7:20pm, ITV1
They’re back and they’re live and they’re hoping to push all of your buttons. Two families try and hold on to £100,000 in daft games of skill, knowledge and nerve whilst Ant and Dec try not to laugh too hard at their failures. This second series apparently has home viewer element, Ant vs Dec, a celebrity challenge (place your bets as to which jungle celebrity it will be) and more, presumably. So it’s basically now Saturday Night Takeaway mk three then, but SNT was fun and I thought the first series of this had some quite good games in it.
I’m out this evening and will watch when I get back. You, however, are free to comment as you see fit.
Edit: Right, back now.
- When it comes to live, Ant and Dec are the best in the business but with lots going on, the direction was a bit sloppy in places I thought, not helped by the pair seemingly not knowing where they should be all the time.
- As anyone who has watched Schlag den Raab will tell you, asking people to guess things from culture given clues can be a lengthy experience unless you make things very obvious and so whilst the Catchphrase inspired Top of the Props was quite a fun idea it was probably always going to go to time. And whose idea was it to have a round which would leave people on £82,000? Base five people, base five!
- I have no problems with Spot the Bald or the Dancing on Ice challenge, although along with The Accumulator I miss the time trial aspect – there’s not really all that much pushing the button to stop countdowns in Push the Button these days.
- The People vs DAVE was a bit of a damp squib. It lacked energy despite the big prizes being given away, and was it me or did the yellow look like light green? This didn’t seem to happen later on.
- The Accumulator does away with the pesky cash countdown idea and allows the families to gamble the money they have left on three different questions – what the designated Happy Hundred section of the audience think about something, whether a celebrity can do something (footballer Alan Shearer in this case which was nicely unexpected), and a mini-Ant vs Dec challenge, with up to £5,000, up to £10k and as much as you like being the betting limits. Very Final Jeopardy. On the one hand this works decently well and evidently to time, on the other I miss the fraught final games of the previous series.
- With cleverer betting it could have finished with a tie last night. What would have happened then?
- Members of the Happy Hundred tried to guess before the show what the winning total would be, closest wins £5,000. Meh.
- DAVE has had a facelift, and now just one member of the family has to remember the sequences making it much harder – 10% of the prize fund for three notes, 25% for five, 50% for seven and all of it for nine. Unusually but in a good way I think for this sort of show this is an old school bonus game, the penalty for getting it wrong isn’t to lose everything it’s just that your run stops right there and then.
- Evidently they need to toughen up DAVE’s buttons, what the guy did seemed completely reasonable so goodness knows how it read it as something else.
- The winners get to stay on and the four families ready to take part in next week’s episode are shown on webcam, and one of them is apparently randomly selected to take part in the next episode (there was a bit of confusion here as two feeds lit up when Dec pushed the button and then one darkened. Good stuff.) I wonder if there is any mileage in giving these waiting families some sort of role in the main show.
- The pacing was fine. they fit quite a lot into that 75 minutes.
- As it is they’ve got good game ideas but there’s still something missing from the overall package. Regrettably I can’t put my finger on what exactly that is.
Much better start compared to last year, they’ve got the family out quickly. Last year they took ages getting the families out and had VTs which was boring. Glad they’re just getting on with it.
Because there’s now quite a bit of extra stuff to go in. Also the totals aren’t onscreen anymore, for some reason.
Also if Chyna Rose is familiar to you, that’s because she was on Total Wipeout in Season 3. Didn’t get past the first round, mind. Also she was on Fort Boyard in 2003.
Chyna-Rose and her dad Derrick (or Derek) took part in Total Wipeout last year (according to the Surrey Herald! Thanks google!). Thought she looked familiar…
17 minutes in, it seems much more fun and entertaining than last year’s version.
How stupid is the guy in orange. He’s losing at the moment by a big margin so should be staking the maximum amount. Otherwise he’ll lose anyway even if he gets the answers correct!!
Oh well, he won anyway, so ignore my comment!
Good game that, Accumulator.
I quite like the Accumulator round, partly for the name (Peake, get your lawyers onto it…) but also for the Banzai!-style betting activities.
I do think the show finishes a round too quickly; the “your money is counting down until you can push the button for the last time” round was the neatest and most coherent motif, so it’s a shame to see it go in the last round – but there’s a scope for a bit of the old Final Jeopardy! in the betting selection.
It’s decent overall, but really seems to be missing something. The live element really doesn’t add anything at all.
I’m not overly happy at a round called the Accumulator – given Accumulate! has two rounds with that very title. Hmph.
I though the show was much improved on last year, aside from the call and lose section which didn’t add much, the pace was quite good. I think I agree with CMD in prefef=rring the money countdown as a finale (and that’s got nothing to do with the name). I did note a few techincal glitches, but they’re forgivable for a live show.
Overall, it’s straddling the B+ / A- border.
And yes, I’m pretty irritated about a round being called The Acumulator. Not quite sure what my next step shall be.
Lawsuit?
I get the impression it’d be like a fly hitting a windscreen. (And I’m the fly, but you got that). I’m currently pondering.
http://electronictheatre.co.uk/index.php/nintendods/nintendo-ds-news/7208-nintendo-3ds-valentine-offer-drops-price-to-p167
Dan, how do you feel about this?
Oh bollocks, got the wrong link.
I mean this: http://www.trueachievements.com/a68545/accumulate-achievement.htm
“I’m not overly happy at a round called the Accumulator – given Accumulate! has two rounds with that very title. Hmph.”
BBC might have a small say. Bruce Forsyth’s Didn’t They Do Well had the final round called The Accumulator as well.
or the final question was called that or something similar.
Looks like Ant and Dec thought the problem was it wasn’t live – but that solves nothing.
It’s essentially the same, without the benefit of editing. Yes, getting the families out quicker is better, but although they were overly long, the selection VTs got some great reactions last series. And give me a few minutes of VTs rather than all the viewer/audience filler we had tonight.
The first three rounds were nothing they wouldn’t have done last year, but the Accumulator just didn’t work as the final game. Firstly it seems somewhat flawed, and secondly it’s just not as entertaining as the final two-player games they had last series.
And finally – can’t believe they kept DAVE. That should have been the first thing dropped in the revamp, and although one person playing worked better in the show last year when it was an all or nothing situation, it didn’t work at all tonight. Playing for 10/25/50/100% wasn’t as effective as playing figure by figure (so the prize increased ten fold each time). Losing the final round and going home with just £39,000 isn’t exactly losing.
Finally – winner stays on – what’s the point!
All in all not really improved at all. Not read the Secret Fortune reviews but considering these Lottery quiz shows always attract viewers I think Ant and Dec may come out second best in the slot tonight.
I liked it a little more than last time, less wasted space I felt though I felt the intros to the games could’ve been a bit better. I liked the little musical sting as the games were revealed last series and the additional music as DAVE was revealed. Going with the generic atmosphere music meant the show lost a little of its charm as a pure fun show, also not helped by what seems to be a darker set. Part of why I liked the last series was the bright colourful set. Hopefully being live means they’ll figure some of this stuff out as the weeks go by.
Do like the buttons being in one place through the whole show though. Winner stays on will hopefully lead to some huge wins as the weeks go by without the shows costing any more.
Last year I posted here to ask what the point of the team captains was on this show, and I’ll ask that again. But I thought this show was better than the last series, partly because the audience have SHUT UP a bit more.
I liked the way Ant and Dec seemed a bit more involved in it, with them joining them at Dancing On Ice (no surprise to see more ITV cross promotion, mind) and the parallel parking stuff (which I loved the idea of as a challenge as I used to be able to do that but since I moved into a house with offroad parking I’ve completely forgotten how to do it). Other good bits were the first round almost reaching Wonkey Donkey levels of stupidity and Matt Berry’s voice overs, because he has an amazing voice and I’ve always thought he should get more voice over work. The final bet on The Accumulator was really good too, though presumably there’s a failsafe to ensure the contestants don’t just lie and pretend they bet more than they did.
But it still doesn’t gel for me, I dunno what it is. The phone-in is crap but no worse than it was on Takeaway, similarly DAVE is no more boring than Grab The Ads. Maybe it’s because I can never warm to the contestants, they’re always too hyped up and annoying. I think I’d prefer it more if it was even more like the Generation Game with simple games Ant and Dec can join in with and cock up, the bit where Dec dropped the prop for “Waterloo” was good, we should have more of that. They need to be in it more, I think.
I’d love it if they did a whole series based on Ant vs Dec, actually, the bits where they became weathermen or formed a boy band where some of the best things on Saturday night telly this year.
Matt Berry’s voice overs, because he has an amazing voice and I’ve always thought he should get more voice over work
Hmm, after two years of Frank Skinner’s Absolute radio show podcast I’m not entirely sure I agree.
The final bet on The Accumulator was really good too, though presumably there’s a failsafe to ensure the contestants don’t just lie and pretend they bet more than they did.
I would imagine when they type in their bets it’s all down in writing.
Otherwise I pretty much agree I think.
I miss the giant guinea pigs. That, and the games seemed just a wee bit less zany, presumably to head off any difficulties that couldn’t be fixed in post.