The Code | |
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Genre | Game show |
Presented by | Matt Allwright |
Starring | Lesley-Anne Brewis |
Theme music composer | Nick Foster |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of series | 2 |
No. of episodes | 50 |
Production | |
Running time | 45 minutes |
Production company(s) | Gogglebox Entertainment |
Release | |
Original network | BBC One |
Picture format | 16:9 (HDTV) 1080i |
Audio format | Stereo |
Original release | 18 April 2016 | – present
External links | |
Website |
The Code is a British television game show that has aired on BBC One since 18 April 2016 and is hosted by Matt Allwright and Lesley-Anne Brewis. The goal is to unlock a safe containing a cash prize that is protected by a lock with a three-digit code of unique numbers.
Contestants take part as individuals or in pairs or trios. They must choose the correct answers to a series of general knowledge questions that steadily increase in difficulty. For each correct answer, they are given a chance to guess one of the three digits in the code. If the team succeed in guessing all three numbers of the code, they win the money – but if they answer any of the general knowledge questions incorrectly they forfeit the game and the prize rolls over to the next contestants. Lesley-Anne Brewis gives the correct answers and provides information about the questions as the show's in-game "expert".
A team made up of either one, two or three people enter the studio. There is a safe containing the jackpot at the other end of the room. The jackpot has a starting value of £3,000, but each time a team is unsuccessful at breaking "The Code", another £500 is added for the next team. When a jackpot is won, it is reset to the base value of £3,000.
The team is then shown three answers on a screen. At the start of the show, each team is allowed to look behind each answer and see the question connected with it. Only one of the three answers is correct each time. The team then has to say which answer is correct. If the team is correct, they can enter a number into the keypad to try and open the safe. If they're wrong, they leave the game immediately and a new team replaces them.
When a number is correctly entered, the gameplay moves to the next level. In Level 2, each team is only allowed to see a maximum of two out of the three answers. In Series 1, after two have been revealed, the team must reject one of the answers. If they did so correctly, they could look at the remaining answer and choose which of the remaining two is correct. If they picked incorrectly, then they left the game. In Series 2 this level was made slightly more difficult, as teams now have to choose the correct answer as soon as they have seen the first two questions, without having seen the third one.
When two of the three numbers have been put in correctly, the gameplay moves to the highest level. In Level 3, each team is only allowed to see one answer at a time. When they have selected an answer, they must decide if it's correct or incorrect. If they find the correct answer from the first answer given, the team can put another number in the keypad. If they find an incorrect answer and correctly deduce it as such, then the team can reveal one of the other two answers, and decide if that is correct or incorrect. After they have locked in their answer, the other answer is revealed to see if the team is confident with their answer or not. In Series 1, a discarded answer was immediately revealed as either correct or incorrect, whereas in Series 2 the contestants are not told this until the end of the question when all of the answers are revealed. As before, a wrong answer means the team leaves the show.