Saturdays, 7:15pm,
BBC1
New singing show that answers the question “what happened to the 1 vs 100 set?”
Rob Beckett hosts as singers perform songs and if any of the 100 crowd of diverse professional singers, led by Geri Horner from The Spice Girls, think they’re any good they stand up and join in with them. Whoever gets the most people off their seats goes through to the grand final at the end of the series to win £50,000, second and third-place have a sing-off.
It’s mainly up against a Take Me Out in decline rather than fully against The Voice, which would have been brave. Watched it? Let us know what you thought in the comments.
Rob Beckett, again?!
Still, could be interesting.
At least this Rob Beckett vehicle looks more interesting than Wedding Day Winners
£50,000 over the whole 6 episode series? The purse strings are certainly a lot tighter in the 1vs100 arena these days!
Hopefully the contestants get to stand on the lift platform thing unless they chucked that in the skip
Yet another singing-based talent show that feels flat and sad compared with X Factor.
My main takeaway is that they’ve missed an opportunity with the audio. It’s going out in 2.0 stereo, with the 100’s singing mixed low enough not to drown out the contestant, which makes sense except it spoils the whole point of them singing “all together now”.
They should’ve done it in surround sound, with the contestant singing in the front speakers and the 100 joining in in the rear speakers.
I probably won’t be watching this again.
I didn’t mind it. Had a very quick pace to it which I liked (especially when you compare it to The Voice) but it does seem to favour picking the big karaoke songs. Geri also feels like an afterthought. I thought she would be the one to pick if it was a tie rather than the other 99.
I liked the feel of it though which I couldn’t say the same for in the other recent singing shows the beeb have made.
Enjoyed it more than WDW
A much better vehicle for Rob Beckett than that other rubbish. The 100 were a surprisingly well-balanced mix of West End irritants and normal, likable folk, and Rob Beckett actually quite good at interacting with them and bringing them down a peg. Enjoyed the better-than-normal variety of genres and the lovely set.
On the negative side, the backstage segments and pre/during-song chats were pretty obnoxious and the joining-in concept just didn’t work. Started to wish the 100 would just keep their traps shut ‘til the damn song finished. Generally enjoyable, though! Will probably watch again.
Quite liked. Thought they missed a trick by not ‘fading out’ the score if it looked like it was going to be a close thing to qualify. Some of the early asides were a bit intrusive to the performance. Four bars in and already someone’s talking over you?
Loved it! It has everything a singing show should be. There are stakes but its still light enough for it to be fun as it should be. It might be because the only show we have on in the US right now is The Four and it is absolute trash, but this is definitely a gem I will be seeing every week.
Haven’t watched it, but Rob Beckett!? I LOVED him on I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here Now!
Sounds like 1 vs 100 fused with every other generic singing song.
Was expecting the worse after the Twitter views last night but it’s OK – idea is good but execution could be better, and it’s filmed in the same way as practically every other singing audition show. Could really do with two hosts – one in with the 100 and one on stage with the acts.
A minor thing but like that the format forces them to show it in chronological order rather than chop and change which is the norm.
On the one hand, since this is the first time in a very long time I’m watching any version of the show ‘live’, I kinda want to get into the online theories and all. But part of me doesn’t want to be spoiled and to figure it out myself.
Competing in the Suspect List magnifies both of those feelings exponentially!
As of now I’m not reading anything outside of this post, I’m even avoiding the youtube comments. But it’s tough.
I’ve got my suspect and at this point it’s probably too late to have any chance of winning if I change anyway, so.
I think you intended to post these in the WIDM thread, Andrew… 😉
Oh bother, that was supposed to be in the WIDM discussion post. I had two tabs open and am a fool. Sorry, Brig.
I’m not the biggest fan of singing shows in general, but this has a lot going for it. It has something of the feel of the chair-spinning round of The Voice, where the only things that happen in gameplay terms are incremental degrees of success, and the 100 give it more of a feel of a big happy party than other singing shows. What more natural a tribute could there be than standing up and joining in singing? The format is neat enough too, with the sing-off at the end being a natural focus and guaranteeing a strong finale with two excellent performers. Not completely convinced about Rob Beckett, though he’s at least quick and slick.
It’s an unusual feeling to me to be looking forward to another episode of a singing show, but this might be the one…
Oh man, you have messed up so bad.
Every episode of All Together Now will be practically the same, except maybe – maybe – the final. Unlike most other singing shows, despite the much-vaunted range of backgrounds of the 100, you’re going to get a certain sort of monotone in the song choices. This show rewards people for singing what might loosely be referred to as Party Bangers; you have already seen what happens when people deviate and try to sing anything which isn’t a crowd-pleasing singalong, no matter how well they sing it. You’re not going to get people singing haunting songs, challenging songs or sad songs here, you’re just going to be beaten over the head by Mallett’s Mallet for an hour. You can also be pretty sure that they’re going to backload the talent to a certain extent; while the producers can’t legislate for the reactions of the 100, a show where the last two or three singers all bombed out would lack dramatic tension. (Near misses would be possible, and would be satisfying, but you know that they will save some of the best for last.)
Maybe it’s a good show, but that won’t make it a good series.
It is interesting when you compare this show to The Winner Is (John de Mol failed attempt at a singing competition with 100 normal people as judges and one celebrity).
On the winner is there were duels and you didn’t know who won. Then you could decide whether to take a safe amount of money or not. If you chose the money your opponent was through to the next round (where more money was available), if you didn’t forfeit, the winner as voted by the judges was going through.
It was rather mean and tactical and didn’t have much joy in it. If you took the money you were the loser. If you didn’t you might have been the loser. Not much happiness in there.
But on All Together Now singing seemed to be celebrate for the joy it’s bringing. The 100 seemed well casted to me, but the variety within the show was a bit flat. If you sang a song everybody knew you got a better score immediately. I like that the producers felt the same and decided for the final sing off, I think it is not really within the spirit of the show since the 100 are unlikely to press the button without making their mind up first leading to a landslide result like it did in the first episode. However it is necessary for the show to be a bit more interesting. Apart from the studio bits I felt the show was incredibly average and boring. It is a really nice idea and I liked it a lot as a one-off. I won’t be tuning in any more.
Oh and I want Geri’s job. Just being somewhere within the 100 without having to do anything special but being paid extra. Nice job! That money should have been spend on a second host.
Wow, getting out of bed and immediately writing on here makes my comments even worse. Linguistically and logically. Sorry about that!
The concept is good, the production poor.
To slow, back stories about the contestants far far far to long and the 100!!! Wow – I don’t want to meet them – just get on with it.
There is so much I should love here, but instead I got very bored, very quickly.
I enjoyed it, with the main caveats being eight minutes of exposition before the first act is, frankly, a bit brave, and some of the 100 seem to be a bit *too* try hard for making a name for themselves – get back in your boxes, frankly.
I thought the detatched style, with the commentary and comments, was quite interesting and worked quite well in this context, although it’s difficult to see what Beckett is adding here (although he’s fine otherwise). I might have made the background of the score graphic into a clock graphic also.
No issues with being weighted towards party bangers, I’ll take that over X Factor ballad vibrato dreary-ness, it means I might actually enjoy watching a singing show on a Saturday night. If song choice becomes legitimate strategy then so be it.
Everyone bangs on about how cruel the Six Chair Challenge is, but the reality is it’s not really much crueller than All Together Now. Both are just a bubble sort done as entertainment, just this one puts the numbers out front.