Obviously we’re discussing this in the Discord, but as they’re uploading them to Youtube might as well have a chat here. The changes are good – Cyril Feraud brings energy as host (perhaps a bit too much, he seemed to make more noise outside of the cells than the team), pleasingly it feels like they’ve stopped being scared of their own format, it feels more like a gameshow again with rules and things that happen and good things and jeopardy rather than a sort of variety show where celebrities do things for two hours but not much of that is really consequential as it gets to the same end point anyway it seemed to become. I like the remixed theme music and graphical packages, although I think the games lack the musical identity they ought to have. The “Highlights” to earn bonus cash are fun, decent events to incorporate existing characters in meaningful ways, although I hope they have more than one game planned for the Thermal Baths and the Collective Adventure. Even the Council, usually a pretty boring bit, feels fun and meaningful. And it’s lean – most of the between game sketches (and the pre-cell rules!) have gone, and we don’t get a menu of adventures any more so they’re a surprise again, which is good!

First episode got the show’s best overnight in five years – much of that will be people tuning in just to see what it’s like, and I haven’t paid much attention to see if there are any real draws in future celeb bookings. Still though, you have to suggest pretty decent changes for a show in its 37th season.

Edit: Video swapped to international version with English subs.

From the Discord, extremely sad to hear about the passing of Chatsworth TV producer Malcolm Heyworth – what kid in the 80s and 90s wasn’t watching Treasure Hunt, The Crystal Maze, Interceptor et al? It was always this sort of thing that made me excited about the genre, and without which I wouldn’t still be writing about it 30+ years later.

Just a note that the new series of Korea’s Bloody Game/Game of Blood launches with English subs on KOCOWA+ from tomorrow, July 3rd. We wrote a bit about the last series we watched last Summer here. I hope we’re not getting three-hour episodes again, but who knows, hopefully it will remain art.

Since writing that the format (or at least the initial version of the format) seems to have launched fairly successfully on streaming services in various Scandinavian countries (and is on its third series I think in Norway – I’m not quite sure how or if indeed they bother keeping the secret house a secret by series three, or if they still get to see the elimination ballots). I’ve quite enjoyed seeing how each territory brings its own spin on it, Sweden’s is set in a luxury high rise apartment, for example, and “sorting coloured beads” seems to be the Scandinavian equivalent of folding pizza boxes for survival cash. I’m still not sure this version is much better than “Studio Lambert does a reality show for Channel 4” but there we are.

When we first heard Netflix were turning Willy Wonka into a reality show, I thought it was kind of an ingenious idea – the film (and the book, natch) is basically structured as an eliminatory reality gameshow anyway so really, why not? Of course in the story the golden ticket winners eliminated themselves through their own various acts of greed and stupidity, we don’t actually have any clue here what winning and losing entails, whether this will be a parable or whether they’ve reduced it to who can squeeze the most giant human blueberries or whatever.

Although recreating Gene Wilder’s voice using AI is… hmm.

Anyway the set looks good, Wonka’s The Golden Ticket launches on Netflix September 23rd.

And speaking of people doing challenges in a fantastical setting, Fort Boyard is back on France 2 on Saturday! Cyril Feraud, massive Fort Boyard nerd, is the new host somehow finding time amongst all the other France Televisions things he hosts, and it looks like they’ve thrown everything at it this year – this year’s theme is lots more team games and “Highlights” where you earn bonus money throughout the show. Hopefully they’ll be going up on Youtube, but if you’ve got a VPN the first few episodes are going out at 7:50pm (UK) / 8:50pm (France). We’ll be discussing on the Discord, as ever.

This week’s big news is that it’s being reported that Ben Crabbé, longtime host of of Belgian TV’s favourite Tetris-based quiz Blokken, is calling it quits after 33 series and over 7,000 episodes, his last series will begin in August. Whether he will be walking sideways into another job is not known at present. Interestingly the VRT news article suggests Blokken is the world’s longest running daily quiz programme at 32 years, which might come as a surprise to fans of Jeopardy! and Questions Pour Un Champion (although not for a while), but there we are, but it’s certainly an exceptionally long run. He will be replaced by Sven de Leijer who began his career as Blokken’s warm-up man, which represents an exciting start of a potential Only Connect question, as new host of Fort Boyard (starting July 4th) Cyril Feraud started his TV career as an intern on Fort Boyard.

In other news Gladiators tickets are now released, recording end of July/beginning of August as expected. Best of luck to everyone on Big Break which starts filming tomorrow and over the weekend, turns out Red Hot isn’t just the name of the opening round. I tried but failed to get a ticket, although seeing the temperatures over the next few days and the inevitable train problems I may have dodged a bullet. Pity, though! There’s certainly some decent people working on it and you’d assume it will be difficult to mess up, the real test is seeing if McGuinness/Hendry have the right sort of chemistry – I’m sure reports will come out in due course.

Meanwhile Richard “The Golden Elevators” Osman talks about bad titles with a completely straight face during this week’s Rest Is Ents Q and A podcast. Hmm.

Edit: Shaun Micallef and his son to host the Australian version of Romesh Ranganathan’s Parent’s Evening on 10. That’s such a great choice!