Crikey, they’re turning Hunted into a Crystal Maze-esque 90 minute live experience.
What’ll be the next show to do this? My money’s on A Question of Sport.
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Crikey, they’re turning Hunted into a Crystal Maze-esque 90 minute live experience.
What’ll be the next show to do this? My money’s on A Question of Sport.
Supermarket Sweep, obviously…..
What the what now?
Talking of Hunted I have no idea how it has managed to get up to Series 3! The celebrity one was for a good cause obviously but the final episode was the usual formulatic nonsense when it came to the climax of the winners JUST getting away (and the Hunters magically zoning in on the pickup point).
There wasn’t even a bonus donation to SU2C for some of them managing to escape either which was a bit mean.
I saw some of the finale after Bake Off, mixed feelings. I found the celebrities actually a decent ‘in’, as they seemed likeable and you’d root for them. And then about half way through it felt like the amount of bollocks was hitting a tipping point – I know they ‘replicated’ the police abilities so it’s all set up, but a bunch of their steps just felt like they didn’t happen. First was the ‘someone who follows X on Snapchat emailed it to us’, and then some of their other ones that I just gave up half way through when it became clear ‘oh they’ll get caught because X and they’ll get to the finish line just at the end of the episode’. When the finale doesn’t feel worth watching probably isn’t great.
I see the logo for Firehazard games at the bottom of that page, which makes me think this will probably be based on one of their (genuinely excellent) street games. How close that will really be to a Hunted “Experience” is a mystery to me, though.
I expect at some point you’ll be forced to call your mum and give away your location even though you know that’d be a stupid thing to do.
This sounds like it has a bit of puzzling and code cracking which doesn’t sound very Hunted, and clearly you’re unlikely to pay fifty quid and then get eliminated after ten minutes, so I’m certainly intrigued to find out how it all works.
It might be quite fun if you can play as a Hunter.
As someone who has crewed for several of their games, let me tell you that this is going to be a bit of everything from what I have heard.
Don’t say it bring it begins on Monday 12th November on dave. There was a promo for it after Taskmaster.
Make that 13th November
Thanks.
As a format this has been knocking around for years and years so goodness knows why it’s come now. I’m not expecting big things, we’ll see.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2017/47/armchair-detectives
Armchair Detectives begins on Monday 20th November, time TBC.
I didn’t know that, thanks! I think 4 of the 5 stories in the first week are Dan P’s. Draw your own conclusions from that.
Please tell me something I don’t really want to hear: given that Wanted flamed out after two series twenty years ago due to terrible ratings, how can Hunted finish number 2 in Channel 4’s audience ratings? Is it as simple as Wanted being ahead of its time? Is it the time slot and the swearing? Do people just want this sort of thing not to be a game show with, y’know, some actual _game_ to it?
Hunted is now about the characters more than the actual game which is what today’s TV generation seems to crave for whatever reason. It’s quite clever how it gets people talking on social media, I bet that Peter Bleskley gig went a bit viral after last night for example.
Anyway i must now quickly end this post as I wrote it on a burner unregistered tin can but sadly the Hunters have found out I took a piece of string from Aunt Jean’s kitchen drawer before going on the run so are now on to me 🙁
For all that it broke ground, the live game of Wanted wasn’t itself all that great. The crowds of people huddled around the phone boxes, the people ringing in, the communications helicopter hovering overhead… they all gave away the location rather easily at times, and we had to wait for a break in the VT for the tracker to go and snare their prey. And while the VT sections were good, on the live game we never really got that many close calls.
Hunted is now effectively a game, but with a lot of the rules hidden (for better or for worse) and edited in a more factual style.
Magid has posted a few things on Twitter, which Endemol will probably swiftly be requesting he remove!
For example :
Without going into details. There was only so much lying, intimidation & threats 2 tell the Hunters where I was I could take from the exec producers. All because I challenged them when they wanted me 2 do some ridiculous things (produced) which weren’t part of the original rules.
Two sides to every story I’m sure but one of the reasons I can’t get into Hunted is that I need a certain level of actuality in my reality (especially from a show that’s set itself up like it has) and Hunted seems to do its best to remove it as far as possible with all its silly hidden stuff.
Similarly whilst contestants haven’t applied out of the goodness of their hearts because you happen to be making a television programme, they’re the reason you as a production company can make money and deserve to be treated with basic fairness and respect and it annoys me greatly when clearly they are not.
I think though (and this is certainly brought up in the podcast) that the timing and placement of his expose discredits what he’s saying quite considerably. To post it probably five minutes after the episode ends just stinks of sour grapes, even if you don’t disagree with what he’s saying.
My argument is that if – as I do – you treat it as a piece of entertainment first and foremost, you understand why we tend to see the flashy moves of a Nick or an Ayo or – in the case of Hunted US – a Lee & Hilmar, because that makes good TV. If you’re bitching and moaning about the covert rules while you’re on the run, you’re only going to anger people and in certain cases, their attention will then be refocused on trying to put you in jeopardy to MAKE the good TV. They’re never going to outright rig it against you, because that would be both shady and illegal, but they want the entertaining footage in order to keep people watching.
Just out of interest Michael, can you cite which laws rigging a gameshow would be breaking? We actually don’t have US style Standards and Practices over here (what we did have is phone-in quiz scandals where some people got their wrists slapped but only once they got caught), previously most things are done on trust, independent adjudicators have only existed here really since Deal or No Deal and are apparently there to cover the producer’s backsides in case of dispute and are largely a production choice, but my understanding is the laws over here are not nearly as stringent as they might be in the US.
I’m not sure I’d call a £300,000 fine a slap on the wrist. In the UK, there’s the OFCOM code which broadcasters must abide by.
Yeah, there’s always the threat of OFCOM fines, but we also know that as with all game shows, they do have the independent adjudicators on site so there’s certainly the safeguards in place that have the hallmarks of the standards & practice rules.
Sorry to disillusion anyone, but with an ongoing competition such as this, all they need is a catch-all clause of “The Producers reserve the right to change the rules at any time” and then it’s a different game.
Ofcom and adjudicators are only useful for protecting people from rules that haven’t been followed after the conclusion of something.
If ongoing contests couldn’t be changed mid-run, things like X Factor wouldn’t be able to do any editorial decisions week to week.
Wanted really did appear on screen as two formats created at different times, welded together in a hurry on the tube going to the commissioning pitch at Channel 4, to come up with one show. I watched the bits of Wanted that are out there on You Tube about a year ago, and it really was a more frustrating watch nowadays than I remember it was back then.
The problem was, the whole point was to spend the entire week ‘on the run’, and yet, during the live show they couldn’t move and had to spend at least 2 hours on a Wednesday/Sunday evening standing still in a box.
Plus, as you say the absolute giveaway, was the communciations helicopter which, in the days before 4G/Wi-fi was hovering overhead for at least 30 mins before transmission started (a telephone box was used about 10 mins drive away from my house in the first series, and I knew exactly what that helicopter was circling over my house for) so the actual conceit of ‘hiding’ for the hour, was largely pointless, and basically came down to how quickly the tracker could pin point where the helicopter was and then drill down the search for a phonebox with a crowd of youths and a van with MCR link on the roof next to it.
The idea of a week long live and interactive hunt for fugatives, is a good format to crack – but I’m not sure you’ll ever be able to do it well enough, without cracks appearing as the game goes on.
This is now live, for those who are interested.
https://www.huntedexperience.co.uk/