Genius Game: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
David Tennant hosts a game show requiring brilliance and deviousness
Year: 2025
David Tennant expands his CV to become The Creator in this game show adapted from a South Korean format. Calling for brain power, strategy and cunning, the format pitches 11 of the country's most brilliant minds into intellectual battle. Players include a forensic scientist, a PhD student, a crime writer, a couple of trainee GPs and a stand-up comedian. Demanding University Challenge-level genius mixed with Traitors-style deception and guile, it requires the contestants to think creatively to outfox their rivals and win the cash prize.
First, the contestants play in a Main Match, in which the winner gets immunity from elimination. The person who finishes bottom must choose a rival to face in the Death Match, and the loser of that will be going home. Keep an eye on India, who looks like the Batman villain Harley Quinn and claims to be a second-year university student studying economics and philosophy, which seems a level down from her rivals. But then she casually mentions she plays a lot of poker, and you know the other big brains should be worried.
While its rules were understandably befuddling to some (particularly the Byzantine first episode), as ever with this kind of show it's the people you really latch onto and start to follow. That becomes easier as the field narrows in later episodes, before the penultimate instalment sets up a final that's very hard to call ahead of time. (Eight episodes)
