television service and develops media server software that lets users stream their personal media collections to their devices. The company is ...
,
Xumo Xumo, LLC ( ) is an American internet television and consumer electronics company. It is a joint venture of Charter Communications and Comcast that operates the free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) and advertising video on demand (AVOD ...
and
The Roku Channel The Roku Channel is an over-the-top video streaming service available in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the UK. The service was launched in 2017, and is owned and operated by Roku, Inc. It is the most popular free ad-supported streaming televisio ...
, with each looping episodes 24 hours a day on its own dedicated streaming channel.


Gameplay

With the exception of Round 2 (see below), all questions used on the show are multiple-choice with at least one answer each of three different types: correct, wrong or "impossible". The impossible answers cannot be correct and are distinguished by being inconsistent with the premise of the question. For example, if the question was "Which
planet A planet is a large, Hydrostatic equilibrium, rounded Astronomical object, astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets b ...
in our
Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...
is the largest?", the choices could be: *
Triton Triton commonly refers to: * Triton (mythology), a Greek god * Triton (moon), a satellite of Neptune Triton may also refer to: Biology * Triton cockatoo, a parrot * Triton (gastropod), a group of sea snails * ''Triton'', a synonym of ''Triturus' ...
- impossible (not a planet, but rather a moon of
Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...
) *
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...
- correct * Mercury - wrong (it is a planet, but not the largest) On each episode, a pool of contestants competes through two rounds until one is left to play for either the £10,000 jackpot or a smaller daily prize pot built up during the course of the game. Contestants leave the show after playing the £10,000 question once whether they win or not. With the exception of the last episode of each series, players who fail to reach the £10,000 question for any reason return on the next episode as long as they have not reached the end of their eligibility. The size of the pool and the contestants' time on the show have occasionally changed. In Series 1, 30 contestants competed across all 15 episodes. The entire pool was replaced after every ten episodes in Series 2 and 3 and after every five episodes from Series 4 onward. The pool was 24 contestants in Series 2 through Series 4 and 21 in Series 5. Also, in Series 1, contestants remained on the show until either winning the £10,000 prize or making two unsuccessful attempts at it, rather than one as in all subsequent series. Series 8 had 12 contestants instead of 21 due the
coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dise ...
guidelines. During Series 1 to 3, contestants who left the show were replaced by new ones to keep the pool at a constant size. Starting with the Series 4, the departing contestant is not replaced, leaving their seat empty.


Qualifier and Grid

This round is played three times, with each playing split into two halves (Qualifier and Grid) to choose a contestant for the Final. The scores are set to zero at the beginning of each Qualifier. In the Qualifier, the host asks five multiple-choice questions; each with three answer options. Contestants secretly lock in their guesses and earn one point for each correct answer. Wrong answers leave the score unaffected, but an impossible answer, or a failure to answer within the time limit, eliminates the contestant from the game. If exactly one player remains in play after a question, the Qualifier is immediately halted and that player advances to the Grid. However, if all remaining contestants are eliminated on a single question, the entire pool is brought back into play. After the fifth question, the high scorer advances to the Grid; any ties for high score are broken in favour of the contestant who took the shortest total time to lock in their answers. For the Grid, the high scorer chooses one of four categories and is shown nine answers: one correct, three wrong and five impossible. After hearing the first half of a question, they choose five answers they believe to be impossible; each successful choice adds £100 to the daily prize pot and is removed from the board. The host then reads the second half of the question, with all chosen non-impossible answers returned to play, and the contestant must choose the correct answer in order to advance to the Final. Choosing a wrong answer gives the runner-up (or the last player eliminated in the Qualifier) a chance to find the right answer and advance; however, if this contestant chooses a wrong or impossible answer, the high scorer moves ahead. If any impossible answers remain on the board and the high scorer chooses one, they are eliminated and the runner-up gets a turn; if they fail to choose the correct answer, the host begins working down through the next-highest scorers until one of them does so. Categories are removed from the list of four as they are chosen, leaving three options in the second playing and two in the third. The maximum daily prize pot is £1,500; this is accumulated by eliminating all five impossible answers in every playing of the Grid, while the smallest possible daily prize pot is £300. Contestants who advance to the Final sit out all subsequent playings of the Qualifier and Grid. If a Qualifier begins with only one contestant left in the pool, they must still give a correct answer in order to advance to the Grid.


Final

The three remaining contestants compete directly against one another, answering a series of open-ended questions on the buzzer. Each is given 10 lives to start the round; a correct answer takes one life from both opponents while a wrong answer takes one from the contestant who buzzed in. Some of the questions are themselves impossible (e.g. "In which decade of the 20th century was
Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
born?" – he was born in 1881, during the 19th century). Correctly identifying an impossible question costs both opponents two lives; however, if a contestant either tries to answer an impossible question, incorrectly identifies a possible question as impossible, or does not answer immediately after buzzing-in, they lose two lives. Contestants who lose all their lives are eliminated from the game; the last one remaining advances to the £10,000 Question.


£10,000 Question

The last remaining contestant is asked one question in a randomly chosen category and shown nine answers; three each of correct, wrong and impossible. The contestant has 10 seconds to choose three answers and wins the £10,000 jackpot if all three are correct. They win the daily prize pot if any of their choices are wrong but none are impossible, and nothing at all if they choose an impossible answer. If a blind or visually impaired contestant reaches this round, the host reads one answer at a time and the contestant says "yes" or "no" to indicate whether they believe it to be correct. During Series 1, contestants who missed the question were asked a second one under the same rules. This format was dropped at the start of Series 2, giving only one chance to win any money. The format was further altered in Series 4 in that the departing contestant was no longer replaced, leaving that seat empty for subsequent episodes. The batch of contestants would also stay for one week instead of two like in previous series. The jackpot is presented onstage as a giant exclamation mark containing 10,000
£1 coin The British one pound (£1) coin is a denomination of sterling coinage. Its obverse has featured the profile of Charles III since 2024 and bears the Latin engraving CHARLES III D G REX () F D (), which means 'Charles III, by the grace of God, ...
s. When a contestant wins it, a hatch in the bottom opens and the coins drain into a hopper underneath.


''Impossible Celebrities''

On 20 February 2018, it was announced that ''Impossible'' would be launching a primetime Celebrity version which began to air in August that year. This version follows the same rules as the Regular version with two changes: * The pool consists of 18 celebrities; each are playing for a charity of their choice. * If a celebrity gives an impossible answer during the Final, the daily prize pot is cut in half and donated to their charity.


Transmissions


Regular


Celebrity


Merchandise

The official ''Impossible'' app for
iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
and Android was released by Barnstorm Games on 28 August 2019.


References


External links

*
''Impossible Celebrities''
on
BBC Programmes BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and BBC Sport, Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, t ...
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Impossible 2017 British television series debuts 2021 British television series endings 2010s British game shows 2020s British game shows BBC Scotland television shows BBC television game shows British English-language television shows Television series by BBC Studios