| Host | |
| Steve Valentine | |
| Broadcast | |
 | |
| Packager | |
| Endemol USA | |
Estate of Panic was a short-lived reality show in which seven strangers competed to find cash in a large estate.
Premise[]
Seven strangers from across the United States would arrive at a large, mysterious mansion. The mansion's eccentric owner (Valentine) would spend his free time stashing his assets throughout the mansion, and he was assisted by his silent butler, the eighty-year-old maniacal freak, Rupert. Once the players arrive at the estate, The owner would challenge them to find the cash he had hidden in a series of rooms. The task was made difficult, however, as the contestants had to come face to face with their greatest phobias while in the house. In each room, the last person to leave and the person who collected the least money were both eliminated. After three rooms were explored and six players had been eliminated, the final contestant would earn the opportunity to win (and add to) everything collected by all players by completing a final challenge in the estate's Vault.
Gameplay[]
Main Game[]
The game was similar in concept to several other shows such as Fear Factor (also produced by Endemol), the Nickelodeon game show Finders Keepers, the French game show Fort Boyard, the British game show The Crystal Maze, and the GSN game show How Much is Enough? The seven contestants would search through a series of three rooms for cash. Bills of smaller denominations ($1, $5, etc.) were hidden in relatively easy locations in the rooms, or even placed out in plain sight; bills of larger denominations (up to $100) are hidden in areas that were either more difficult to reach or protected by various animals (snakes, crabs, spiders, maggots, insects, etc.), all of which were harmless, yet disturbing. Meanwhile, each room would take on a life of its own to make things trickier and scarier for the contestants. For example, the basement flooded with water; the study had moving walls and ceiling that "shrank" the room to a very small size; the floor in the kitchen had properties similar to quicksand, and the garden was rigged with electric fences.
Once a contestant believed that he/she had enough money to secure a spot in the next round, the player had to leave the room and place all cash collected on a tray held by Rupert. Not all exits remained open the entire time, however, and a contestant could either have to wait for an exit to unlock or take an alternate route to make it out of the room in time.
Elimination[]
While there was no explicitly-stated time limit in any of the rooms, the rooms would become more uninhabitable as time passed and the number of players shrunk, forcing the players to consider when to exit. In each round, the last player left in the room was eliminated; the show claimed that the contestant was "trapped" inside once all the others had exited. In addition, of the contestants who did exit, the one who recovered the least money was also eliminated and escorted from the house by the butler. Should there be a tie for last place, both players advanced, but the two players with the least money in the next room were eliminated in addition to the trapped player.
There was no reward for recovering the most money in the first room, but the person who did so in the second room usually received assistance that could prove useful in the third room. The total money recovered by all eliminated contestants was placed in a cumulative pot, which was then offered as a prize to the last remaining contestant.
Extras[]
At times, a monetary bonus was offered to a contestant who could retrieve a certain object or set of objects hidden in one of the rooms. Depending on the object, it could either help or hinder the player's actual progress in the room: carrying some objects around could impede the player's progress, while setting them down would put them at risk of being stolen, with the others had the ability grab the rest without letting go. Other hidden objects could be worn to protect the player against some unwanted distraction(s) in the room (i.e. Rubber soled slippers, to protect against electric shocks).
The Vault[]
The last remaining contestant was given the chance to win all the money recovered by all seven contestants, plus more, in the Vault.
The contestant would be restrained (such as by a leg chain, a harness suspended from the ceiling, or a straitjacket) in a vault containing 200 "safety deposit boxes". Some boxes contained cash, while others had worthless items or booby traps such as snakes; a few boxes contained tools the contestant could use to free himself or herself from the restraint. In some versions, the player had to recover the prize winnings as well. Unlike the previous rooms, the Vault featured a time limit: ten steel balls would roll at intervals through a "timing device". Once eight balls had finished dropping, red lights would begin flashing to warn the contestant; when all ten had finished dropping, the door would lock. If the contestant exited the Vault before the door locked, he/she won all the money collected that night, plus any money recovered from the Vault. If the door locked, he/she lost all of the money. As a last resort, the contestant could choose to "panic", pressing a button in the corner of the vault to summon Valentine to the rescue. Alternatively, if the contestant couldn't physically reach the button, he/she could shout out, "I'm panicking", to the same effect; in earlier episodes, Valentine told the contestant to do both. A contestant who panicked would forfeit any money collected in the vault as well as half of the money collected in the first three rooms. While not specifically stated, it was implied that if the player tried to cheat by removing a ball, he/she would be disqualified. If the contestant could make it out of the Vault, the host would state the amount of winnings, hand it to the contestant, and say "Get out of my house" as the episode concluded.
Interational Versions[]
Countries that have previously aired their versions of Estate of Panic includes:
A Brazilian version of the series under the name Jogo Duro (Tough Game), hosted by Paulo Vilhena aired on TV Globo in 2009. Eight players competed instead of seven with two remaining contestants facing one final round in a flooding basement instead of "The Vault". The player who recovers the least amount of cash received only the amount while the winner received the total amount recovered that night.
A Ukrainian version of the series under the name Castle of Fear, hosted by Sergey Siplivy aired on New Channel in 2011. Played very similar to the U.S. version except that the seven contestants are all from the same family. If the sole survivor escapes The Vault, then the prize money is split amongst the family, if not, the family wins nothing. Additionally, no panic button appeared in this version at all.
Production[]
Estate of Panic was filmed on an estate in Argentina, although some challenges were filmed in a studio because, according to Valentine, "the scope of the challenges is so ambitious and huge that there were times when we couldn't really destroy that person's house". A disclaimer at the end of each episode noted that only one challenge was filmed per day, and the complete show was filmed over the course of four days.
Rating[]
Trivia[]
Host Steve Valentine is best known for his role as the eccentric Dr. Nigel Townsend on the popular NBC crime drama Crossing Jordan.
This show aired around the same time as Cha$e.
The series also aired in reruns on USA Network and Chiller channels respectively.
This was the first Sci-Fi Channel reality competition series that was built around fear, the second short-lived show of that nature was Total Blackout airing from 2012 until 2013.