Alright let’s get this bit out of the way – you need a VPN and you need to sign up for a TF1 account – you should be able to figure out how to do the latter, it doesn’t ask for an address but it will ask for a ZIP Code, 75000 for Paris will do. Here’s the direct show page.
And this is an interesting prospect, this isn’t a revival for the French, they never had their own version in the 90s, which may explain why the opening episodes tanked a bit against the extremely popular Death in Paradise last night. They have looked to us for inspiration – in fact they’ve copied our stylings pretty much wholesale, same theme (in English!), same titles, practically the same set (it’s filmed in the ice-rink in Pergy rather than Sheffield, but it’s got all the lights and screens and pizazz), though there is rather a strange mix of fonts – our long and thin one used for most of the event graphics, and a sort of He-Man inspired thick font going around the screens and for their explanation graphics. They’ve even got the locker room cameras for post-game Glad chat.
The Gladiators themselves are great fun in the main (and let’s be honest, extremely attractive) – Apollo is their version’s Legend, constantly playing up to the crowd. Furie’s a curious one, comes across as petulant and childlike when I was expecting her to blow up (hence Fury). But even without French you can quickly work out their personalities. The audience don’t have Glad Hands but have been given giant cardboard faces of the contestants and Gladiators to wave about.
Being a French show the tournament set-up is, of course, weird. Each episode is actually a set of two episodes around 70 minutes each (or rather, as has been pointed out, one episode cut in half so they can claim better ratings for one of them). At the end of the second episode, the two male and two female winning Eliminator times are compared, and only the faster one goes through to the final, like an instant-run-off second round. I hope the actual Final doesn’t work like that as that’s going to feel like a massive anti-climax. Each match is four games and an Eliminator. If that sounds drawn out, yes it is a bit, although I didn’t feel it as much as I could have.
Of the games there have been some unusual choices made – Duel is only twenty seconds and takes longer to explain than to play, The Edge called Vertigo here is 40 seconds (but still 3pts a crossing 18pts maximum, turns out 40 seconds is still more than enough time). Course Poursuite aka The Wall is a ten metre wall off to the side of the Arena not next to the doors, and I’m not saying it’s easy but one of the guys got up there in 10 seconds. Also they don’t have to get up and over, just hit a buzzer. More positively, Passenge en Force aka Gauntlet didn’t feel like a walkover – 14m and four Glads and the contestants were given a bit of trouble – whether this is better Gladiating or what feels like a less wide pipe I don’t know. Curiously the French will be using events we aren’t using – in the previews it looks like Whiplash, Suspension Bridge, Tug of War (very old school) and Earthquake are all still to come.
However there’s a lack of killer instinct in the production and the editing. There’s no in game music – even if ours is a disappointment compared to the 90s original it still helps drive the action, there are some countdown horns ticking off the last five seconds of a game but that’s it. Most of The Edge is a static side on shot of the grid with the occasional cutaway, didn’t feel very dynamic. No real attempt to make Duel look like it wasn’t happening about two feet off the ground. Using Another One Bites The Dust for every Gladiator win and Stayin’ Alive for every contender win gets quite old quite quickly. And one other weird thing is that when one challenger has completed the Eliminator, they’re not especially bothered if the loser completes it or not, which doesn’t sound like a big thing but having the loser at least complete the course is part of where the soul of Glads comes from. And going to a break to advertise the viewer competition during the Eliminator is a bit rude, frankly.
So overall: a bit weird. Not bad, and without having nostalgia driving it they’ve certainly tried. Normally when the French do their adaptations you can understand why they’ve changed things and sometimes I can agree with them, I can’t quite see why they’ve done certain things here.
This is doing very badly!
In fact it’s done, two episodes and the rest are getting burnt overnight.