Right I’m still ill, I’m using my iPad in bed to comment on things, like a sort of real life version of Denzil Washington’s bed in The Bone Collector but I have FORCED MYSELF out to write a new post for you:
- Do you remember I went to see some episodes of the brilliant Pointless being filmed last month? Well those two episodes are actually going out today and Friday. At the time of writing Thursday has been and gone, but I advise you all to try and watch Fridays because for many different reasons it’s a bit of a belter. Edit: IF you want to know exactly how ill I am, I wasn’t at Thursday’s episode at all so God knows why it felt so familiar. Anyway, today’s is good, Monday’s is brilliant – great contestants, packed with incident, and I was laughing hard throughout.
- 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow has been picked up for a six week run in the US. I said when it first came on over here that it’s a show likely to work better with US pacing and money.
- Spring Wipeout starts tonight, the show that was hurriedly commissioned for Winter Wipeout‘s massive ratings before American Idol decided it would still do OK without Simon Cowell anyway.
- Paddy O’ Connell’s been sacked from the BBC3 Eurovision coverage! Travesty.
shocked anyone could see 101wtlag as a viable format, but hey, 1 series wonders are good, no?
the paddy o’connell situation is ridiculous. and frankly, unless they have decided that i am fronting the coverage instead, then i am outraged!
I don’t think 101WTLAG is a bad format but as a format it more than anything else relies on the execution.
101 Ways is an excellent format and this is reflected by the fact it’s been picked up in the US by ABC who are a top world renown broadcaster.
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That’s 101, isn’t it?
Also ABC have shown silly things before that have completely bombed.
Think of the 2009 revival of American Superstars – pairing sports stars with celebs and having an elimination format featuring a cheap obstacle course weren’t good ideas at all…
Very disappointed about Paddy losing his annual gig, I’m unlikely to watch the semis now.
Spring Wipeout was only OK. Qualifier was decent enough, 2nd round was very poor, 3rd round was straight out of Winter Wipeout and the Wipeout Zone looked much simpler than previous seasons.
I don’t know, I quite enjoyed the Scare-o-cel. Re: Wipeout Zone, loved the Point Break slide (good “physicality”), felt the Over and Out was less interesting than it initially seems.
Stacey Solomon hosting Sing if you can
We await Joe’s Praise
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a309678/stacey-solomon-lands-presenting-role.html
I can see what they’re doing, she’s likable and having done both X Factor and I’m a Celeb probably has a better inside view than most. It sounds like she’s going to be Caroline Flack role from TW19Y with Vernon as lead, although she probably doesn’t have Flack’s presenting skills, obviously.
Sing if You Can sounds even better now that the celebrities and hosts have been introduced. Vernon Kay is a brilliant host who is one of the few presenters on TV who can ad lib and I thought he came across incredibly well on The Whole 19 Yards and he’ll come across as well on this show. Stacey Soloman might not be a natural host but she is a great personality and will fit into this show well because it’s a comic piss-take.
This will be a big hit because the show is basically a combination of singing, celebrities, judging, obstacles and there are loads of people who are fans of that. Endemol actually had a very similar show in development about 3 years ago but it didn’t come to fruition. RDF have got a hit on their hands here, it’s been successful all over the world it’s been shown.
Vernon Kay might be a likable host but his game show background isn’t that brilliant recomission wise. Only Family Fortunes is the only show he has had long term success. Any other show he has done in the past has flopped, most of them becoming one series wonders.
As for Stacey Solomon, she is simply a marmite person.
Plus, of course, not everyone likes Vernon – it’s not at all uncommon for people to refer to him as a twat…
“This will be a big hit because the show is basically a combination of singing, celebrities, judging, obstacles”
Lots of people are fans of cooking, fishing, football and warm baths. There is no way anyone would watch a combination of that.
I have no real point here. I won’t be watching the show as I find all of singing, celebrities, judging and obstacles tedious and played out, so won’t comment further.
I think it has a very real danger of feeling naff in the way that big ITV1 shows often have a habit of falling into. The execution of this is going to be crucial.
out of pure interest joe, has there been a single endemol flop in its entire history, or has every single show ever created/commissioned by you guys been a global phenomenon?
I’ve got a feeling I’ve confused myself and it’s this coming Monday’s ep of Pointless which is the really good one. And yet I was sure yesterday’s felt familiar.
Apparently The Cube is back on Sunday April 3rd.
If that’s true, let me do my Satchmo imitation: “OH, YES!!!”
Perhaps I’m biased though he’s not a known relation, but Peter Dickson in three or four short pieces has been one of the few big winners of Comic Relief – and we’ve just had a Marcus Bentley cameo at 2:30am…
There’s a Minute to Win It app just launched, currently £1.19. Expect a review in a few days.
RTL will be the German broadcaster for The Cube. The series will begin on Friday 29th April at 8.15pm BST (9.15pm CET). Looks like it will be paired with Wer Wird Milonair? (German Millionaire) provied it’s still on air in April. Format stays the same with nine lives and €250,000 top prize. Nazan Eckes will be host.
http://tinyurl.com/5ukymdh
Looking at the current TV schedule. Die perfekte Minute (Minute to Win It) is still airing on Friday nights on Sat1 (same timelot as The Cube but each show is two hours). Slightly ironic if that show finishes before 29th April.
Looks up Wiki. Looks like Die perfekte Minute finishes their second series on 22nd April, one week before The Cube begins airing. Totally ironic.
On another note, Wetten Dass is back tonight.
Wow, I literally got back just in time to see this.
http://www.justin.tv/satstreamer2#/w/983161968
First bet: A man attempts to stack five bowling balls on top of a single bowling pin. It looks like there are two pins on hand, so it appears he has two chances.
Actually, my bad, the second pin goes on top of the five balls!
And he’s successful!
For essentially no reason whatsoever, I’m trying to snag screencaps as we go. This link should take you to the pics as I’m uploading them: http://s882.photobucket.com/albums/ac27/artbegotti/wetten%20dass%2019-3-11/
And as a penalty for guessing the bet wrong, one of the celeb pair has to get inside one of those giant Zorb balls and roll herself to some inflatable pins at the other end of the stage.
Oh, that’s pretty cool. At a guess, it takes advantage of the holes in bowling balls into which you place your fingers, to use a technical term.
Hm. Justin Bieber is a guest on this show, but not as a performer this time. The girls (a very small corder of the audience) scream their head off after every time he speaks. This will get annoying pretty quickly.
Oh, interesting, now he’s doing a Rubik’s Cube. Although having once learned one of those algorithms for solving them, I can safely say this cube was already “nearly done” by the time he started.
Somehow this counted as a bet, I guess, since he got the dancing letters when he finished.
Never mind, he’s performing after the second bet.
Aaand the above stream seems to have tanked, so here’s a new one: http://www.justin.tv/cola102#/w/983313184
Second bet is a man identifying cities and locations via Google Earth-y images of the land zoomed in pretty far. Four out of five wins.
Nailed it in four.
And his daughters get to hug Bieber. Aww.
Third bet involves someone balancing stackable block-type things on his chin with firefighters in a truck adding more on top. I’m assuming the blocks are something fire-rescue-specific, but I wouldn’t know what they’re called.
He starts the stack off at 3 (see pic with Thomas holding the stack) and grows the stack to 15, then balances it all for 30 seconds. Success!
Fourth bet is outside the studio. A team of what looks like 20-25 people is pulling a train car filled with people up what looks like a slight slope, 50 meters in 3 minutes.
Actually, that’s all speculation, because this feed’s gone out again. Not shut down, thankfully, but it looks like the satellite feed this person was using died.
Found the first feed to be working again. They finish, with about ten seconds left. Four for four, tonight. No kinderwette yet though… unless Bieber with the Rubik’s was it.
Bet five, which I’m assuming to be the Kinderwette: Two strings with balloons attached run parallel to each other, about a foot off the ground. The better tapes a couple of tacks to his hands, and does a walking handstand between the two ropes and “jumps” with both hands at once, flapping his hands out to the side and popping the balloons. He has a minute to do this. Rather hilariously, the last balloon on one side doesn’t pop, but falls off the string. He continues to chase it upstage and pops it with a swift punch. Success!
I missed the right spot to get a picture of this, but as a penalty, the female cohost did a handstand, which made her dress flip up, so we got to see the funny undergarment she was wearing.
Okay, now that they’re starting the voting, it’s now clear that the firefighter/block stacking was the Kinderwette.
During the voting, someone does what looks like a speed painting of a famous person on a black canvas. He seems to be using blackish paint as well, so with the lighting it looks like he’s doing a negative of a painting. But with ten seconds left, he throws gold glitter on to the canvas… the paint is actually glue! And it’s a painting of Thomas! Not bad for three and a half minutes of work.
Bet King results:
1st: Satellite Photo Identifier (56%)
2nd: Bowling Stacker (25%)
3rd: Balloon Handstand (11%)
4th: Train Pullers (8%)
Felt like I’d stumbled into a red light district with this site, but anyway, some American lists seven “of the greatest” (not THE greatest, you understand, just the first seven that popped into his head) game show gimmicks.
http://guyism.com/lifestyle/the-7-greatest-game-show-gimmicks-of-all-time.html
Thinks… what would be on an equivalent UK list?
cocks head
Judging by the quality of that list, I nominate:
Giant buttons on Push The Button
Dusty Bin himself on 3-2-1
Our Graham’s Little Reminder
A Question of Sport changing team captains
The size of the prizes on WWTBAM
Looking at what you could have won
Those oh-so-wacky Hot Spots. What are they not?
…and I’m sure you get my point.
DoND will air at the earlier time of 4.00pm today and not 4.30pm as originally planned. As with last Sunday, Channel 4 are squeezing in a news bulletin regarding the happenings in Libya.
Does Tony Robinson have some hold on the programmers on Channel 4? Is it not easier to take off Time Team, stick on a 30 minute show at 5.30pm and leave the rest of the schedue on time?