Here’s some unexpected fun for the weekend, and thanks to Nico W on the Discord to alerting us to it – it’s Dutch Big Money Celebrity Sardines on Amazon Prime and it’s Very Much The Sort Of Thing We Like. Nine Dutch celebs travel around various Dutch landmarks on a bus playing Sardines for €18,000. One person is picked at random on an extremely whizzy wheel (immediately one of the all time great gameshow props, I reckon) to go and hide somewhere on the location, the other contestants get 90 minutes to find them, and if they do find them they have to hang out in the same space until the clock runs out. If *everybody* finds the Hider, the Hider is eliminated. If not everybody finds the Hider then the Hider picks someone who didn’t find them to eliminate. There are added complications – there’s a currency called Triangles which can be spent to increase your chance of becoming the Hider or to buy various advantages, at various points during the Hunt special rooms open up offering risky rewards via mini-challenges and decisions. Hunters earn Triangles by finding the Hider, but they earn more the fewer people find them. Sometimes the Hiders haven’t thought about the implications of the space they’ve chosen to hide.

It’s decently entertaining and at around 45 minutes an episode (six episodes as far as I know) doesn’t outstay its welcome – it’s sort of a bit like Bother’s Bar favourite Run For Money except without the running or indeed much money but the location scouts have done a good job of finding decently sized buildings which are interesting and have lots of potential hiding spots. Stylish graphics. English subs are available. My one criticism is then “next time” bits give away a bit more than you’d really like.

Three eps on Wednesdays for three weeks from March 26,
Netflix

12 people rock up at Peter Serafinowicz’s mansion and each shown to a room, and inside each room a box, and inside one of the boxes one MILLION dollars. That’s for that player to take away provided none of the other contestants suspect them of having it and eliminating them. To help the contestants work out who is the secret millionaire, tasks are set, the winning of which earns clues to the millionaire’s identity. It sounds like there’s a Round Table and at the end of each episode someone gets accused and eliminated, the money being reassigned if the millionaire gets caught presumably.

It’s Fortune Hotel…meets The Traitors!!! Although there’s no obvious signs of case swapping or murders. What the trailer does suggest is lots of overemoting Americans being undercut by Serofinowicz who seems to be having a great time administering it all. Probably there’s little here we haven’t seen before, but it still looks like fun.

We’re always a bit worried about shows where producers give out clues to players – where does the difficulty balance lie? How hard done by should you feel as a contestant by a perceived gimme? Is it just an easy way to get a favourable result? We’ll find out how fair it all feels by the end.

When you’ve watched it, let us know what you thought in the comments.

Saturdays, 6pm,
ITV

100 people in a warehouse play silly games guided by Adam and Ryan Thomas. You don’t have to be any good at any of them, but importantly you must not come last in any of them or be eliminated, the last one standing wins at the end of the series wins a whopping £25,000.

This has been around Europe for a number of years, beginning as a daily segment on a Flemish show, really taking off in the Netherlands as De Alleskunner (The All Rounder), this became a surprise German Summer hit, and it looks like it’s the German show this has taken the visual inspiration from – whereas the Dutch feels like its set in a light and bright community centre, this is a large dark warehouse with a big lighting gantry. As such I think the 6pm slot feels too early for the show’s look (also it’s up against Gladiators which feels like a hiding to nothing), although it’s a big bunch of silly so they can’t put it too late either.

FOTB Tom F (and contestant on the show) is writing a series of blog pieces explaining the show’s appeal (here’s a direct link to the latest one) which is well worth a read, and a few series of the Dutch show are up on Youtube if you want something to compare it to (and it’s a pretty easy to follow watch even without subs). Watched it? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Amazon Video from 20th March

Jimmy Carr invites a fairly stacked line-up of UK comedians into a room and challenges them to make each other laugh whilst not laughing themselves or risk elimination. The last one left is the winner.

The Documental format has been a worldwide streaming success across the last decade, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for the UK to get a version – there’s even previously been an Irish version with Graham Norton. But does it work here? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Whilst we wait with bated breath for Genius Game to land, it transpires there’s a corporate knock-off currently being uploaded to Youtube and it’s… pretty good? Life’s Game is LG Electronics’ very own take on the The Genius brain-survival genre, in it, 12 LG employees compete in games of strategy and intelligences social and logical set by a man with a key for an eye for some reason. Ultimate winner takes home 10m Won (just over £5,000). They’ve set it in various offices around one of their main buildings, so it doesn’t have the glamour of its inspo, but it hits a lot of the other beats – perhaps the rules explanations need to be tighter and really 2×45 minute eps for a cycle is a bit lengthier than you’d like, but they’re good games in the main and it’s got decently fun reveals. Because the winner of each game gets more power over who to send home, ahem, there’s a bit more emphasis on kingmaking and not being on the wrong side of a divide and we’ll have to see how that develops going forward.

First four episodes are up, we’re probably due the next in a few days – it seems to be on a twice a week cycle. Would recommend watching on a computer or a TV over a tablet or phone as it uses Youtube’s captionings for English subs, and there’s a risk they’ll go over the explanation graphics on smaller screens. We are casually following it in #geniuschat on the Discord at the moment (well I am anyway).