Don’t worry there are new and interesting shows to talk about next week.
However this caught my eye whilst trawling the tickets sites, from the BBC it’s the new A Question of Sport logo!
I’m slightly surprised that in one of the things they wanted to do when the BBC outsourced this new series (to BBC Studios) is they wanted to freshen it up a bit and appeal to a younger crowd. And yet Sue Barker, Phil Tufnell and Matt Dawson are still fronting it. Perhaps they will wear backwards baseball caps.
It’s easy to mock TV OAP A Question of Sport, but in its defense they usually have one or two mildly intriguing and different rounds/”homages” many weeks. Although leading with the one-minute round is nonsense, obviously. BBC Studios will apparently be offering “clever creativity, smart updates and new content”.
So it’s likely a new set design & theme variation. I thought the show was well overdue for a revamp.
I’ve not been a fan since Tuffers joined really – Dawson should be long gone. What ruined it for me was when they made “What Happened Next?” multiple choice, completely missing the point of the round. Don’t know if that’s still the case but that was the final straw.
The brief Saturday version with Jason Manford was much improved IMO, even if it was a bit awful. They really do need a chance in personnel though in all three roles, though suspect Clare Balding would end up in Barkers seat and not sure that would do it any favours. Chappers would be my choice, or perhaps Gabby Logan. I’ll leave it up to the BBC to identify two former sport stars with a personality to act as captains.
I’m even less impressed by the Captains’ Challenges.
Don’t think it would be unfair to say that these challenges would have been better suited to They Think It’s All Over than they are to QOS. Plus, QOS is supposed to be a *team quiz*…
Usually I like new logos, or at least don’t mind them… but my first impressions of *this* new logo are not good.
A plain yellow “qs” doesn’t feel like an advance over the long-running stripy “QS”. Not impressed, either, by the rather simple colour scheme and the use of mixed-case ITC Avant Garde Gothic for the programme name. (Who else uses this font these days, anyway?)
Can’t quite believe that not only is Sue now the longest-running host, but come October she’ll have completed 20 years in the role. Also, Matt’s been a captain for 13 years now; he must be coming up on Ally McCoist’s record of 363 appearances as captain…
“(Who else uses this font these days, anyway?)”
Everyone in France that isn’t using Helvetica.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02DJtcz4G8c
This looks weird, but brilliant.
It’ll be a cult hit or one of the biggest turkeys in recent memory I think…the interaction with the “staff” is going to be the make or break part of this show..
It looks like that pricing game from the Price Is Right which I imagine will get pretty boring doing 8 times in a row – we’ll see…
Looks like there are some helps available :-
“See the next question”
“Reveal price of an item”
“Remove most expensive item”
I guess they have to decide to stop or play on before the question is asked unless they use that help…
Yes that sounds like the case.
My impression is that C4 are not very confident in it, it’s been sitting on the shelf for a while, but it *might* prove a surprise hit. The game is probably not all that but it might not matter if it proves itself genuinely funny.
On the other hand there is a risk that everyone tuning in for a quiz are going to be annoyed about the comedy and vice versa. It might be the closest we get to a UK Avanti, for better or worse.
I’m intrigued to find out how much is script and how much is off the cuff, there would be a lot of writing for 30×60 minute eps.
Speaking of fun foreign formats, I’ve been in Spain all this week and very much enjoying Ahora Caigo (Who’s Still Standing) which has apparently been running weeknightly for five years.
It’s been around for ages, of course, and there’s nothing innovative about it, but it works really well with a heavy dose of silliness – why hasn’t a UK broadcaster given it a go, considering Wiki shows a load of other European countries have shown versions in the last year or so?
I couldn’t imagine Ahora Caigo without Arturo Valls. It would take the right host to make it work over here.
Of course, the highlight of the One Minute Round used to be that one team member would be assigned the task of answering the “all these sports stars have names to do with vegetables” question and so would spend the entire minute just rattling off a list in the background.
The new run with the new studio, logo & potential theme tune starts Wednesday at 10:40pm after the news. Saw preview at the end of today’s Celebrity Pointless replay.