Al, Dave and Paul free Alex, eventually

Here's a description of the contestant's attempt. Someone's probably working on collecting some images to illustrate it.

Paul reads the only visible text on the task brief ‘Your time starts now’. Dave then finds a message in a bottle in the room, which is not a clue. Al then takes the large portrait of Greg off the wall, but finds nothing. Paul is seen holding various books, looking for clues. Al then finds the box with the combination lock on it, and Paul makes the claim that he can “pick any lock”. While Paul attempts to prove his lockpicking skills, Dave finds the UV light, and he and Al use it to reveal the hidden parts of the task brief: ‘Release Alex. Fastest wins.’ In the studio, Greg asks Paul “You can pick any lock, right?”, and Paul responds “Yes, any lock.” Greg follows up with “Did you successfully pick that lock?”, and Paul admits “Didn’t pick that one.” Back in the footage of their attempt, Al has begun searching Alex for a key. Without having successfully found the relevant clue, the team finds the book ‘Karma Test’ by ‘Gregor Davies’ on the bookshelf, identify that it has 268 pages, and try to use this as the code for the combination lock (which obviously doesn’t work). They look around, confused. Eventually, Dave checks the task brief with the UV light again, and finds the clue ‘Look on the phone’ on the back. They immediately check the actual phone in the room, and find nothing. While standing by and moving the portrait of Greg holding a phone, Al suggests that there is probably another phone in the room. Meanwhile, Paul is still trying to pick the lock on the box. Dave finally spots the phone in the portrait, and uses the UV light to find the clue “911”. At this point, Al exclaims “We’re a trio of dickheads.” Dave uses the code to open the box, and finds the jigsaw puzzle. He quickly spots that there is writing on the back, and only joins together the pieces needed to read the message. However, he somehow misreads the word number as “34” instead of “14”, so they spend some time figuring out what kind of clue the word ‘was’ is, before realising his mistake. Upon checking the correct word, ‘shedding’, they immediately run to the shed. They find the Christmas cracker and pull it to get the clue ‘Look behind the picture’. Rushing back into the house, they check first behind Greg’s portrait, finding nothing, before venturing into the hallway, where Dave finds the photo of the key in Alex’s hand behind one of the pictures. In the studio, Paul complains that the other team only had two people, whereas he’d had both Dave and Al “distracting” him. Greg responds that if he’d been on his own, he’d still be there now, trying to open the box. He also confirms that he would definitely want to watch this. The team completes the task in 27 minutes and 37 seconds, and earns no points.

(Written by JoGo and proofread by Karl Craven)