Xmas Specials 23rd and 26th December, 5:30/5:40pm
Series proper starts 6th January 2:30pm
ITV
Two lines of thought here, it’s an extremely old-school show with an old-school premise – people draw pictures for others (each team two civilians and a celebrity) to identify against the clock for a nice prize. On the other hand everyone says they’re crying out for 30 minute formats so, well, here is one.
The US show it is based on in an undemanding and frankly non-essential watch but there’s nothing outstandingly wrong with it, I just can’t see anyone deliberately tuning into it. Mel Giedroyc has hosted this sort of thing before, Draw It! about a decade ago on Channel 4 which had a big money prize attached to it – didn’t matter, ended up being a one-series wonder still. I love Mel, but I don’t think she has the claws necessary to get the biggest comedy out of bad drawing and bad guessing, it’s not really her thing, but it was the thing that people most remember about Win Lose or Draw in the 90s. We’ll see!
Let us know what you thought in the comments.
Good lord what a horrible scoring system. I’ve read of US formats on Wikipedia that use such end heavy scoring systems and did not hope or want to see one make its way over the Atlantic intact. Is this the Golden Snitchiest game show on UK television since Keynotes?
Well – It’s not bad but wasn’t thrilling enough to make me DRAW my eyes to the tv and get much enjoyment out of what’s happening. (see what I did there!). Mel is a fairly good host but this just doesn’t feel right for her personality, I like being able to guess and play along with quiz shows but because the time duration for the first part of the show is only 15 seconds long it feels like a blink and you miss it moment to the point where it’s hard to play at home unless your quick should have maybe been 25/30 seconds to guess each picture. Don’t get me wrong the format is simple to understand and supposedly easy viewing but It’s not a program I would watch in a hurry down to the fact it didn’t feel uplifting enough it seemed too relaxed. Half hour formats work well (ish) but I feel if a program is this length it get’s hidden in the listings rather than stand out as a winning formular.
Draw It, Letterbox and now Pictionary. Mel deserves so much better, from both her agent and commissioners.
What I mainly love about this is clearly someone saw the original and thought “oh this would be good for ITV”, they pitched it and a commissioner said “yes”, which just goes to show that everyone’s got a chance, really. Well done Jake Humphrey.
Look, it’s harmless. It’s also energyless, the sound mixing with the fake crowd feels really off – in fact all the sound effects feel a bit off really. I can’t even bring myself to hate the scoring – CliveofLegend on the Discord described it as “the first round acting as a tiebreaker for the final round” and I kind of respect that looking at it like that. I thought some of the judging made The Link look like a high watermark in consistency – not allowing “wreath” for “holly wreath” or “hoover” for “vacuum cleaner”, so I assumed all the clues were multiple words, then they just had “flask” later on so God knows.
They love that crane shot of a studio light don’t they.
It’s no Win Lose or Draw in terms of comedy. It feels like it has even less presence than a bunch of friends getting together to play Pictionary where you might have had a drink first, or at least a level of familiarity that you might start shouting a bit. Just a bit baffling all round really. But at least they’re not trying to pretend the points are pounds to catch the unwary and the prize is quite old-skool nice.
Really dull, sadly.
I think the core main concept has pretty universal appeal and I remember liking Won, Lose and Draw back in the day. Unfortunately, this sucks all life out of it and feels like it drags on forever despite mercifully only being a half hour and having plenty of questions. There’s also something about the presentation that gives it the vibes of the cheap imported format it is.
I generally like Mel Giedroyc but she’s not the sort of host who adds much energy to such a low key format.
Some of the questions also felt unnecessarily specific given the brief length of time given to draw them. I don’t think a show adds much by adding unnecessarily difficulty.
ITV please stop making these cheap lazy adaptations/10
This needed to feel like a party, and it didn’t, except possibly some entertainment in a back room at a Conservative Party conference.
Mel was pretty good, though I can’t help feeling she got the job by saying “Do you remember Letterbox? Do you remember the way I zhuzhed it up?” and I do hope she’s getting buxom bucks for trying to inject a bit of life into things, she deserves them, but her eyes looked dead at points, killed by the charisma vacuum of the show. Mel, if you see this, don’t keep doing shows like Letterbox and this to yourself. You are worthy and deserve better, no matter how nice the people working on the show happen to be.
The captains were pretty good. The scoring system was terrible. The electronic drawing pen didn’t help – doing it live on paper felt immediate, relatable and even a little kinetic when people changed sheets. The inclusion of mandatory adjectives and the inflexible judging made it feel terribly pedantic, in addition to the silence of the show leaving it with no atmosphere. Very unusually, I’m going to criticise a show for having too much content… or, at least content in too many pieces that were too small, so that’s some sort of distinction, albeit a very dubious one. A Christmas Turkey fresh in the minds of Hall of Shame voters. Not a badly-cooked turkey, not in any way an offensive turkey, but forget Albert, this is a Bernard Matthews Certified production.
On a different point, has the legislation changed about naming brands and showing brands’ logos? I was looking for the double-P product-placement logo in the break bumpers and didn’t see it, though perhaps the rules are different for watching something streaming on demand rather than over the air live. It’s not as if it’s just this show, I was thinking the exact same thing about Bullseye yesterday, so perhaps the rules have changed or my understanding of them is wrong.
I assume you’re referring to the brands of the prizes? PP needs to be shown if an advertiser has specifically paid for their brand to be featured in the show whereas the difference here is the prizes have been provided free of charge to the show for no payment. I think I spotted a ‘Prize Producer’ in the credits and it’s their job to ring round and find companies willing to give their product away as a free prize in exchange for the free brand publicity. But as no money’s exchanged hands it’s not classed as product placement.