The BBC have been crying out for more family-friendly shows for a while now and ITV must have thought that they had stolen a march on Auntie Beeb with this prime-time family quiz sandwiched between the Wednesday evening double helping of Coronation Street. How wrong they were!
The Chase's Anne Hegerty is the host for this competition to find the nation's brightest family and the winning family are rewarded with a holiday to the U.S. Each week two teams compete in knockout rounds answering maths questions, logic puzzles, picture-based questions etc. A fairly straightforward format.
However, it is the clunking format of Britain's Brightest Family that is the big letdown here. The idea of the child member of the team being the team captain and having to nominate the person on their team that they think is best suited to answering a particular question probably sounded a good idea. In reality it is a disaster, firstly the nominated person's seat rising up is just a silly and pointless gimmick and quickly becomes annoying. Secondly, this nomination process slows down the game to a frustrating degree - and some teams seem to have cottoned on to the fact that by buzzing in immediately they then get time to nominate and then the nominated person gets far too long to answer the question.
Those are far from the only criticisms of the show. The questions are far too easy. It must be difficult for the question writers to set the right level of question knowing that the person answering the question may be an 11-year-old or that child's 81-year-old grandfather but viewers have been left stunned by how often even the adult team members are failing to answer simple questions - is their chair suddenly shooting up in the air discombobulating them? The picture puzzles are also very frustrating for the viewers at home as they disappear off the screen too quickly.
It is good that ITV have tried something different in the prime slot between two slabs of soap opera but even that has backfired on this programme as the family format sits uncomfortably between the increasingly unhinged plots of Coronation Street. The other 'Chasers' must be thankful that they didn't get lumbered with this show.
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