Tonight on ITV at 8pm. Can you feel the tangible excitement in the air? Are you looking forward to the new levels of excitement and emotion that the new rules will create?
Me neither. But you can chat about it here if you want.
Iconic One Theme | Powered by Wordpress
STV have opted out for the more exciting Wild Islands.
I hope the clock runs out on the first or second question just for the comedy value – nothing against the contestants.
Yet.
Truly, Wild Islands brings a new raw depth of excitement and emotion not yet seen on telvision.
Gerry Scotti announced what’s new on Italian WWTBAM: there’ll be one milestone only, but the contestant can decide where to place it before the game.
That’s quite an interesting idea, actually.
Ooh, yes, I quite like that idea! I’ll place my milestone at….. £1 million. Doh.
You’d probably need to tweak the tree again, otherwise that £50k to £75k gamble would look a bit silly.
A truly inspired twist on the Austrian (IIRC) ‘exchange your second milestone for a bonus lifeline’ idea.
On the original UK prize tree, I’d place mine at £16k I think.
Dredging up from the depths of my memory, I seem to remember one of the German Millionaire clones (either Die Quiz Show or Das Quiz) did something similar, but with two milestones.
I know there was a fashion in European versions for contestants to be able to drop the second milestone in exchange for an extra lifeline.
Sam: If memory serves from my time in Europe, it was Das Quiz – that was the one with two players correct?
Brig: It’s true, still present on German Millionaire, where if you go the “risk” route, you drop the 16 000 E milestone (q 10 of 15) to get the “publikum joker”.
Kind of actually hoping that might happen on the US version, actually.
I can’t wait. This is the best gameshow on TV and the new format sounds excellent 😀
I expect it will get at least 20 million viewers!!!!
Don’t be silly! I am just gonna enjoy it because it’s been a long time since it was on TV. Best gameshow on TV, period.
Robert Robinson has announced that he will not be returning to Brain of Britain. Sad but not entirely unexpected.
Insincere Dave called, he wants us all to know he really LOVES the impressions of him!
Oh man!
Inidentally, I note (just now) it’s Eggheads vs The Chase on Mastermind this evening, with Shaun Wallace and Chris Hughes representing.
Wow, this is impressively fast.
The mixture of three different music packages is m,assively jarring though.
It’s pretty good. It’s not immediately notably far worse, but nor is it immediately obviously better. Job done.
Part of the charm – at least for a while – of Old WWTBAM? was that the contestants were quite often relatively far from the stereotype of a game show contestant. The abolition of FFF has turned this, at least somewhat, into a Barrymore-like show where the host’s banter is an even bigger part of the appeal.
No clue yet what’s going to happen when someone past Q2 runs out of time, whether they go back to £1k or to zero.
I doubt it would be zero.
Oh, I thought PAFs were going to be backstage. I’m going to shoot someone.
So did I, but that may well be something that comes soon. (Remember how the first show used a physical telephone for phoning friends?)
Shoot Chris Tarrant himself, he was the one who mentioned it.
Wow, loving the new format. It’s great. It’s nice and quick and no stupid hesitation from the contestants.
Yes a thumbs up from me though as predicted the contestents have sob stories ready and waiting.
Really!! Do we really need the sob stories.
Awww, I feel so sorry for the contestant right now 🙁 . I hope he wins a large amount of money.
Does tarrant need to shout all the answers out within 2 seconds of the question appearing, SLOW DOWN MAN!
And when the contestant immediately responds it fee;ls a bit too fast. I think I would have him read them out and then have the clock start automatically. Like everyone wants to happen in the US show.
Awww no, he lost the money. I feel so sorry for him. He needed the money for Jordan 🙁
A touch of DOND creeping in with family pics and sob stories.
I hope she wins enough money to go to Canada. Poor girl, she must have had a tough year 🙁 . I like these background stories, I hope the producers keep giving us the background stories. I feel a connection with the player.
Do you work for them?
No I don’t work for CPL. But I think they got the changes spot on. When I watched last year’s series, I was so bored. The contestants took ages answering simple questions. But now it’s much better paced. Hope it wins NTA award for Best Gameshow.
I’m not sure I entirely trust your motives, is the thing.
Why? Am I not allowed to express my opinion? :s
I’ve seen you post things under assumed names.
Cool 🙂 Nope I don’t have any connection to WWTBAM for the record 🙂
The NTA award for “Popular” Game Show award no longer exists as Millionaire won it for about 8 years in a row.
I’m being pedantic here, but that Most Popular Quiz Programme award was last presented in 2006, when Ant ‘n’ Dec’s Gameshow Marathon ended a seven-year reign for WWTBAM.
I think that’s something like 19 questions by the third break, which isn’t bad for this sort of thing really.
FWIW, I would have done terribly tonight, with all manner of questions that I feel I ought to have known but didn’t know in practice. Well done, everybody!
I do quite like the “ask the audience” pulsing bar graph, er, graphic. Is it new?
I thought the modern Cluedo question was work-outable, but far too trivial for my liking. The Rock and Chips question was massively easier compared to everyone else’s £50k questions. Otherwise, OK (*does wavy hand thing*).
While I haven’t seen it yet, I can kinda imagine what you’re describing, and I can guess that that was another thing lifted from the US version (which might have been lifted from elsewhere, but I wouldn’t know).
Did it look something like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xsj1aFXKk0#t=3m0s
No, it looked a bit like four spurting geysers before the bar charts pop out.
I think it’s a shame we didn’t nick the US package wholesale, really.
I thought that was OK. Would I go out of my way to watch it again? Doubtful.
I’m probably more interested in seeing the show again than I have been for years, though. A reasonable revamp, and I hope it proves to have done decently in the ratings.
This was better than Million Pound Drop. At least the contestants actually won something! And it wasn’t slow paced and boring like the first couple episodes of MIllion Pound Drop. I would definitely go out of my way to watch it again.
This was better than Million Pound Drop.
I think I can agree with that.
First ep, yes. Other eps, no.
Agree with pretty much everything above – broadly a good new-look, the clock injects the right amount of pace, though it wouldn’t hurt to allow CT to read the four answers before the start each time. A few lovely graphic tweaks too, most welcome.
I can’t abide the sob stories either… for goodness sake, what’s the point? Yes, ‘background stories’ are fine, but if everyone has had a dreadful year, or a recently-widowed mum, or a disabled child they care for, which we hear about multiple times, it will start getting mighty tedious.
I sense that perhaps this show just went a little too far towards being Just Another Game Show with the contestant human emphasis stories and, heck, even the clock.
However, the only bit that clearly, unequivocally Just Doesn’t Work is the music. Why did ITV have to use Covalo again when the Strachans had clock music already written and in use?
There is no proof that Covalo composed the clock music. Although he is still listed in the credits, he might still get the credit for the rave music. You don’t know if Matthew and Keith designed the clock music for here and for other european countries.
Interesting episode of The Full Tilt Poker Poker Lounge of Poker, in pokeriffic association with Full Tilt dot Poker tonight, possibly the first or the last one taped. The chip and cash distributions just look a little bit different to the ones I remember, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m remembering correctly!
It’s all working for me, until I read the above comment about the music packages jarring. They really clash!
Nice coincidence that the 3rd contestant was from Chester Le Street, which if memory serves correct was the answer to the first £1M question seen on the show. Although I suppose it had to happen sometime.
3.9m apparently, not bad considering the Scottish weren’t watching.
Well done Millionaire 😀
Coolcat has summed up my view to a T: graphics are better than they were, the clock adds pace but could well start after Chris has read four answers at a sensible pace. The sob stories can bite the dust, and pick a music package and stick with it purlease.
Tarrant’s attempt to force a catchphrase when a question’s swapped isn’t going to work. Forcing catchphrases never does.
Overall? Telly to have on in the background, and pay attention when they get to the big money, which may now be a bit more often.
Completely unrelatedly, I note that Extreme Sports Channel (!) has started showing Mantracker, that Canadian show that is Interceptor on horseback and without That Annabel Croft. Cable 527, satellite viewers can do their own research.
419 on BSkyB.
It’s good. It’s charming. It’s a slow burner. I have set to record all three episodes on tomorrow, or all one episode broadcast three times, which is a good sign. It’s not Interceptor, though, and it goes to show how much of the appeal of the show was its artifice and the humour that that generated. (Not in at all a bad way.)
Definitely looking forward to seeing more.
It took me far too long to realise that I can summarise my opinion thus:
Ayyyyyyyyyyyy LIKEIT~!
I’ll add this to the main page, I think, ta.
Nice timing for one of the audience members to have a little cough just after the contestant requesting to swap the question 😀
I did like it but took a little while to get adjusted to the pace and think I will enjoy watching it more on my 32″ TV ‘live’ rather than on my 15″ laptop on poor quality ITV Player!
Not terrible. Certainly an improvement on the last series. I’d do some things a bit differently.
1) Keep Fastest Finger. I missed it more than I thought, and memories of my Dad jabbing at the TV screen what *he* thought was the order back in the day made me realise how FF can be quite an exciting moment. It adds an extra layer to the format that, without, can look and feel a little ‘one note’
2) I’d keep the contestant casting, but cast ten for FF. As before, people that don’t qualify can try at FF again for the remainder of the recording session, with empty seats being filled with new faces
3) Go back to the 15 step ladder with the checkpoints in the previous places. The 15 step ladder always offered a more natural progression of difficulty. Being just 2 Qs away from a guaranteed grand still feels too easy, especially when they are such gimmees. Being on the clock simply makes them give the answer quicker – there still doesn’t feel like there’s any potential for failure at that point.
4) There was a sense in some of the promo that THE CLOCK would be bigged up as some kind of anthropomorphic enemy – but in the show itself the clock is nothing but a flimsy graphic. Tarrant said “new look Millionaire” a couple of time and I thought “No, the ‘look’ is the thing that has changed the least”. Interesting that the Countdown clock, despite it’s age, feels like it had a lot more ‘character’. Basically what I’m saying is that they should have built an actual clock.
5) If you’re going to do the ‘photos for the phone a friends’ thing – then bloody make sure you have photos. “He didn’t send a photo” is inexcusable. Stick a runner on a train with a digital camera if needs be; or simply say “If that person doesn’t have a photo we can use, he can’t be your phone a friend”.
5) Just a couple of SFX issues. I didn’t feel the ‘ticking’ had enough impact, particuarly when compared to the ticking used for ‘phone a friend’ (a very effective wooden block sound).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTGX_4u90dg
One of those Millionaire moments that will forever stick in my mind right there. 😀
Full disclosure, I didn’t watch the whole episode, I only watched through the first contestant.
On one hand, I kinda miss the Fastest Finger question as well. I was upset when they got rid of it in the US version. It does make a nice transition from one contestant to the next, rather than “you’re out, you’re in”. I could see why they dropped it though, it sucks up time and means you have to foster eight or nine extra contestants who only serve as background decor.
I thought the clock was okay though. I rather liked the graphics for it, simple but spinny. I think a physical clock would be a nuisance and wouldn’t add to the show any, especially since it only appears for the first seven questions. I will echo everyone else’s thought that Chris should be able to read the answers before the clock starts, or even juet let him read at normal speed. Even on the 15-second questions, I think there wouldn’t be any problem if he slowed down his pace to one answer per second. Meredith reads the answers off at a comfortable speed on every question, I think Chris could take a lesson from her on that.
Saw those TVAak clips finally- and I wouldn’t be shocked if One False Move was actually Wipeout (the timeframe fits- the US show aired in 1988, that was a 1990 show; 3 contestants; a 4X4 video wall; and you could say that “One False Move” would wipe you out…)
I managed to see the first show on a 14″ TV down in Hampshire. I must admit the show was like Old Skool Millionaire. Meaning when the show originally started it rattled through the questions a good pace but it seemed in recent years the produces wanted to stretch each contestant out. I remember an episode in 2002 where they got through FFF and all fifteen questions to £1 Million inside 30 minutes. Sticking on topic, we will see more rollover contestants as they recorded the whole series inside 5 days. Compared to recent series with 4 shows, in 2 days every couple of months.
Don’t be surprised if nearly all the contestants who appear on this series lives in the northern part of the UK. The auditions were taken place on a single day in Manchester. So far we have had contestants from Liverpool, Shefield and Chester Le Street.
Apart from the changes, it’s nothing “wow” but it needed a change than dragging it’s heels.
To go through the small changes/additions.
– New question graphic, now purple, probably the same graphics currently used on the French version.
– New background display featuring the clock, PAF choice and lifelines.
– PAF’s now displayed on screen via still photos. Done exactly like the US version and now reduced from 5 to 3. I did laugh when the first person didn’t have a photo for their third friend.
– Pulse graphic before the percentage reveal for ATA.
– More background info on the contestants. Also adapted from another country (Aussie Millionaire Live). Now they no longer have ten wannabes per show, not surprised they have digged deeper for the photos and video tributes.
– Contestants who won on the show are now shown at the end of the programme. This is eleven years too late as the German and Dutch versions (another idea from another country) invented this in 1999.
– Amended opening titles for the fourth lifeline and clock display.