Sunday 1st November, 9pm,
Channel 4

Look, now, you see the thing is is that we don’t actually know.

As presented, Bradley Walsh invites three contestants to a quiz where one of them could win a million pounds. A “one-off quiz event”. The big twist, revealed this week, is that the contestants bring their own bank cards and will be risking their own money to play. This brings with it its own ethical questions, but as much as they’d like you to believe it hasn’t happened before, Walsh ought to have a chat with his The Chase colleague Mark Labbett regarding Grand Slam about twenty years ago. That, at least, worked as an entry fee that someone was guaranteed to win as opposed to betting your own money against the house. There was also a show called Stake Out on Challenge that wanted to do it but got cold feet over the legality and just pretended it was the case.

Scratch beneath the surface however and it looks like something’s amiss – it’s being made by Keo Films, not known for their light entertainment work, but known for making documentaries with quite unusual premises. There was no contestant call-out (we’d notice if someone was asking for potential contestants to risk their own money). There *was* a recording at the beginning of October you could apply for through SRO. It’s all been very hush-hush. You don’t normally put out quizzes at 9pm on a Sunday, especially if you’re Channel 4 and especially if you’re Bradley Walsh. The O in ‘Shot’ looks like a bullethole! Will they have to shoot someone for the million pounds? That would be mischevious and Very Channel 4!

So when the bank card thing came out my first immediate thought was this is some sort of anti-gambling polemic, likely a scripted drama with Serious Actor And The Nation’s Sweetheart Bradley Walsh and if that is the case then it’s sad it’s been rumbled but this sort of thing is quite hard to pull off – gameshows by their nature are public facing at many steps along the way and they didn’t quite hide their tracks well enough, so the reaction won’t be “did you see that?” it will be “well that’s what that was all about then.” A shame, and that doesn’t mean it can’t be a thought-provoking hour (although it might also be a bit heavy-handed and on the nose), but it’ll dampen the final effect.

But we still don’t know, it could still pull out the rug from under us – maybe it is the genre-redefining light entertainment format it purports to be. The sad thing is it’s the most intrigued anyone’s been by a Channel 4 show since that surprise documentary on Russell Brand. I’m sure the reactions will be fascinating, let us know what you think in the comments.

Friday 30th October, 7pm,
Netflix

This is a bit sad really in that The Future Of Sportertainment feels like it’s already been murdered in plain sight by The Celebrity Traitors – the date for this was set months ago and they presumably weren’t to know the BBC were going to change their scheduling strategy from Wednesday/Thursday to Thursday/Friday this year, and as such it’s up against what might be one of the biggest TV episodes of the decade.

That is out of its control. More contentious is that is was billed, basically, as “can you, Johnny Normal, beat Bullseye star Luke Littler over one leg of 501 for £501,000?” which is quite a fun premise but somewhere turned into “can you, Johnny Normal, or a ringer, or a semi-professional, or other Bullseye stars, beat Luke Littler over one leg of 501 for £501,000?” which is a different arguably less fun proposition and I’ve quite enjoyed seeing production tie themselves in knots explaining it away and why it is good it is like this actually aaaaah.

I think the premise is well understood by now – 24 players, up to 20 will get to play, face Luke Littler and if they can best him in one leg of 501 they win £501,000 and the show ends. There is apparently a fun contingency if the show is won early with a separate prize, so no Littler can’t just throw it at 7:55pm and Gary Lineker, Richard Osman and the however many out of 10,000 Manchester Central seats that are filled can’t just stick the Traitors final up on a big screen.

It’s a bit of a reductive blurb here, and I’m not even sure when I’m going to have the time to watch it (I’m off seeing Duran Duran the following night at the O2), but I’m sure it will be decently professional and fun and I will try and catch-up in due course and hope not to be put off/spoiled by the runtime. When you eventually get round to having a look, let us know what you think in the comments.