The Krypton Factor
The Krypton Factor is a British game show produced by Granada Television for broadcast on ITV. The show originally ran from 7 September 1977 to 20 November 1995 and was hosted by Gordon Burns.
Contestants across the United Kingdom and Ireland competed in rounds that tested their physical stamina and mental attributes. The show's title refers to Superman's home planet, Krypton, the title perceiving that the contestants had strong superhuman "powers" for participating in the challenges they were set. From 1986 onwards, the contestants all had their corresponding colours: red, green, yellow, or blue. The points contestants earned through the game were referred to as their "Krypton Factor", e.g. "The winner, with a Krypton Factor of 46, is the technical specialist from Birmingham, Caroline White". The 1987 series won the prestigious Premios Ondas – Spanish Television Award for Entertainment.
The show was revived for two series aired in 2009 and 2010, presented by Ben Shephard.
History
Original series
The show's first series was shown on Wednesdays, presented by Gordon Burns and ran for eleven weeks, consisting of eight heats, two semi-finals and the final. It was then on Fridays for two years before arriving on Mondays in 1980, where it would be a staple of Monday evening schedules until its 18th and final series in 1995. In the first few series, there were no groups and eight heats, the winner of each advancing to a semi-final. The top two of each semi-final qualified for the Grand Final.From 1981 to 1985, each series had twelve heats, from which each winner, along with the top four runners-up, progressed to the four semi-finals, the winners of which competed in the Grand Final. In 1986 and 1987, the series was divided into four groups. Each group consisted of three heats, with the winner of each heat and the highest-scoring runner-up of the heats within a group making it to the group final. The winner of each group final would qualify for the grand final. From 1988 to 1995, the series had 13 episodes and only three groups. The highest-scoring runner-up from the group finals would then go to the Grand Final.
In 2009 and 2010, each series had seven heats and the winners of which, in addition to the highest runner-up of the heats, would qualify for the two semi-finals, the winners of which, in addition to the top two overall runners-up, advanced to the Grand Final. The overall winner of the Grand Final would receive a bronze trophy and would traditionally be titled Superperson of the Year. Unusually and possibly uniquely for the time, until 1993, the series had no advert break in the middle even though it was on ITV in a primetime 7.00 pm slot. This explains why some of the elements were shortened in later series.
In the 1991 series, for two weeks in a row, contestants Tony Hetherington and Paul Evans won all of the first five rounds in their heats, scoring 50 points; in addition, Hetherington set a record of 62 points. They later met in the same Group Final, where Evans won, and Hetherington qualified as the Best-Scoring Runner-up and went on to win the Grand Final.
In 1995, the show was heavily revamped, including the addition of co-host Penny Smith. In that series, the intelligence round was dropped, the first round being physical ability, with the rules in each round changing dramatically, except for general knowledge. The show's second half was a "super round", which included a 3D maze, code cracking and a race up Mount Krypton, with accumulated points being exchanged for equipment to assist the contestants with the challenge. While some viewers liked the changes, others felt that scrapping the Intelligence round was a sign of dumbing down and that dramatically changing the format was a mistake.
Revival
Since its cancellation in 1995, there were persistent rumours of a revival on the BBC. In April 2005, it was widely reported that the BBC would advance with a revival. However, the source of this story turned out to be a misinterpretation of comments by Wayne Garvie, head of BBC's Entertainment Group, naming it as the next "TV gem" that "should" be revived.On 24 September 2008, Broadcast reported that ITV was expected to commission a new series within weeks. As part of their wider Business Brains campaign, The Sage Group funded the show's return, and in November, it was confirmed that Ben Shephard would host it. The first episode was shown on Thursday, 1 January 2009, at 7.30 pm and ran for ten consecutive weeks. The new series is based on the original five-round format of the show, with every round being "brought bang up-to-date" and featuring "state-of-the-art" technology. However, The Guardian described the rounds as having "irritating bleeping noises and confusing graphics". The series was recorded at Granada Studios in Manchester from 7–10 December 2008. It was filmed in London for the 2010 series, which used a four-round format, as the Intelligence round was dropped again.
Critical reception to the revival was poor, with UKGameshows stating, "It's hard to think of anything they've done differently this time where the change is an improvement" The Guardian ultimately describes it as "like getting back together with an ex. And then sobering up quickly and realising why you split up in the first place." The launch episode of the revival was watched by only half as many viewers as a repeat of Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death.
Rounds
The rounds were usually in the same order as below during the original series, except for the 1995 series. However, there were only five rounds in the earlier series, as Response had yet to be introduced; this round was also dropped for the 2009 revival.In all rounds except the final round, 10 points were awarded to the winner, then 6, 4 and 2 to the remaining contestants. Up to and including 1990, in the event of a tie in certain rounds, all tied players would receive the score for the higher place – in an extreme case, if three contestants tied with the highest score, they would all receive 10 points, with just 2 points for the unlucky fourth contestant. From 1991, in the Mental Agility and Observation rounds, tied players were ranked on the speed in which they answered; the faster player being awarded the higher amount of points. On rare occasions, an observation round would have the players answer a five-part question, such as "Name the five continuity errors in the film clip," players would receive 2 points for each correct answer.
From 1986 to 1991, each round was introduced by the distinctive K logo, which would morph into a symbol for the round. A similar version of this was used in the 2009 revival.
Personality (1977)
This round only occurred in the first series, where it was third. In it, the contestants were sequestered, where they had to write a 30-second script on a subject given to them, like a destination brochure, a letter of complaint, etc., which they had one chance to perform. The performances were filmed, and a focus group in twenty cities and towns across Great Britain voted on the best effort.Mental agility (1978–1995, 2009–2010)
First played in the second series, this often took the form of a memory test. The contestants frequently had to memorise a sequence and then answer progressively more complicated questions. For instance, if the sequence to be memorised was a series of coloured blocks, the questions might start as "What is the colour of the third block from the left?" and progress to "What is the colour of the block two to the left of the block to the right of the green block?". Other forms of memory tests might require contestants to remember a phrase or proverb and answer a series of questions about it.Initially, the round consisted of a "knock-out" format, where contestants were asked increasingly difficult questions and eliminated for wrong answers. If two or more players were eliminated on the same turn, ties were broken based on who had answered most of their questions correctly. Later, the contestants were shown 9 images along with a statement read to them by Charles Foster, and the contestants had to pick which 4 images were correct; they scored 2 points for each correctly identified image, with a maximum of 10 points for all four. In the semi-finals and final, this would change to showing two sequences in turn and asking each player a 3-point question about each sequence. A third sequence was then shown to all players at once, and one toss-up question, worth four points, was open to all players on the buzzer. If a player jumped in with the incorrect answer, that player was not penalized, and any other player could jump in. In 1985, in the heats each player was asked three questions worth 3, 3 and 4 points respectively. Then, until 1987, the Mental Agility round alternated between the knock-out format and a 45 or 50-second "speed test" where each player had to come up with as many correct answers as possible before time expired and could pass on any of them. Only if they answered incorrectly would they be informed of it, possibly to discourage guesswork.
From 1988 onwards, the Mental Agility round consisted entirely of 40-second speed tests, and from 1991 to 1993, ties were broken by the time each player took to achieve their score. In the 1995 series, a set of four images were shown to the players, who were all read a statement about one or two of the images, and the contestants had to touch the correct image on their screen. The monitors were placed on a rotating turntable to increase the difficulty of being the first to answer. This round lasted two minutes, with the images changing every eight questions. Only the first player to provide a correct answer would score for that answer, with answering time used to break ties.
This round was conducted initially with all contestants wearing headphones to prevent the other participants from hearing their competitors' answers. However, in the 1991 series, each contestant came on individually to perform their test in front of the audience before sitting down in their respective places behind them; no headphones were worn. By the end of the round, all 4 contestants would be seated. In the 2009 revival, the Mental Agility round followed the 1988 format, only using the tiebreaker rules when there was a tie for first place. Contestants individually completed this round in an isolation booth referred to as "The Kube", and their heart rates were also measured while they took the test. Each contestant's time was increased from 40 to 45 seconds for the 2010 version, and the tiebreak rule from 1991 returned.