I know “fun” and “Belgium” aren’t two words that tend to go in the same sentence, but I felt it about time there was a little feature on De Slimste Mens ter Wereld, a very entertaining quiz show from the country that bought us The Mole, and didn’t bring anybody Blokken.
They’ve recently been doing a sort of Champion of Champions series on Belgian telly with top contestants from the past ten years.
I think this would work quite well in the BBC2 Pointless slot. You could probably have Alexander Armstrong hosting and Richard Osman as the judge as well, then they could be on all year!
Er… surely Van der Valk was Dutch?
(Also… to anyone reading this who happens to have been in a marching band in South East Hampshire in the 1980s and thereby shares in the blame for blighting every Saturday morning shopping trip with constant renditions of “Eye Level”… YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGIVEN.)
I’ve changed it, but I don’t think anyone will have noticed.
Meanwhile: this is quite an exciting finish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3q3qvrNhes
This one from the Dutch show a bit less, but does at least prove it doesn’t just go down to the little numbers:
In It to Win It: it very nearly happened last week, and it did happen this week – all five contestants won something.
I didn’t think all five were entirely deserving of their £10k, though. Wasn’t too gone on Johnny, and certainly not on Ann – giggled WAY too much for my liking, and I apologise for saying this but I don’t think she was the sharpest tool in the box, either. Yes, she was responsible for precisely half the prize fund, but quite a few of the questions she got were rather easy – and the last one was an ABSOLUTE GIFT. 😡
Charlie’s still my least favourite IItWI contestant by a long way, though…
And after having possibly the oldest contestant ever last week in 88-year-old Peter, did we have the youngest this week in 18-year-old Becky?
I’ve always felt that “In It” is such a spectacularly broken format that I will never watch it, but then again, this is the format that caused Brig to invent “fair, but not necessarily just”, isn’t it? I think I have a Javertesque sense of desire for “justice”, and maybe my definition of this is not much more sensible than his…
(Is that the first musical theatre reference ever on the Bar? Can’t be, can it?)
Sounds like it at least delivered a Happy End last night, which is probably what a show in this slot should be doing.
It was only the second time in the nearly nine year history everybody was a winner.
My ol’man did say that everybody seemed normal on the show last night (always giving the indication there is at least one character out of the five). I must admit he was right, it was like going back to 2004.
Depends how young Becky is. An Irish lad was 18 when he won £50,000 (by answering two questions correctly) in 2004.
In that case, since we’ll probably never know her exact age (i.e. months and days as well as years) at the time this episode was recorded, she’ll have to be considered the joint youngest contestant ever.
In turn, I presume that if DOND had another 97-year-old contestant, he or she would simply be considered the joint oldest along with Chelsea Pensioner Joe…
Ratings
Total Wipeout – 5.22m (24.6%)
The Magicians – 5.23m (22.3%)
In It To Win It – 6.09m (24.9%)
Take Me Out – 4.26m (17.3%)
IItWI was the most watched programme overall last night.