I used to watch The Chase but I've got bored of it now.

I did laugh at the -£250 offer Mark offered on there once!

Is the new chaser in edition to the other three or is one of them leaving?

@BankerSpanker - Someone was offered -2000 today....and took it! The rest of his team (who had already managed to get £42,000 in the pot were cheering on the chaser to catch him. It was quite funny.

@Cookie_monster - Fairly sure the other 3 are staying.

No - it's an ITV Studios production.

-£2,000?!

What would happen if the final total was a negative amount? Would they owe money?

Did anybody watch yesterday's episode?

Shaun was absolutely DREADFUL in the Final Chase - not only did he fail to get even halfway to the initial target of 20 set by the two remaining challengers, but he gave them two extra steps by getting his first two questions wrong!!

Q: "What was The Stranglers only Top 5 hit?
A: "Should I Stay Or Should I Go"

Q: "Who voices Puss In Boots in the Shrek films?"
A: "Eddie Murphy."

FAIL!

Paul Sinha played today. A dreadful start too, getting a few questions wrong. Pulled it together after that, coming within an inch of eliminating all 4 contestants before the final chase and reachig the target of 20 with 34 seconds to spare. Not a bad debut at all.

Today's was better. Apparently what's left in Pandora's Box when all of the bad things have gone out is not ACTUALLY hope, but instead candyfloss.

Well, it's better than passing!

Fantastic episode today.

All four contestants - among them former Countdown semi-finalist Ryan Taylor - set Anne a target of 23, and it looked like they had her on the ropes, as twice they pushed her back a step and left her still seven away from the target with less than 30 seconds to go.

But, somehow, she got the seven she needed with just four seconds to spare.

Not quite the closest the Chaser has come to losing in the Final Chase - Mark once reached a target of 26 with three seconds left (by getting 26 consecutive questions correct!), while Shaun was literally just milliseconds away from being beaten by a solo player:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x41fDuHulRs

Martin looks really pissed off there, doesn't he?

Anyway, back to today, and I was surprised no-one knew that Hilary Duff played Lizzie McGuire - but an even bigger moment was the animal adjectives question.

I'm guessing that Ryan and co thought Bradley said 'ursine' rather than 'hircine'...

That final chase was pretty much Ryan vs Anne. None of the other contestants could get an answer in edgeways because Ryan kept jumping on his buzzer and getting the answer.

He was clearly a really intelligent lad, so I was disappointed to see him drop down to £2,000 in the solo round.

Anne/ The Governess wasn't too good at answering the questions on the single head to heads today - particularly the first one, didn't she get three wrong in that round?

I try to catch this as often as I can as it's a good gameshow and can be very tense, like today! But whenever I tune in, it's usually the big American bloke!

I'm pretty sure Mark is Welsh...

Oops, oh yeah! The presenter joked about him being American once in the last series I think... I got confused.

Well, today's episode was the first I saw that left me disappointed at the end...

Taking on Paul today were a team whose members I shall refer to as The Chirpy One, The Clever One, The Quiet One, and... The Prat, the reasons for which you'll soon find out.

The Chirpy One took £6k through to the Final Chase after looking for quite a long time like she was going to be caught. The Clever One built up a remarkable £12k and had no trouble at all in taking that through. And The Quiet One also went through with £6k despite hardly cracking a smile.

The Prat told both The Chirpy One and The Quiet One to accept Paul's offers for taking a step closer to him. He didn't do so with The Clever One, though - and, as it turned out, The Clever One would have had no trouble taking through £30k, either...

So now it was The Prat's turn to face Paul. It probably wasn't a surprise when he built up only £3k - and it certainly wasn't a surprise when Paul offered him -£2k (highlighted in red for emphasis) to take a step closer to home.

The other three told him to stick with the £3k.

I don't think I need to say what his decision was...



After that, I hoped Paul would catch him. Sure enough, he came within two steps - only for The Prat to make a lucky guess on a question about the word "boycott"...

So the whole team went through to the Final Chase with less money than they had before The Prat played. And they proceeded to set Paul a target of 23, with The Prat somehow getting six questions right, just two less than The Clever One.

I hoped Paul would reach that target, simply because I wanted The Prat to go home empty-handed. Not fair on the other three, I know, but anyway...

It didn't look good at first, as he got pushed back a step on no less than three occasions in the first half-minute, and also made quite a few hesitations. He made a quick recovery, though, and with around seven seconds left he needed just two more correct answers.

But then he got a Scrabble question wrong... and the team got it right.

I switched off immediately afterwards.



I HATE IT WHEN A BAD GUY WINS!!!!!

I'd like to think The Prat was given a hard time by the other three afterwards for costing each of them at least £2.5k... ITV were probably pleased with him for saving them £2k, though.

Haven't seen today's episode yet, but it sounds like an episode last season where Mark offered a player -£2,000. The player accepted it, and the rest of the team started rooting for Mark!

That one got knocked out though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrkQPC3XiXQ

If ANYONE ever went for the negative amount, I'd be wanting the Chaser to win!

BTW, I looked up the episode RMF posted about, on ITV Player (thank goodness for Ad Block Plus getting rid of the adverts! ).
"What board game was once called Criss Cross Words?"

Noughts & Crosses?! WTF? That doesn't even involve WORDS.

Today's episode:

Just like yesterday, the first three contestants got through to the Final Chase, with the fourth telling at least two of them to accept the Chaser's higher offers.

As it turned out, all three of them should have done just that...

And how about the fourth contestant? Well, unlike The Prat yesterday, he did do what he told the others to do, and took a step closer to Mark for £30k.

But - also unlike The Prat - he didn't make it through.

He couldn't have come any closer - getting within one step of home, only to make two errors under the category of "should have gone with your gut instinct"...

In fact, had he not made those errors, and the other three had also accepted Mark's higher offers, the prize fund would have been an astonishing £102k...

In the end, though, it was probably just as well that it was only £20k, as the Beast found his A-game in the Final Chase and reached a target of 22 with more than half a minute to spare.

But by far the best moment of the show was the question "Where in Wales is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?"

Even Mark - who's from Newport - didn't get it right. It didn't look like he could pronounce it, either - Bradley certainly couldn't...

"Where in Wales is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?"

Did Bradley REALLY have to read THAT?!

He gave it a good go.