According to Broadcast. Eight episodes.
Please don’t start episode one with something requiring a five minute rule explanation. Please.
Iconic One Theme | Powered by Wordpress
According to Broadcast. Eight episodes.
Please don’t start episode one with something requiring a five minute rule explanation. Please.
How I want ITV to handle it:
Main game in an hour on a Saturday. Game is easy to understand, hard to master, couple of secrets.
Death Match on a Sunday.
Or as an entire 1.5-hour single evening show. Either or.
Longer cuts of games on ITV2/X/WhateverItIsCalled.
Actual Smart People Who Does This Sort Of Thing get involved, like a certain DB, or fans/followers of the original show. Or the original production team.
How it will actually happen:
Hour-long Main game in 20 minutes including Ads, a 10-minute Deathmatch, and the remaining half hour of inc-Ads time consumed by to-camera sidebars. Game is easy enough but flawed, “secrets” are as subtle as a brick to the temple. Too much focus on the “drama” aspects. Eliminates the whole starting “previously-on” chat excuse at the start.
30-minute including ads BTS of the show and more evictee discussions on ITV283Delta.
Text-and-Lose contest heavily promoted with an “Are you a Genius? Solve this” insultingly simple puzzle.
Bandage Man is supported by an ON-SET HOST THAT SPOILS PART OF THE MISTIQUE AND JUST ANNOYS EVERYONE FOR INTERVIEWS.
I had little faith that a mainstream broadcaster could do something like this. Netflix proved me wrong with The Devil’s Plan but that’s because they basically threw money at a local production headed up by the Genius bod, and let them do what they wanted. Amazingly enough, it worked.
I get the feeling that ITV will not go down this path (which ideally would use the same production team and either reconstruct properly over here or pay to fly production people to finesse it for a UK audience, and some contestants too, over to South Korea), and instead we’re going to get most of the beats but none of the style.
I really, really hope ITV proves me wrong and does the show right. Otherwise, I will have to hope that Netflix’s spiritual successor does well enough to go on for a few more seasons…
Here’s what I would say: I know this is being headed up by people who properly like the original and have been trying for years to get it over the line, so to speak. This is not the same as ‘it is likely to be everything we wanted it to be’ – the Dutch show last year showed that a commercial hour isn’t as long as you’d like, but hopefully they will be able to take on board other lessons from that version (like, for example, if your opening game requires the v/o to go “don’t worry it’s not as complicated as it looks!” or words to that effect, you don’t do it.) Personally I hope they keep the garnets = advantage buying = prizemoney system, as a measure of personal victory and efficency. I hope they have the budget to set it somewhere other than a big shed.
I did not enjoy the Dutch version at all.
Both the social aspect and the strategic aspect seemed to be totally nuked, leaving almost nothing worth watching (and almost nobody in NL did watch it).
I don’t think the runtime was the only problem. It seemed like the production team didn’t know how the games might play out, or where the story was going to come from. The Korean shows tell stories with their dramatic editing – and must be somewhat scripted, to ensure that the show’s deeper secrets are fully played out.
I’m hopeful that a UK production team can do better, but perhaps [my enjoyment of] the show is too dependent on Korean social culture and TV production conventions.
Just discovered there’s a casting call website up: https://www.thegeniusgameuk.com/