Sunday-Thursday, 9pm,
C4
Apparently the first reality show to be named after a Steps Top 40 hit (although surely there’s a gameshow called 5, 6, 7, 8 waiting to go somewhere), Scared of the Dark sees Danny Dyer challenge eight celebs (one of whom is already blind and presumably there as a sort of control subject) to live in the dark for a week with all the challenges and travails that involves. Undoubtedly it’s being pitched as an interesting experiment into sight loss, in reality it’s probably just going to be a week of celebrities going ‘ah!’.
And here lies a bit of a problem – this sort of thing has been done quite successfully in the past – Total Blackout, In The Dark With Julian Clary/Junior Simpson, er, Noel’s Hole from Noel’s House Party, but really these shows were pretty short lived – ultimately there’s only one joke with it – look at their lack of spatial awareness! – and by its very nature you can’t do an awful lot visually with it. You can get an extremely fun 10 minutes out of the idea. A thirty minute show is possible. An hour a night for five days, ninety in the final? I can’t see it. Ironically.
Channel 4 have gone big on this as well, moving all their big hitters like Hunted and Taskmaster out of their slots for the week. Is the lure of Gazza arguing with Chris Eubank in pitch blackness going to be too much to resist? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Well, as he tends to be, Danny Dyer’s the secret sauce.
But I stand by previous comments – this sort of thing is very funny very quickly… but people also lose interest in it pretty quickly as well, there’s not usually that much you can do with the idea. So I’m intrigued to see if it can keep it up over the week. Five eps might be the perfect length.
1m overnight ep one I’m told, which is basically what Tempting Fortune launched with.
The first episode was funny, the second one largely quite dull.
596k for episode two apparently. Which isn’t great!
So it ended, not really sure there was much point in having them choosing a ‘winner’ who seemingly won…nothing but it provided a vehicle for some tears and DRAMATIC SHOTS of Dyer so I guess it all worked out well
It’s basically just a massive vehicle for Danny to have a laugh and swear ‘a bit’ alongside ‘Dr T’ but here’s the odd thing…I would quite happily watch a second series
Definitely preferred the more painful funny challenges, the height one was a novelty the first time but not so much the second time
Also props to whoever knocked up the Crystal Maze style map of the gaff!
1.44m in the TV +7s for episode one, really interested to see how the rest of the series performed next week. As I understand it it was down to around 350k for live and same day on the final episode.
Honestly I really enjoyed this show, felt like a shot of classic Celeb BB. Seeing Chris M saying how the show was essentially a holiday for him as he didn’t have to rely on others to help him round was fascinating, as was seeing Max’s grief spill out, Eubank’s bizarre behaviour and Gazza’s surprisingly normal behaviour. The cast was great all round. I’m really surprised at how watchable I found it.
Thinkbox finals for this:
1.44m, 1.03m, 961k, 872k, 893k so make of those what you will.
According to The Sun who are generally unreliable when it comes to actual news but quite reliable when it comes to TV rumours it’ll be returning for another series
Spoiler: it’s not.