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It’s Poll Time

By | January 2, 2026
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It’s the 2nd January which means it’s time for the UKGameshows.com/Bother’s Bar Poll of 2025, even if UKGS is in limbo right now. And this year we’re introducing tickboxes – the rules haven’t otherwise changed and we’ve been doing this for over twenty years now, so if you have an idea of what you’re doing you can go directly to the Google Form if you want. Lines close 23:59 Tuesday 12th January 2026.

If you need more explanation or are new to this (or you want the address to e-mail your votes in), I’ll put it under a cut.

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Show Discussion: Time is Money

By | December 31, 2025
15 Comments
#hostholdingaquestioncard

New Years Day, 6pm,
then weekdays 3pm from Jan 5th, ITV1

This will hopefully be quite fun, Sara Davies has always come across as The Dragon Who Is Probably Legitimately Into This Sort Of Thing so hopefully this translates into being good at it.

Contestants start off with a load of money but they have to answer questions quickly to hold on to it. That’s the premise, I don’t know more than that, but those podiums look quite sexy. I hope there is more to it than four-way chess clock quiz but we’ll have to wait and see, win more money by doing something fast is basically the most tried and tested premise for a gameshow (said without any real evidence but it sounds right).

It’s been sitting on the shelf for a little while, we were wondering whether they’d be using it to synergize with Davies’ upcoming appearance on The Box, but it doesn’t look like it. ITV have given it the coveted New Year’s Shoulder Peak Sneaky Peek slot, let’s hope it does a bit better than Jeopardy and Pictionary.

Watched it? Let us know what you thought in the comments!

Split Second UK

By | December 26, 2025
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A bit of fun this Christmas, hope you’re having a good one, Mister Doc has found and uploaded the first episode (a Christmas celebrity one) of STV’s version of Split Second.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the US original, the 70s Tom Kennedy one where you could buzz in if you could infer the question was my favourite, but I also enjoy the 80s Monty Hall one, if only as it has the most magnificently 1980s theme tune out of all 1980s theme tunes (Synths! Soft rock! Guitars! Love it). Even the recent GSN one is fun enough, although the material doesn’t feel quite so challenging.

Here we have a theme that’s reminiscient of the Hall one (although not the same), Coia has developed some excellent pointing action, the first round (and the Countdown round) play like (a slower version of) the original really, the mystery additions don’t really add much (it just becomes a reaction test), and it’s surprising how much explanation is required for the idea that the computer will rank how quickly you buzz. I was expecting it to be rubbish, but it’s a more successful reimagining than the Coia hosted Press Your Luck he’d go on to host a few years later for HTV at any rate (which no longer seems to have a clean version on Youtube, sadly.

Show Discussion: What’s In The Box?

By | December 16, 2025
3 Comments
#hostholdingaquestionbox

Netflix,
From 17th December

Neil Patrick Harris invites eight teams to figure out what prizes are in 12 giant boxes by way of quiz, the team with the most prizes at the end of the arced series wins what’s in the SUPER BOX worth over $250k – I know what this is but I will leave it as a surprise. Opening the box doesn’t necessarily mean you will keep the prize as there are ways and means to steal prizes and eliminate other teams across the series.

It’s Netflix trying another high stakes shiny floor quiz, an entertainment form they’ve tried to crack before and not really succeeded at. Will this break their duck? There’s not much hype about it. Also we know someone who went and saw some episodes being filmed and they weren’t very impressed, but perhaps it will edit extremely well and become a Christmas hit. UK production company Rollercoaster are behind it, the hitmakers behind You Bet On Tour and I’ve got an “I thought rollercoasters were meant to go up as well as down” gag lined up to go viral on Twitter if this doesn’t work, so everything to play for.

Watched it? Let us know what you thought in the comments!

Tone and density

By | December 15, 2025
4 Comments

Some Monday fun, FOTB Alex McMillan has written an entertaining essay on their new Substack about what audiences from different countries expect from reality competitions, and how The Traitors might buck the trend a bit in the UK.

Alternate Realities

It is curious that whilst The Traitors has been clearly a success in many countries, it’s the UK where it’s gone absolutely stratospheric in a way I don’t think it has anywhere else.

It’s the return of The Answer Trap (sort of!)

By | December 11, 2025
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Thrilled to see/hear that Bother’s Bar favourite The Answer Trap makes its triumphant return in the latest episode of the Here’s What You Do podcast with special guest star Bobby Seagull (it probably helps that one of the hosts used to be a writer on it).

You can find links to subscribe to the podcast and listen to the latest episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your provider of choice here.