Friday (Xmas Day),
BBC1, 7pm
It’s another Christmas special, (as David Walliams put it, “we’ve called it a special and not a pilot in case it doesn’t do very well,” or words to that effect) this time with the nation’s sweetheart Bradley Walsh in charge of Emilia Fox, Jimmy Carr, Amir Khan, Danny Jones, Anita Rani and Sue Perkins helping (or not) members of the public to win prizes by filling in blanks.
This probably wouldn’t have happened without the successful Match Game revival in the US – note the Match Gamed-up logo and set. For me there’s a question mark as to whether Bradley Walsh is going to be the correct person for it – not a sleight against him, more a requirement of the format, but we hope we’re proved wrong.
Let us know what you think in the comments!
If this was Bradley Walsh’s Gameshow Marathon Does Blankety Blank, you’d think it pretty good. As it is, I kind of wonder how it would have been with Jimmy Carr hosting and Bradley on the panel.
Agreed. The real host was hiding in plain sight – and worse, did a lot of heavy lifting and kept the show humour rolling better than Brad. Almost as if Walsh within a few seconds of recording realised he should be sitting bottom row left instead of Carr and ceeded the gags to him.
Maybe Thames/Freemantle though Walsh would be a safer option given the day and time of transmission, and yet, in the questions there were two clunking ‘knob gag’ blanks, so a bit of confused production thinking going on.
I dunno, a part of me thinks that it *should* be the panel that drives the show, with the presenter being more a catalyst than pushing the humour directly. Possibly Jimmy was a little too dominant amongst the panel, but is that really any worse than how Kenny Everett would steal the show?
My only real complaint is that Bradley was a little bit too… in love with the show? Is that the right way to put it?
Oh, and I didn’t really like the 50/100 blank prizes just being money, and they’ve done away with the grand final doubling your prize to instead just giving a grand prize, but I don’t think there’s any real harm in that.
One thing I’ve been trying to remember: I *thought* that in the past, if one player wins higher in the Supermatch than the other, that player goes straight through to the final with no head-to-head. Is that right, or am I misremembering?
Correct. Head to heads for the final ‘doubler’ Super match only happened if both contestants matched the same 50/100/150 blank prizes in their respective games.
I was OK with the money, just a bit baffled that double the blanks wasn’t worth double the cash.
5.3m – they’ll be very happy with that.
Mildly amusing note from the record, Amir Khan didn’t seem to realize it was intended for early evening on Christmas day as his first answer to the first question was “shit.” (Curiously, his replacement of just “poo” was also deemed unacceptable without the extra p)
I’d be surprised if “poo” would have been problematic tbh, they’d happily use it in daytime medical stuff (especially kids stuff).
They missed a trick with the mic considering the need for the host to be 2m away from guests – not that Bradley cares on The Chase.
Blankety Blank just fell flat and don’t think it deserves a series as much as the David Walliams pilot did. However could see it just getting an annual outing which would probably suit the BBC.
Just watched this, was baffled by the panel being completely in the wrong positions, which I’m sure must be in the format bible for this show. It should have been Jones, Perkins, Khan, Fox, Carr, Rani, in that order.
This was alright, I can’t agree with the suggestions Jimmy dominated – as mentioned, the comedian in front middle always dominated proceedings, and Tel was always quick to pay tribute to the likes of Cuddly Ken and Paul Daniels, who got the idea and kept the gags coming, as Jimmy did there.
I probably preferred the Walliams version, to be honest. The best bit was Bradley falling off the set.
Finally got round to watching this. It felt oddly rushed – there was no time for interplay between the host and the celebrities after they’d given their answers – and, other than the needless head-to-head round, I’m not sure why. I’d have like to have seen someone write down half a dozen answers on different cards for the “Jimmy Carr’s annoying BLANK” gag. Brad wasn’t a good fit for the role. I did like the contestant casting, the set and having the celebrities interact with the prizes.
Totally agree with you, Steve, that front and middle is the star position, though I rather liked having women in 1, 3 and 5 rather than the trad 2, 4 and 6; on another day, Sue Perkins would easily have made an excellent number 5 chair. The Walliams one-off made me laugh hard five times, as I recall, though mostly with gags that could only ever work once.
My fantasy 2021 Blankety Blank panel would be
Jeremy Paxman // Holly Willoughby // Philip Schofield
Nicola Adams // Lee Mack // Sue Perkins
…with Paxman in number one playing the Roy Hudd role of apparently having a horrible time, a double act in two and three, Nicola offering something different in number four, a big personality with a quick wit in five and someone who knows exactly how it works and is willing to tie a bow on it in six. Oh, and they’re all sufficiently big stars that you don’t need to put both forename and surname on the panels in front of them, so you don’t need to restrict yourself to people with no more than ten letters in their names combined.