Before I begin, Taskmaster‘s back tonight and finally Channel 4 have added the Australian and New Zealand versions on 4oD having promised them for months, so enjoy them before someone works out they’ve probably made a mistake and they revert to “coming soon” for further months. Also we’ll have a Show Discussion post for The Box up on Saturday morning.

I’ve been off this week, so imagine my excitement when I went to Tesco on Saturday to see a big cardboard cutout of MrBeast holding a book, The Most Dangerous Games, a book written by him (and James Patterson) coming out this week. Well I love a good deathgame story, and obviously MrBeast writing a book is too interesting to resist, so I spent six hours reading it on Tuesday so you don’t have to.

It’s not great!

As a writer he’s no Dan Brown. But I didn’t go into it expecting Jane Austen, but I’ve enjoyed a MrBeast video or two in the past, he’ll have a big idea and he’ll just do it and fair enough really. Surely at the very least they’ll be some big, interesting, creative ideas and situations here, people forced into difficult sometimes ethical decisions with big money on the line, friendships and boundaries tested? Well no not really, it’s mainly quite trite expedition race stuff in the main – swimming with sharks, Death Valley, that sort of thing, I was definitely hoping for something more interesting.

And then we get on to the character of Jimmy Donaldson himself whose appearance consistently takes you out of the fiction. We are meant to believe that Donaldson becomes a Jason Bourne style character here to expose the big conspiracy but this is too unbelievable, Jimmy Donaldson isn’t Jason Bourne, he is Youtuber Jimmy Donaldson. And you’ll never guess who the real bad guys are.

I’m intrigued to find out how much input James Patterson had into this. As it is it’s difficult to recommend, even as an ironic purchase.

In other news I was at SoHo Walthamstow theatre last night to see Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee Live and had a great time. The set is rather pared back – Montgomery at a desk, the four comics on swivel chairs, projection screen in the back with all the graphics, but if you’ve watched the show on iPlayer it’s the same format – ostenably a spelling bee, but really closer to something like Shooting Stars with its gag rate and silliness. The guests were Lolly Adefope, Tim Key, Alex Horne and Lou Saunders, with assistance from Rose Matafeo and Sam Campbell (although it took a while for us to work out it was him coming out as a young Keir Starmer as we were towards the back). The contestants ran away with it a bit sometimes and it could do with a tight edit, as it were, but it was as entertaining as you’d have hoped. Some classic rounds (Homophones, Spell The Audience Member’s Name (here with Campbell and a camera crawling over the seats in the balcony)) and some new fun ideas (September 2nd In History, Restaurants of East London (spell the name of the restaurant the dish comes from)). Fun!

This year’s series finished at the weekend – so that means Summer’s over – and you can watch them subbed on Youtube if you want (well the first seven on the international Replay channel anyway at time of writing, the last two episodes in the next few days presumably) – we have no idea of its official streaming numbers but certainly its overnights are half-a-million to a million up on last year so you would have to assume season 37 is safely coming.

For me the season was a bit of a U shape – lots of excitement at the start, a lull towards the middle as you begin to see through some of the changes, but a strong final couple of episodes where some quite interesting things happen, even if it’s just “they played some games that had been unplayed on the Fort for years” – actually quite a few one-off outings this year, quite frequently of games you’d like to see a bit more often (Telepherisque! Prison Sous-Marine!).

Cyril Feraud turned out to be an excellent host (not that he ever wasn’t going to be with his years of experience, but it was not necessarily a given his style would be a natural fit for this role), and it sounds like as a fan and as someone with long-term experience of the show he was pushing for good changes behind the scenes (he’s listed as “artistic counsel” in the credits). Even if the edit sometimes betrays what’s going on, he was always there to draw attention to a mechanic much more so than previous whilst keeping an element of mischief. The first episode that went out I thought he was a bit too much “7th member of the team” but I felt this a bit less as episodes went on.

That middle lull came with a realisation that for all the show likes to say it now has bite and jeopardy, they’ve mainly shuffled the deck a bit but most episodes still end up with a treasure room with six players, three clues and about 2:30 on the clock. The last decade or so basically a celebrity variety show where everyone ends up in the same place, this year wanted to give the impression it’s a gameshow again with drama and jeopardy and rules, but except for one episode everyone escaped the prison (which basically just becomes a way to dodge the adventures), which made it a bit of a pointless exercise – we need more variety of outcomes, taking prisoners and making sacrifices should *hurt* – that is the point. The collective adventures are a fun idea, but the changes made to Metro, originally a top-tier challenge, make it a great deal less entertaining, Using only half of Laboratory feels like a massive waste. If you’re going to pretend there’s a 50-minute clock for finding the keys, you’re going to have to pretend a bit better – no way are you getting 6 games in 23 minutes and barely having time to fit five more in the 27 remaining, although a change to 11 attempts is welcome – I daresay removing half the sketches and *all* the segment introductions that got old after the second showing has really helped, less is indeed more. If Slippery Stairs can’t be won by two fitness Youtubers it’s too hard. Cabinet of Curiosities needs more curiosities.

What do I want next year? We’ve covered all the obvious ones already, so just some suggestions shooting from the hip:

• It will be 2027. Are we still watching people fumble with padlock codes for drama? I wrote about a clue box redesign about five years ago, COME ON GUYS.
• Graphically the show is working – I really like the 1920s pulp fiction inspired logo font, I thought that’d be used for more than outside the Travelling Head but never mind, and the between game old-plan aesthetic also works. But musically, something traditionally the show has been strong with, it’s a bit all over ther place at the moment, little feeling of cohesion, “soundscapes” rather than tunes, and when we do get a tune it gets ruined by becoming chase music in the last twenty seconds. Unnecessary! Stop it!
• Now there are two ways to earn money throughout the show, I think there should be a bonus victory condition. In the olden days, if you got above 100,000FFr that felt like a *proper* win. These days that unlikely but occasional figure is probably €20,000. They should get a bonus €10k if they breach that. In the last three years it’s happened twice, with a handful just under that so there’s a bit of added drama at the weigh-in. It would also encourage them to be a bit more risk-taking in the Highlights.
• I think there are too many adventures set in cells when they should mainly be set about the Fort (that’s what makes them special) and they should be freed up to add key game variety. There’s no need for both Zoo *and* Supermarket, they are basically the same. Why is Catacombs on the second level when catacombs are normally underground? And besides, if you’re not playing Fosse anymore that’s an interesting space that should be used for something else. Laboratory uses up too much space for what it now is.
• Something to think about – there was a mild hoo-ha when the representative of the viewers got sacrificed and couldn’t do the Treasure Room. I think this was a shame, but also that these decisions happen in the moment and you can’t get rid of the sharp edges or you don’t have a format. But. But. What if sacrifices were released 20-30 seconds before the gate starts closing so they could at least jump in, grab some coins, get out and have the experience?
• I know it sounds like basically wanting to turn the clock back 30 years in the hope of having it hit the same way it did when I was 14, but I will not be pulled on the following: It should have the shrinking room. It should have the interior jump (it was always a better visual than saut d’lange, fight me), it should have the deathslide into the sea and mast climbing to Variation No. 1. It should have Pont ‘d singe. It should have Cle a la Mer. These are the Fort Boyard iconic things! Everything else can be negotiated.

Edit: And on a point of order can we have a moratorium on the term “Prisoner Game” for automatic lock-in rooms? The implication is only those specific cells are allowed to take prisoners when in reality any cell can be a lock-in. Call them “Trap Cells” or something.

Getting ahead of Beat Luke Littler in the burgeoning Streamers Coming Up With Sports Formats That Don’t Involve Buying Rights genre Red Bull, Disney+ and ESPN have announced Max vs 100 (which genuinely is actually a great title, really rolls off the tongue) which will see Formula One superstar Max Verstappen take on 100 other karters, some of whom are celebs, around a specially made track at Silverstone starting at the back and hoping to get to the front. Mo Gilligan’s hosting.

They say 101 karts on a track has never been done before, I wonder if they were inspired by some Mario Kart mods that were doing the rounds some time ago. It will be interesting to see if it has anything like this level of chaos.

They also did a professional driver vs ordinary contestants on De Mol a few years ago, with Mario Kart style power-ups, and it was great so there’s that – this won’t have the power-ups, obviously. It’s happening LIVE on Disney+ and ESPN on September 16th.

In other news a new trailer for Netflix’s Wonka’s The Golden Ticket has just come out. We thought the first one looked like it’s had some money thrown at it and still feels like a great idea for a reality game, the new one doesn’t change that fact, AI Gene Wilder is the sticking point, it’s a shame we won’t be able to find out really how many people watch it and don’t mind it, don’t bother watching it, or WATCH IT BUT WITH A CROSS LOOK ON THEIR FACE LET ME TELL YOU. It does feel unnecessary, they’ve gone with the modern Wonka branding which is similar to but not the same as the original film so it’s not like they needed to do it. Still, though. They’re keeping quiet on what “a lifetime supply of money” means – £10 a month for life! Who knows.

A big September for streaming between these and various Physical 100 spin-offs. And on terrestrial The Box with Gary Lineker starts 5th and 6th September. Content!

Edit: Bradley’s hosting a quiz pilot in Maidstone on October 2nd. I can’t make it annoyingly, but if you can tickets are available from SRO.

Edit Edit: And now Your Time Starts Now aka The Button 2.0 has been commissioned for eight eps for Channel 4, the suggestion is winning families can keep returning to double their winnings if they come out on top, potentially into millions (which sounds unlikely to happen at risk of losing the lot). This does suggest we’re getting twenty-eight weeks of Taskmaster Universe content next year which is… a lot.

Edit Edit Edit: Christ it’s all go today, TV Zone has the Last One Laughing 3 cast as “Lee Mack, Katherine Ryan, Harry Hill, Katherine Parkinson, Michelle de Swarte, Jon Richardson, Morgana Robinson, Roisin Conaty, Josh Jones and Series one Runner-Up, Richard Ayoade” and it looks like, although it isn’t stated, that Mel Giedroyc is in the Jimmy’s chat-buddy role.

September is very exciting for fans of Netflix’s Physical 100 ‘franchise’ (urgh), Physical 100 Italy joins on September 11th and Physical 100 Mexico on September 16th. It looks like they’ve both properly gone for the big, dramatic sets – central to Physical 100‘s appeal I think, but it looks like Italy’s challenges (from the trailer at least) are remixes of existing P100 tasks but Mexico’s look a little newer and so more interesting. Of interest is how closely it sticks to the original South Korean editing style, I’m hoping episodes are slightly shorter but we’ll see.

And now something that should have physical things in it but doesn’t, but is a really interesting find (I presume, I can’t watch it properly until I finish work tonight) – the 2000 Fox Krypton Factor pilot (presumably) hosted by Pat O’ Brien uploaded by The Game Show Vault. Didn’t make it to series, but likely of interest to Krypton Factor nerds.