Saturdays, 9:40pm,
ITV1
After what seems like forever (we watched a recording of it June 2023), Password finally appears after a fairly successful US Jimmy Fallon reboot. Of course it’s not a new show, we’ve had versions on various channels across the last sixty years or so, although I think the last version here was the Ulster Television one in the mid-1980s so it will be a new show to anyone under the age of about 40 here. And really it doesn’t play a great deal differently from that – contestant and celeb (Alan Carr or Daisy May Cooper) give one word clues to their team mates in the hope they guess the Password and hopefully £10,000. In a nod to modernity there’s an “ask the host” (Stephen Mangan) lifeline but really that’s about it.
Classy set and stylish theme though. We’re extremely intrigued about the strategy for this, this was always destined for a late-night Saturday slot, they were talking about this at the recording, but there’s not really much in it that justifies it having a late night slot, we’re wracking our brains trying to think of another show with proper stakes (ITV Play stuff not counting) that started this late or later. Still, if it’s a success then it opens up the possibility space for more of this sort of thing late night.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
Looks like it’s been cut to 30 minutes having originally been commissioned as 7 xx45 minutes.
Yeah that is interesting, it seems to be in a 35 minute slot tonight, so it will be interesting to see where they put the breaks, in the recording it looked like after round one, after round two (and quick tie-break if necessary) and leaving Alphabetics for part three. I’m not quite sure how you do ad breaks in a 35 minute slot actually.
In theory just the one ad break. Often shows after 9.30pm air ad free on Saturdays but still break for promos but next week Password is in a 30 minute slot so looks like it’s basically a half hour show.
In For A Penny was a 30 minute show they used to have one add break about 10 minutes into it so likely the same here for password or maybe two quick add breaks to show a trailer for an upcoming ITV show
I’ve mentioned this before, but in May 2023 (has it really been fifteen months?) I wrote a list of upcoming UK game shows (or at least, of upcoming UK game shows of interest to me):
BBC – Gladiators, Survivor
ITV – Deal Or No Deal, Jeopardy, Password
ITV2 – Big Brother
Channel 4 – Junior Taskmaster
More4 – Popmaster
With Password finally set to premiere, that leaves only one. Think Junior Taskmaster will ever happen?
I probably should update this list with a few new shows, such as The Genius Game UK on ITV with David Tennant.
I’d forgot about Junior Taskmaster. Is it one set of kids across tge series or individual episodes?
Always seemed an odd commission for C4 – could possibly go in the Junior Bake Off slot if they strip it. Otherwise E4 might be best.
It’s a tournament structure, winners going through to later rounds.
I’m just shy of 40 and can confirm this is a new format to me.
I don’t think this quiiite came across on the telly, and goodness knows how they were meant to get another 10 minutes out of it. I thought it picked up in the Super Password which played more straight (although evidently they hadn’t figured out how pointless the points were at this point), the amount of innuendo in round one just became a bit tedious really, and I don’t remember that quite so much from the recording so maybe production realised it as well.
Well thats one place in the Hall of Shame filled.
At the moment I can see the Top 5 of the HoS being dominated by ITV shows.
I thought that was a perfectly pleasant half-hour! Could do with less cheering for every point and every pass/play decision but it wasn’t unbearable. Round 1 def felt a little too long, don’t really understand why we’re bothering with classic Password at all in a world where Super exists but never mind. Daisy and Alan worked well as captains, not too much mucking around and both clearly took the actual game seriously. Will happily watch again
I’m clearly showing my age but the amount of inuendos and sex jokes was too much for me.
Wasn’t a fan of this. I like the idea of a late night light chatty party game but this felt thin, underbaked and incredibly old-fashioned – it’s basically an OK adaptation of a basic format but there’s really not much to it.
It does feel like a strange format to adapt in 2024 – I doubt it has much brand appeal in the UK and it’s a bit overly basic. It feels every bit the 60s US panel show adjacent show format it is.
At least it’s not stretched out to an hour.
Hall of Shame or Hall of Shame? This really didn’t work.
You know how Twitter/X is for reliability but I hear the contestants for the pilot gelled really well and had fun, and she was convinced the contestants being good fun was the only reason it got picked up. It might have been fun at 9:30 in midweek or something, but the whole thing felt strangely enough like Pasapalabra: hey, if you want a slightly gimmicky game with words for an ITV audience, why not give it another look?
The Spanish version of this recently on Antena 3 was similar and really not that great either, and both A3 and ITV made a similar mistake – Password is a format that only works in America because of it just being one of the great retro game shows; this side of the pond, we value substance over style. 2/10
1.4m overnight, which I think is probably OK?
I think the other thing that annoyed me is that apart from the super password I can’t play along for most of the game because they’ve given us the answer already. I get they want us to laugh at the words they give but I would much rather play the game.
I showed to my family this evening (pro tip: watch it live rather than on ITVX because you get two full length breaks watching in catch-up) and they seemed to enjoy it as intended, chuckled in all the appropriate places, so there’s that. We might be being a bit grumpy, although I think there does come a point when you just want to see the game played competently.
Can anyone tell us the rating for last nights episode please ? I’m yet to watch Ep 2 got it on record so no spoilers please just curious to see if it’s dropped or improved from Ep1
1.2m ep 2.
Thanks. Slight drop then not a disaster though
What I will say is that evidently it’s not an expensive or particularly difficult show to make, you could knock them out fairly fast (as you’d expect from a show that had been basically a daytime staple for years).
“Good enough” might be good enough. They won’t be expecting 1% Club audiences at 10pm.
How did episode 3 rate?
925k.
Oh Dear Oh Dear, It’s plummeting thick and fast
Could be down to the time it’s on as well. 10.10pm bit of a stupid time to put a quiz show on clearly ITV ain’t bothered about giving it a proper slot to do well