Obviously if you hadn’t realised, the planned game of HORSE that was due to go ahead this evening has had to be postponed because of the site hosting it being suspended. I therefore urge you all to join Brig’s Poker Club (yes, it’s to the theme of Rolf’s Cartoon Club) IF YOU DARE and we’ll get a game up and running soon.
In the meantime:
- Pointless – I’m very pleased that Xander and Richard have had a promotion to BBC1 as this is certainly my pick of the current crop of daytime quizzes. With a French version incoming, I’m interested to see how it translates, because it is fair to say that a large part of the appeal of the Brit version is the hosts. (5:15pm, Monday-Friday, BBC1)
- The Amazing Race Australia – We must be due another non-elimination leg soon. (Seven Network, Monday)
- Fort Boyard 2010 – This is, like, so last year. (8:06pm, Monday, TV5)
- 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow (ABC, Tuesday)
- The Challenge: The Rivals (MTV US, Wednesday)
- Fort Boyard 2011 – Some discussion of it here. I hope episode two is a bit easier to find than episode one. (7:35pm UK, France 2, Saturday)
- It’s my 30th birthday – I’m not going to be here for it. (Saturday)
tvscoops on twitter:
ITV has ordered a new game show pilot, ‘Worth a Fortune’. If the pilot is successful, a full series will be commissioned. In ‘Worth a Fortune’, 4 contestants using their instincts have to predict the value of fascinating objects of memorabilia in front of them. The contestant furthest away from the correct amount is knocked out in each round until one person remains who walks away with cash prize.
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So the Price is Right essentially brought back under a new name?
I think Carol Vorderman presented something like this, but it’s name eludes me – it was more antique related than this, but it’s certainly been done on ITV daytime.
Hmm… not really I don’t think, seems to have more in common with the upcoming “It’s Worth What?” starting in the US soon.
That’s the “Golden Lot” with Carol Vorderman that is similar to “Worth a Fortune”. Both have names which are spoofs of classic gameshows.
Pointless’ french title ? “Personne n’y avait pensé” (which could be roughly translated to “Nobody thought of this”). Starts July 16.
I guess it’s still better than the upcoming french version of MPD – called there … “Money Drop” (or “we were lazy enough to attempt to find a correct title for this show” ). €250K top prize (25 chunks worth 10K each), starting somewhere this summer in the 7pm slot.
Last french news – upcoming GS this fall for TF1, co-production between Endemol and FrenchTV (Duel) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfj7KEUT9lU
They appearently dropped the real-tv element in the most recent pilots .. good thing.
“Stuck in a Game Show” seems like 24 Hour Quiz, which if I remember correctly ended up bombing pretty badly
It’s an interesting idea – the difference between this and 24 Hour Quiz is that in 24HQ you fought to stay on the show, here you fight to get off it. Intrigued about the ethics – surely you couldn’t keep a contestant prisoner?
I like how the promo goes on about general knowledge quizzes yet the first example to be used is Goldenballs.
I guess contestants sign some sort of agreement that they acknowledge they could stay in the game for a long time, should they REALLY suck. Kinda fixed by another rule throwed during pilots – should a finalist won the top prize during endgame, he will also relase the five other “stuck” contestants who will have to quit the game empty-handed.
Also, unless they elect to keep the real-tv part (quite unlikely as the genre gave away to TF1 an nearly all-time low primetime rating some months ago – so bad that they had to stop the game before third week out of ten or twelve), shows will be most likely taped in blocks, making the “stuck” time quite less umconfortable for contestants.
France though is ridiculous when it comes to reality TV – there have been many cases and participants are now I think classed as employees and have to have regular “breaks”, and TF1 have long given up the hassle of complying with the law when it comes to a live feed for Secret Story.
Not to mention ‘recreate a psychology experiment that no psychology ethics board would allow these days as entertainment’…
The ever-so-slightly evil part of my brain crosses Stuck in a Game Show with 24 Hour Panel People and Celebrity Big Brother. Take seven minor celebrities and stick them in a specially-constructed compound. Each day, get them to do an array of silly activities, culminating in a challenge live on network television. The best performer each day is released into the world, and the rest have to stay in for one more day. On the night of the telethon, there are two people left, and they have a spectacular final challenge from which only one can secure their freedom without going through shame, humiliation, and The Gunk Tank.
It’s really been a while since we’ve had a non-kids show with a gunk tank as a main staple, hasn’t it?
Sing If You Can has it with water, though.
Closest to ‘gunk tank as a staple’ is probably the Emergency Exit round of 101 Ways – Taking into account what NHP turned its into at one point (Ride Around The Great House) and it probably is close enough to count.
Jermery Kyle’s High Stakes begins recording at the end of next week. Wonder what changes, if any, they have made between pilot and recording?
If anyone goes to this, so let us know.
At the audition we were told that there have been some small changes, as follows:
* It’s now a 6×7 grid rather than a 7×8 grid (i.e. there are six levels instead of seven, and seven numbers per level instead of eight).
* The avoids are now called “clues”, and there are ten of them to get through the game.
* Level one is no longer a freebie. This produces the hilarious prospect of one in seven players leaving empty-handed within two minutes of their pre-game interview.
* The prize tree is a spectacular feat of cheapness and deception: 1k / 2.5k / 10k / 25k / 100k / 500k. Hitting a fail now sends you two rungs down the prize ladder, so you’re always risking at least 90% of your money so far.
* Hilariously, despite those enormous 4x and 5x leaps on the prize tree, it’ll still be optimal on most utility functions to use ten clues in four levels and walk away with 25k; to get to 100k requires making five guesses, the probability of which is less than 0.5, and established convention from DoND states that most UK contestants value a certain 25k over a 50% chance of 100k. And this is less than a 50% chance of 100k. And that’s assuming you know all the questions, although in fairness you only need to know a wrong answer.
* Oh and as for the 500k, it’s not even an 8% chance of getting that even if you used your clues optimally.
* We saw a bit of the UK pilot btw. It had the US prize tree so of course they had to make it cheaper, but this is far too much jeopardy for Saturday night.
* Which is where it’s apparently going, as an X-Factor lead-in starting from August. This might make this count as public service broadcasting; it’ll reduce the audience for X-Factor.
Also – Uni Challenge is back on Monday. Just in case you like that kind of thing. Which also means Only Connect must only be weeks away…
Mmm. August, I’ve heard. And don’t forget Connecting Wall Night!
August! Can’t they do ridiculously complicated quarter-finals to end the season? 🙁
*extend* the season – don’t know what happened there…
I’m still baffled that University Challenge has manage to land itself in a bizare hybrid of single and double elimination thanks to that, yeah…
I do, of course. 😉 😉
Hard to believe that this is already the 18th series of the Paxman Era…
And contesting the opening match are two of the most prolific institutions of the era, Warwick and Edinburgh.
Edinburgh is, of course, the most prolific institution, having only missed three of the previous 17 series (and not since 1998/9).
Warwick, champions in 2006/7, have appeared in 12 series – though they missed the last one.
One presumes that the structure of the series will be the same as in the last two – quarter-finalists must win twice to reach the semis, and will be eliminated if they lose twice.
IMHO, it would be a bit of a surprise if it wasn’t – given that both Magdalen and York lost one QF before reaching the final…
Why has Penn & Teller: Fool Us, one of the best shows on Saturday night telly in recent years, been a ratings flop?
Can anyone put their finger on what exactly has not been good enough? I’ve loved it. Everyone who talks to me about it loves it. Hardly anyone has a bad word to say about it. It has no celebrities in sight, it’s just a good old fashion magic show with members of the public and an added twist. You know, the sort of show people have been wanted for ages.
Why hasn’t it worked in the ratings? I am baffled.
I think you’ve actually stated the problem right there with “It has no celebrities”. I think I’d be right in saying a lot of ITV’s views come from ‘celeb’-centric shows, and without celebrities it’s a lot harder to get any sort of pull for viewers. It’s the sad sad truth, Fool Us is fantastic, but I fear people have no incentive to try it, and they don’t know what they’re missing.
Perhaps a celeb special featuring celebs who have picked up tricks on the BBC’s The Magicians is in order.
It’s really disappointing The Magicians did really well which to be quite honest was rubbish and this which is one of the best things on TV in ages has done so poorly.
Meanwhile The Marriage Ref, which I think would have gone down a lot better several years ago, is apparently under two million.
Including +1 but excluding HD, The Marriage Refs recorded 1.82m on Saturday but was third in it’s timeslot losing to BBC One and BBC Two with a repeat of HIGNFY.
The Magicians did so well was down to having a winter slot but against poor opposition. It was head to head with Primeval which was axed first time around and even when it returned (due to fan demand), it went nowhere.
Fool Us is in an opposite position. Placed in a summer slot but against a very popular lottery show. If it was against, say Secret Fortune then it would beat them but it’s against a nine year old show which hasn’t over exposed itself.
I don’t think “It has no celebrities” is the problem as Take Me Out does okay.
Not-recommissioned despite getting ratings comparable ratings than other non-Doctor Who, non-Simon Cowel shows tend to get in that sort of slot that have been recommissioned.
…And despite it being a funding issue rather than a ‘we don’t want it’ issue which made getting a coproducer on board trickier
(This isn’t saying it shouldn’t have been dropped after S3, though S3 quality wise was the best of the first three, this is merely saying that it shouldn’t have been announced as not being renewed before ITV later said “well, if we can find someone to share the costs with, we’ll consider it” [Rather than ‘fan demand’ bringing it back.])
IIRC.
What really doesn’t help Fool U is being in a block of some rather critically disliked shows.
That would be “Fool Us”, obviously.
It’s in a period of summer with good weather and it’s up against one of the BBC’s stronger shows, so it’s always going to struggle.
Criticially, and just from gut feel, there’s probably enough here to justify another recommission. Regardless of bums on seats, audience share has been only a couple of points off the ‘safe’ 20% mark.
A few things still are holding it back, I feel: the ad breaks are really hurting the flow; some magicians think P&T are ‘throwing’ some of their guesses in order to secure acts they want in Las Vegas (something I don’t believe); some of the acts appear to have been put on for entertainment value more than fooling (as Penn himself mentioned with his “delight” comment in the last show; see also http://www.metro.co.uk//tv/reviews/868137-penn-teller-fool-us-saw-piff-the-magic-dragon-steal-the-show) which kind of defeats the name over the door; and I still think it goes a bit off rails when it turns into a Magician’s Union meeting.
I think Penn nailed it when he told one of the magicians that he and Teller, knowing how a trick was done, would be more impressed than the audience would. Well, there’s yer trouble. P&T’s filmed intro tells us “if we know how a trick is done, we will say” – but they don’t. Where’s the pay-off?
Only 3.2m for it last night, and that’s with +1. Don’t know how In It To Win It did so if that was down too then there is an explanation to the dip, but losing 1m in two weeks is not good. Even Odd One In got a (slightly) higher rating and that’s rubbish. A real shame as it’s such a good show and so much better than The Magicians.
The Marriage Ref meanwhile is an embarrassment and needs to be axed immediately.
I love the show – but, that IS the problem for the casual viewer grazing the channels on a Saturday night at home (in the good weather, on a warm evening, with a sizable domestic lottery rollover draw at quarter to nine)
The whole point about the show, is to know how the tricks are done, but P&T are too clever for that.
Yes, in previous tv shows and the Vegas show they tell the audience ‘concepts’ of illusions are done (it’s on a tiny wire/it goes up an elasticated pocket in his sleeve/most of the cards in the pack are 7 of spades ect), but without really giving anything away about how a specific trick is pulled off – then just as you think you are in on it, out come big performance and the jaw smacks against the floor.
What of course should happen post performance is almost a play by play desection of the trick/performance by Penn – but as they use similar methods in their act, they are not going to reveal anything close to how it was done on network television. So the vuage statments come out, and worse, drawings by Teller shown to the magicians, hidden from the view of the cameras don’t really make for good tv.
Still a million times better than The Magicians though…
It’s a great format but after the pilot I said I wasn’t sure it would work that well as a series – it would be better if they aired a number of specials as and when.
I think 8pm is a little bit early for it too – would be better suited to the 9pm slot, and I think it is being wasted in the summer too as I’m sure after The X Factor it would have pulled in a healthy 5m+.
That said looking at the bigger picture on Saturday all ratings were significantly down (the BBC dropped below 3m at points in primetime too), but still disappointing.
????Brekkie??? The Only thing below 3m on the BBC between 7-10.30 was Total Wipeout which got 2.9m for a repeat but it was still higher than P+T
BBC defines primetime as starting at 6pm, iirc.
You might be onto something as early listings show Saturday 16th July will have the line up move back an hour. So Fool Us will air at 9pm. Thanks to Paul B, In It to Win It secured 4.54m (24%) against Fool Us for last Saturday. One of two shows to hit above 4 million (the other being Casualty).
What is more interesting that looking at BARB, the first two shows have appeared on ITV +1’s top three rated shows. I won’t be surprised if most of the In It to Win It audience switches over to ITV +1 at 9pm.
One or two people might be surprised that Antiques Master is also returning on Monday, right after UC.
Will they have sorted out the voiceover issues?
“SHUT UP ANNA! …Is she gone? Phew.” 😆 😆 😆
It’s tricky, though, because they have slightly too much game in too small a slot, so they have to use some V/O to get around that. But there were some ridiculous “That’s five points to Steven” instances where Eric could have said it just as easily.
Be interesting to see if there’s any format tweaks.
It seems it’s now only three contestants in an episode.
Eminently sensible. Also solves the problem with sourcing one set of antiques that are never seen, one presumes.
As a friendly reminder, be sure to play You Don’t Know Jack today to get the Turncoat achievement! (I’m assuming this is in all versions of the game.)
US Big Brother starts on Thursday, I should probably have added.
Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere but Geno Segers who seems to have done work for Disney in the past will be the American host of new Fort Boyard.
http://twitter.com/#!/GENOSEGERS
Maybe it will just be one mixed team of Brits and Americans or Brits vs America, if it’s the former I wouldn’t be surprised is Geno is playing the Leslie Grantham role.
I wonder if there will be anyone up in the Watch Tower, I can see them dropping it, which would be a shame.
Latter by all accounts.
Now this is interesting, Zodiak PR claiming two series of 10 x 30′ and mixed teams, so may well nit be the Duel format after all http://t.co/0qOuzgd
30 mins isnt a long time espeically since they have ad breaks on both channels. Looks like we could be losing out on either the clue element and just letting the teams go for keys and then see how much treasure they can obtain in the treasure room?
Possibly, although what if they played key games but to earn clues?
Actually there would be the whole British English / American English thing to consider in that case.
They’d probably do it in American English and tell the Brits to make do.
That would have been me.
Or just avoid code words which differ
No one ever seems to have mentioned the possibility of teams being there over two shows with one half being the key games and the second half being the clue games. I don’t think this will be the case I like the idea of just mixing clue games and adventures for clues.
But it could also help them if they want to make it feel more like a reality show.
Being a humble minion of the CITV channel, we don’t actually have commercial breaks in the middle of half-hour programmes on our channel, and haven’t done for at least a year. You’d also have to go a quite long way back in CITV’s history to find a game-show that split teams across multiple episodes.
And I THINK that would be Eliminator?
That’s the one I was thinking of, then again the only other one I can think of is Knightmare – I suppose roll-over games are rather in the minority across most genres.
Properly excited that Pointless is back 🙂 Very happy to see it on BBC1, and thus safe from that “BBC2 is getting rid of ALL OF ITS DAYTIME TV PROGRAMMES MWAHAHAH!!!” scare? I like the implication that the BBC have some sort of faith in it, anyway. I also enjoyed one recording I went to where I was in front of two fellows in the queue pondering the channel/timeslot change re: the possibility of Endemol having a conflict of interests due to Deal or No Deal being on at the same time as Pointless previously – no idea how much water that holds, I just wish I’d been not-shy enough to talk to them and have beautiful gameshow conspiracy theories together.
Today’s episode (today/yesterday/the episode most recent) really reminded me why I’m unsure of the throw-celebrities-at-it type thing often tends to happen – I’m fine with celebrities, the other sleb episodes we’ve had so far have been fine I guess, but then there are people like Stuart Baggs in today’s episode – really giving the impression of feeling themselves way above the programme, and it just makes me wonder why he’d agree to be on in the first place? (To win, I suppose.) I like the hierarchy of balance between Armstrong, Osman and the contestants, and bringing in these massive egos just… tips that balance, for me. I suppose that’s part of the attraction of having specials like this, but I did spend a lot of today’s episode (wishing there was a way for contestants to get knocked out prior to round one and) being glad I’d never watched The Apprentice when he was in it.
The discussion above about celebrities attracting reminded me of this too – I remember being at recordings around when the celebrity ones were being filmed (though I didn’t attend any of the celebrity ones myself), and Applause Store had done their Shenanigans to trick most of the audience into thinking it’d be a celebrity episode when in fact it wasn’t and quite a lot of people were rather annoyed by this. Understandable given the fairly blatant deception going on there, but would they really rather see smug expletives like that today than a nice chilled-out normal episode? Reeeallly?
(A: yes, yes they would.)
Super-happy to have it back, though. Breaking in the middle of a series kind of left me on ridiculous tenterhooks of quiz-anticipation. Looking forward to the return of the usual status quo on Monday.
(WHY AM I SAYING THINGS LIKE ‘HIERARCHY OF BALANCE’ AND ‘STATUS QUO’ ABOUT A QUIZ GAMESHOW. I MIGHT BE OVERTHINKING THIS. brb going outside, taking in the sunset, drinking a cup of tea etc)
From a gameshow fan’s point of view, Thursday’s episode was delightful since one of the participants was Tom O’Connor, who I’ve not seen on TV in aeons. And I never knew about his link to Denise Lewis.
In fact, I’ve just twigged that every team actually contained people who’ve hosted gameshows in the past. I can’t think of any other gameshow episode that’s had that many hosts participating.
We saw this this afternoon, the Tom O Connor/Denise Lewis thing was BRILLIANT.
Thursday’s episode was a lot of lovely, I did really enjoy that one 🙂
A little surprised that none of the celebrities managed to win the jackpot? Sometimes there do seem to be spates and droughts of jackpots. Still, them donating to the charities anyway was nice – thinking about it, that could probably sum up my tl;dr up there: Pointless is Nice, I like it being Nice, people who are blatantly Not So Nice being on it rub me up the wrong way a bit. Also, sometimes I shouldn’t be allowed a keyboard.
The Radio Times blurb described Pointless as ‘polite’. Felt about right 🙂