I hope you all enjoy your Bank Holiday. I will be WORKING.
- Scream if You Know the Answer – this has just been bought by the US Travel Channel dontchaknow. In tonight’s episodes Joe Swash vs Vanilla Ice, and then Dom Joly vs Kate Silverton. Dom can’t talk now, he’s on Nemesis Inferno etc. (7pm, 7:30pm, Sunday, Watch)
- Britain’s Got Talent Finals Week – Most nights at 7:30pm on ITV.
- The Amazing Race Australia – if you’ve not watched a Race for a while, I do recommend having a go with this one. (Seven Network, Monday)
- Alexander Armstrong’s Big Ask – Panel show where the guests set the questions and Dave Lamb checks the answers. Dave Lamb is on a lot this week, he’s also fronting Gory Games on CBBC weekdaily and also endless repeats of Come Dine With Me on the various Channel 4 channels. (9pm, Monday, Dave)
- Four Rooms – I doubt I’ll be billing this every week, but episode one of Dickinson’s Real Antiques Den was definitely better than I was expecting. Worth a watch. (8pm, Tuesday, C4)
- The Apprentice – if you’re wondering why I haven’t been billing this after getting into it last year, it’s mainly because I’m working very lengthy days on Wednesdays at the moment 🙁 (9pm, BBC1, Wednesday)
- Schlag den Raab – Eurovision host Stefan Raab defends a million Euro from the onslaught of another challenger. (7:15pm, Saturday, Pro Sieben and Hopefully Naughty Streaming)
Also Challenge TV does indeed seem to be showing old stuff next weekend, but Challenge Anneka doesn’t seem to have turned up regrettably, at least on Saturday’s schedule.
It looks like to me Challenge have made the mistake of billing shows before the deals were signed.
Blockbusters was pushed back 3 times and Pointless has been shifted to July no sign of Challenge Anneka. I know they tried to buy it under the VM days but hit issues.
I thought I’d re-post this here as it makes more sense to put it here. You can get rid of the original post if you want Brig. Edit: Done – Brig
For those that missed it last night, Million Pound Drop had another one of Those Questions last night. The answers:
Usain Bolt / A greyhound
The question: Which of these is faster?
Terribly written question there. Over what distance? Or are we talking speed? On a more pedantic note, faster at what? Shuffling cards? Knitting?
The answer given was a greyhound, as it can reach speeds of 40mph. I assumed it was going to be “over 100m”, so I was completely misled.
The contestants only had 25k in play, and they put it on Usain Bolt – I reckon they could argue Usain Bolt could travel faster if he was in a car on the motorway (although probably not the M25, naturally). I wonder if they’d get their 25k if they complained?
Anyway, rant over. Back to my Tesco coco pops which as more calories than tesco frosties and tesco honey nut flakes!
Indeed, that one is hugely ambiguous. “Has the maximum speed” is very different from “Faster”, especially when comparing animals (or even humans, there aren’t many who can perform equally well at both the 100m and 1600m) – Accelleration, ability to sustain, etc are all hugely important, perhaps even more so than maximum speed, for determining who is faster over any given distance, which factors are the more important is determined by the distance involved.
Hmm, not convinced. The question would only fail if a human could be ever faster than a greyhound when they’re both running, and I don’t think that’s ever possible over any reasonable distance.
The question that *is* dodgy is the one about comparing fastest animals, because a cheetah is fast over very short distances, but there are others that a faster over longer lengths. And then there are birds which are faster through the air.
Hey, at least the grammar is right this time. That’s progress!
And yes, it wouldn’t have killed them to say “Which is the faster runner?” to avoid silly alternatives, but I think the meaning was relatively clear.
In that respect, the question is ‘reasonable’, greyhounds are bloomin’ quick. This fact does not disguise the sloppy question writing however.
How are you defining ‘reasonable distance’ there?
A quick google suggests the following
“At maximum acceleration, greyhounds reach full speed of 72km/h within 30 metres (6 strides) from the start, travelling at up to 18 metres/second in the first 250 metres of a race. Greyhounds can then maintain an average speed of 16.5 metres per second over a 500 metre race, decreasing to about 14.6 metres per second at the finish line.”
“An elite human sprinter can reach 40km/h in a 10 second sprint race at a maximum speed of 11 metres per second. In July 21, 1996, Michael Johnson ran 200 metres in 19.32 seconds in Atlanta, a speed of 10.362 metres per second (37.267km/h), to win an Olympic title, and become the fastest man in the world over 200m. Johnson also ran a 400m in 1999 at a time of 43.18 seconds, making him number on in the world at 400m.”
(http://www.athletic-animals.com/)
[And it’s difficult to find information on greyhound performance on distances longer than 500m, making it tricky to do a comparison for any sort of distance, reasonable or otherwise]
Don’t Scare the Ratings Bear, Grr!: 1.0m ( 7.6%)
So You Think You Cannot Dance: 2.6m (15.7%)
So You Think You Cannot Dance Results: 2.4m (10.8%)
Who Dares Wins: 3.3m (13.3%)
Million Pound Thicky Drop Live: 2.4m (13.2%)
A poor night all round for BBC One. It could be due to the GREATEST CONTEST EVER over on the other channel. Ratings Bear would like to give credit to the thickos on Million Pound Drop for securing an excellent rating.
The Celebrity Cube is back with McFly on Saturday, June 11, according to Schofe:
http://twitter.com/#!/Schofe/status/75546580295499776
The Australianzing Race: well, it’s pretty good, and it’s clearly big-budget despite the prize, but I’m not mindblown by it; some of the tasks are better than usual, but others are very run of the mill. I like the contestants, and I think the fact that it’s the first race means that they haven’t had to go for stunt casting. Unfortunately I liked both the first teams to be eliminated, but I think I like most of the teams; not sure that there are any that I don’t like.
Does the failure in the UK of The Race and The Search and that other vaguely similar show shunted out to Sunday afternoons on the BBC whose name I cannot remember, even after looking through the “Puzzle” and “Action and Adventure” categories on UKGS, mean that it’s very unlikely that we’ll ever see anyone in the UK pitch the big bucks to give a UK Race a go, or is it a global format so prevalent that a UK version is just a matter of time?
Mmm. I thi the thing is that there’s a good cultural reason they’ve done this show in Australia, namely they show the US show on one of their main networks. Outside of people like us, who would know what The Amazing Race is?
Also if they did do a British TAR, they’ve have to tone down the production significantly, I’m not convinced the graphics and music would fly on UK TV.
The fact that the US version was previously shown in Australia is a strong argument for the existence of the local version. However, other countries and international networks have tried it as well. Do we know if they all were based on the popularity of the original, or is there a point at which companies have tried a local version ab initio?
Based on the wikipedia writeup it appears like they were, and the fact only one is indicated to not be still going (Portugal’s) probably is notable as well.
To be honest, That Other Vaguely Similar Show Shunted Out To Sunday Afternoons On The BBC Whose Name I Cannot Remember, Even After Looking Through The ‘Puzzle’ And ‘Action And Adventure’ Categories On UKGS (…AKA Drop Zone, and no longer has a stub entry), The Search, etc, often feel like they’re trying to be The Amazing Race without importing The Amazing Race to the UK.
Yes, you’d need to change the production to suit the UK, but, you’d think someone would crack and go “ok, we keep trying similar things and failing to make them stick, why not, you know, actually import The Amazing Race, considering it does it pretty darn good, and see if the concept is doomed to failure over here or if we’re just naff at doing it?”
Hit the Road? Passport? I can’t think of many other travel game shows the BBC has done.
Was Travel Bug a BBC thing?
A bit harsh on The Race (1), I think. OK, it did go out in the Celebrity Juice slot to about 2% of the Celebrity Juice audience, but it kept its audience, repeated well, made for good cheap television, and sold around the world – particularly popular in Hong Kong, apparently. For a 2001 ITV2 commission, it wasn’t at all bad.
People have tried to import The Amazing Race directly – it’s been bunged out on UK Living and Challenge? in the past, to a resounding “meh” from the British audience. I just don’t think the concept works here, and I’m not familiar enough with it to determine why.