I wouldn’t expect much in terms of NEWS and OPINION this weekend because I’ll be spending most of it playing Mario Odyssey, in between things like “work” and “seeing my Mum”. Don’t forget the clocks go back Saturday night/Sunday morning.
However we mentioned there’s a new Ultimate version of the very good The Chase app recently released on iOS, it’s been bought to my attention it’s out on Android now as well.
Next week there’s all sorts of excitement: new runs of Tenable and the Halloween return of Release the Hounds with Matt Edmondson (which is two hours long, which is brave). And it all ends with another live evening of Schlag den Henssler next Saturday night.
Have you also noticed that there are 4 hounders (contestants) rather than 3 meaning a new money prize tier has probably been added. This might explain the increase to 2hrs (1hr30 excluding adverts)
I just bought the Switch with Super Mario Odyssey, so I’m not sure, I will watch it, but tomorrow night Beginner vs. Gewinner airs on Prosieben. Hosted by Joko (without Klaas for the first time) the show will feature pro-athletes (e.g. tabletennis legend Timo Boll) compete in their disciplines against amateurs. But the amateurs can spend their possible winnings on handicaps (e.g. Timo Boll has to play with a frying pan), reducing their money but increasing their chances. It’s a spin-off of Die Beste Show Der Welt where this was probably the best format shown yet, but I can’t see it in a two or three hour slot (which it will be since it’s one of the biggest Saturday night hopes for Prosieben, they even screened bits in a cinema in Berlin for all the Joko fans). I hope it will be alright and then become a one hour weekly format on a weeknight at around 10pm, cause that could be a nice way to have original “comedy” on Prosieben like they did before airing 6 hours of Big Bang Theory and 4 hours of Two And A Half Men every single day…
Just looked it up: Beginner vs. Gewinner will air from 8:15 pm to 12 am. So its almost a four hour show.
Yes that seems like quite a thin idea to get four hours from. Still though.
I had an idea for a show a little while ago called Champion of Champions, where six champions in a variety of different disciplines (high jump, knitting, tyre changing etc) competed against each other in everyone else’s discipline. It’s a bit like Taskmaster.
They changed the format slightly:
There is a guaranteed jackpot of 50,000€. Three celebrities join Joko in the huge stadium-like studio who will bet on the contestants. This means they have about ten suitcases (don’t know exactly, tuned in too late) with price tags ranging from 400€ to 40,000€ (I think) and they choose one after seeing the contestant, the discipline, the pro-athlete and the handicap. The winner of each discipline (if it’s the amateur) advances to a finale (hasn’t aired yet and I’m likely not watching it thanks to Qui Sera Le Prochain Grand Patissier on TV5 Monde). And the amateurs aren’t always amateurs of the discipline in action, but might also get some days of training in e.g. short track ice skating.
It looks good, the celebrities in the first episode are Elyas M’Barek (one of the biggest actors in Germany right now), Matthias Opdenhövel (Schlag den Raab’s original host) and Nico Rosberg (formula 1 driver, though I am not sure I really recognized him, maxbe it was some other formula 1 driver) and it looks like it was produced with some love. And the lack of love in producing shows is one of the biggest problem to me right now. The Grand Pastry Chef show is an example for that, but it somehow got me hooked thanks to the bad programme other TV stations have shown in this slot in the last couple of weeks.
Some more to add: The suitcases ranged from 400€ to 25,000€ and added up to 50,000€.
Right before the finale Joko had to race formula 1 driver Nico Hülkenberg and got to choose Nico’s car: a delorean, a limousine with a party crowd or a moving truck filled with a lot of stuff. Joko chose the moving truck and got some Renault himself. The celebrities had to bet 50,000€ on either Joko or the formula 1 driver. They bet on Joko and the jackpot total for the first episode was 148,400€ with four contestants in the finale. So apparently they had six contestants, a Joko challenge and a finale in 4 hours. The finale consisted of a wooden, circular board hung on the ceiling with just a rope in the middle, so it’s very wobbly. The contestants had to put 30 sports items (e.g. tennis balls, water bottle, a tiny anchor,..) on it and if you put everything on it, you could buzz in and after ten seconds of nothing falling down you won the jackpot.
I really couldn’t bother watching it with way too many commercial breaks (typical Prosieben problem) and too little action. It seems everyone on social media agrees with me on that. And also the contestants win against the pro-athlete, sit through hours of recording the show and don’t win a thing, if they don’t win the finale. Some sponsored consolation prize (maybe a gym membership or a voucher for a sports store) or 5,000€ would have been a good thing imho. I hate seeing people win a game, but not winning anything on big scale game shows.
Ooh that’s a hard final, last seen on the disappointing Dracula: Escape the Castle of all places.
I actually quite enjoyed this – although agree it went on for far too long and was dragged out even by German tv standards. When none of the competitions has happened before the first commercial break then you know you’re in for a long evening!
The handicaps idea was made this quite fun – and were quite fun to discuss at home about which handicap the challenger should choose. For example, one of the challenges was a woman competing against a 400m champion runner around the track, and she had to choose whether the ‘Gewinner’ should have to: wear a period dress that weighed over 7kg, run holding a basket of fruit on her head, or run dressed in a trouser suit pulling a wheeley suitcase. The discussion about which would slow the champ down the most was quite good fun. Eventually she chose the period dress, and lost! (should have gone with the fruit, we felt…)
Some of the handicaps also were quite funny to watch – such as the long jump champion having to do it dressed in an inflatable dinosaur costume!
The show was made really well, just was quite slow moving. They could have done it all under 2.5 hours easily.
(Incidentally, Grill Den Henssler limbers on as Grill Den Profi on VOX. Still very watchable mainly due to Ruth Moschner as host. ProSieben were heavily trailing next week’s Schlag Den Henssler during Beginner Gegen Gewinner)
A reminder that my Switch code is SW-2805-5403-1808 if anyone wants to add me.