‘What have I signed up for?’ wondered contestant Jenny Ryan early in proceedings on ITV’s The Box. It’s a question that might be more germanely asked by the show’s host Gary Lineker.
A long time ago, American comedian Fred Allen said that ‘Television is a device that permits people who haven’t anything to do to watch people who can’t do anything’. I always thought this was a harsh judgement. But The Box proves that Allen was simply ahead of his time.
This is what Lineker has chosen to do in the downtime when he’s not sharing his thoughts on Israel, or raking in millions from his podcast empire
It is a game show – at least I think that’s what it is – fronted by the FA Cup-eared crisp masticator, now retired from his vital work on Match Of The Day. This is what Lineker has chosen to do in the downtime when he’s not sharing his thoughts on Israel, or raking in millions from his podcast empire.
You’d think that a show called The Box would be something to do with a box, the same way that Phillip Schofield’s The Cube was centred very much around a cube. In fact, The Box features not one but many boxes, big and small, but they are nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with the matter in hand. What is the matter in hand? I’m still not sure.
There are ten celebrity contestants. I say celebrities, but in this age of micro glitterati, I have a horrible suspicion that I might be more famous than a good half of them. John Bercow is included in the line-up. Several of the other challengers share the blissful and highly enviable ignorance of not knowing who the hell he is.
In general, those partaking display all the usual traits of modern celebs on such shows: mirthless laughter, upspeaking and frequent displays of ‘I’ve got your back’ solidarity masking plots to bring each other down. There is a lot of what I call ‘The ITV shriek’: cries of surprise and shouts of ‘This is crazy, man’ when something ordinary and that the entire audience anticipated is happening.
The Box simply doesn’t tell the contestants the rules of the game, challenging them to work things out for themselves. But it makes television history by not telling the viewers either. You are kept wondering what the point of it is, and what is at stake.
The celebs occasionally emerge from boxes to partake in bewildering tasks. In the first episode, these included an egg and spoon race that took place, inexplicably, at a race course. I swear to you I’m not making this up. The big finale of the episode, said Gary, ‘may seem like an ordinary game of rock scissors paper, but nothing is what it seems on The Box’. Actually, it was an ordinary game of rock scissors paper, except played in a sci-fi module. And this was only episode one. By episode seven, we could be looking at the high-octane thrill of Pin The Tail On The Donkey or Pass The Parcel.
What is Lineker’s role during these proceedings? He is found at a distance, watching these random people doing random things through field glasses, like a peeping Tom or a looker-on at a hunt, and adding vital commentary along the lines of: ‘Oh no, he’s dropped his egg.’
The contestants are none too bright. ‘How do you get down the ladder?’ shrieked one in a panic in the very first round. I don’t know, perhaps by descending the rungs? Other indictments of the education system included another contestant identifying a six-sided shape as an octagon.
Their combined intellectual powers could maybe make a cup of tea but I doubt it. They’re highly competitive, bit competing for what, and why? What is it all for? It feels utterly pointless and arbitrary, like the First World War.
Between the rounds, the entrants retreat to a Big Brother-style compound, a palace of high-end tat in which they discuss their strategy. The prospect of John Bercow in a box might excite Spectator readers to tune in, but he is very active and his usual loveable self. He confesses at one point, ‘Fundamentally I’m a people person’. This is further proof of the rule that a mountain of self-regard does not necessarily result in an equivalent tower of self-knowledge.
What were ITV thinking? I suspect the plan was to combine Squid Game, The Traitors and Taskmaster but on the cheap. I’d hoped that all the.money running out of television might make the medium more interesting again, but The Box well and truly scratches that theory. In fact, it has already earned its place as one of the great TV disasters.
At the centre of it all stands Lineker, trying to make sentences like ‘The boxes will force you to face the unknown’ and ‘You’ve won immunity from the duel’ sound thrilling.
His presence is the most puzzling thing about The Box. Why is he doing this? I suspect he has a terrible need to be seen; and it doesn’t really matter what he appears on.
The show could perhaps have been saved by a host that could bring it alive by revelling in the small-scale absurdity of it all. Think of how Ant and Dec transform the frequent longueurs of I’m A Celebrity. But Lineker doesn’t have their range or easy affability. The show is, in fact, a reminder of what a bore he is. Every time it cuts to him, whatever paltry amount of momentum has built up is instantly dissipated. He sucks up fun, a black hole of banality.
We think of Lineker as a live wire, always at the centre of controversy. The Box reminds us that he is, in fact, the dullest kind of bog standard bloke. And his correct progressive opinions are just another facet of the soul-sapping tedium of the man.
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