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).

Mondays, 8pm,
BBC2

This is a big swing (they’ve put it in the Only Connect slot, BBC2’s highest rating slot of the week) and I’m here for it, but they’re already doing things that on paper seem more amateur than Grandmaster. I mean look at that subtitle! Is this the first or last series?

Sue Perkins invites 12 players from across the nation to compete in this tournament of sorts involving chess puzzles, with the worst/best (we don’t know the format yet) players competing in a speed chess game at the end with the loser getting eliminated (presumably). Also lots of chess games end in draws, so how are they going to model that here? In a move that feels like an absolutely crazy compromise, we’ll be getting the highlights of these speed chess games and you’ll be able to watch the games in full on iPlayer afterwards although how many casuals are going to bother to do this knowing the result is certainly a question mark. Experts David Howell and Anthony Mathurin (who you may recognise from series one of The Traitors) are on hand to commentate and guide us through it.

On paper it really feels like they’re trying to cram in a lot in 28 minutes – if there’s a show that could fill a 60 minute slot without a great deal of extra expense this feels like it. I was always a bit rubbish at chess, but I used to enjoy the Short vs Kasperov series on Channel 4 about 30 years ago so it’s not like this can’t work. Watched it? Let us know what you think in the comments.