Channel 4 has just announced The Bridge, a show where twelve strangers try and build a 250m bridge in twenty days to win a £100k prize, which one person voted for by the group must decide to take it all for themselves or split it amongst everybody.
It is very much the sort of thing that sounds a bit rubbish on paper but might end up being quite entertaining. The question is: this sort of communal building challenge has been done in the past (Building the Dream, Trouble in Paradise) and didn’t really work out. With something fairly monotonous like a bridge, would it fare any better? Or will the Challenge Anneka aspect add the necessary frisson?
Anyway Wilderness are making this, which probably means this is the format I suspected was Survivor. Never mind.
Have been informed this is an adaptation of a Spanish show: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Puente_(TV_series)
I thought you’d have put up Channel 4’s Master Bridge..
https://youtu.be/6sZADqJBP3g (And the rest of the series is up as well)
More info- 5 parts, James McAvoy is narrating, and it also aired in France (but flopped according to Wikipedia- it got moved to late night during the run)
https://deadline.com/2020/08/james-mcavoy-channel-4-reality-show-the-bridge-1203021405/
Thanks for the links!
Oh wow, that’s scratched a mental itch I never knew I had!
It’s the original Late Night Poker!
Anyway I mainly picked Join Us For Bridge because the opening’s hilarious.
Sounds like a format with a potentially very flat ending. So if they’re successful, they vote on who should win the £100k prize, and that person has to decide whether to keep it or share it. So far so good, sounds potentially dramatic, with several considerations and motivations deciding the vote (who deserves it, are they likely to share it?).
But what if they don’t succeed in building the bridge in the time limit? Do they just… not do that? And all go home?
Building a bridge?
Peak Alan Partridge format – Televised corporate away day team building exercise.
Although the revived one-off Big Breakfast technically isn’t under the remit of the bar, as it’s been comissioned as part of C4’s Black Takeover day to showcase on and off screen black talent, it has been confirmed this will also include Countdown, I wonder if this would include replacements for Nick, Rachel and Susie. One suggestion I saw was Moira Stewart for host, which I could see working
I dunno, if they bring back Wonga, it’d be well and truly within the Bar’s purview. (And the name surely doesn’t have the associations now that it would’ve had, say, 3-5 years ago…)
Lenny Henry in the corner I presuming since his involvement with this day.