9pm, Channel 4, Friday and Saturday
New series starts tonight, some questions to will be answered such as “is 90 minutes a night too long?” and “which will come off better – this or Big Brother?”
It’s on for the next six weekends. Presumably you will be able to play along here.
90 Minutes is perfect. There were complaints before that the shows were too short and that too often the contestants were being cut off in the middle of the game when it was 75 minutes in duration. 90 minutes is fantastic.
Even better, could we not have 90 minutes worth of game in 75 minutes?
Even that plan hasn’t worked tonight as the second pair went out early. I can see where you’re coming from but you cannot guarantee two pairs of contestants reaching question 8 each night.
According to the adverts you can still apply via the online game to be on the show. I suspect it will be the same process. Survive the online game, be given the form to complete online and simply be young and dim to get on the show.
If I’m not busy later then I will be running a live commentary via twitter (@travisapenery). However, my comments can be brutal against the show’s flawed process and what the contestants might say as their answers.
You secretly love the show, I can tell :D. You wouldn’t keep watching it if you didn’t enjoy it 😉
It’s good but not perfect, unlike Millionaire back in it’s heyday who had it spot on. There are many flaws.
I hope Michelle Woods and her team select more people outside London and the Home Counties. Select the people who were selected via the online game to come from outside London and be honest about their online game experience and not claim they kept their £1 million (probably by cheating). Also select people who are in their late 30s. I know the show refuses to choose people aged 40 or above (except for two occasions, generation pairs and celebrties) but it would be nice if they have people aged 38-39 on the show.
Casting on a show is very important and the emphasis has always been on younger contestants because that’s the sort of audience the show wants to appeal to. I can understand your suggestion of having people in their late 30s but I don’t think it really matters to the average viewer if someone is 32 or someone is 39. You need people who are entertaining, and for this style of show, that tends to be contestants aged in their 20s/early 30s.
So, people over a certain age are not accepted? Is that specifically mentioned on the application form or do Endemol blatently let people waste their time applying for a show they have no chance of appearing on?
People aged over 40 have been accepted in the past.
but not as pairs. It’s been generation pairs (mother/father with son/daughter).
Just to make it clear, I never said over 40s are not considered. Contestants aged over 40 ARE considered. It’s just that people aged under 40, specifically 20-30 yrs old, are MORE LIKELY to get picked for many different reasons. I don’t think you should get annoyed by this, it is the fact of television that certain shows will have more older contestants and other shows will have more younger contestants 🙂
Given that quizzes tend to skew to older females (q.v. about BBC1 audience doing more for 50+ viewers in the future) I don’t personally have a problem with an ‘alternative’ channel like C4 doing something more for younger people. The timing, the set, the host, the edgier/pop culture-based questions etc. are all clear indications as to who this is aimed at.
However, since younger people tend not to have done as much with their lives so far, you do end up with Big Brother Syndrome where personalities get a bit bland after a while. So I would agree insofar that it would be good if they mixed it up just a little more than they do now.
On another note, how would you feel if Big Brother does beat Million Pound Drop? Since you’ve been banging about MPD all this time but mostly quiet on Big Brother.
I’m not a fan of Big Brother, but BB is expected to beat MPD. At the end of the day, however, Endemol is the winner because it has two shows airing at the same time in primetime. Rarely can you say that about other production companies apart from the BBC.
Oh, pass the bucket.
At a cost of $2bn, anything’s possible.
I noticed Would I Lie to You? is back next Friday at 9.30pm. That means for 30 minutes next Friday night, Endemol UK will be taking over three of the five major networks.
There you go, Travis. Contestants not from the Home Counties or London, indeed not even from Southern England.
Ah but they solved that problem on the last series since half of the pairs were from other places but the south east.
I still would like to see a pair who were selected from outside the south east from the online game auditions.
Back to twitter.
Do you guys like the new titles? I love them, personally, an improvement over the previous one 🙂
They are a vast improvement. It is essentially an updated version of the original ones.
promo for Italian The Cube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXU_I_rPp4U
debuts Wednesday on Italia1
Thanks Cele. I wondered when it would pop up.
I like how they put a British theme on it but doesn’t reveal anything about the show. Bit like here with the first Cube promo being all cryptic.
Seems to be a good week for Euro game shows next week.
Monday – Fort Board Holland
Wednesday – The Cube Italia
Thursday – Schlag den Star
Another much more bizarre promo for Italian Cube here. My limited Italian does not permit me to fully comprehend the strangeness I see here:
it’s a fake, look at the changing logo at the bottom right.
Italia1 style would be hot chicks in swimsuits, not Richard Benson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Benson_%28singer%29
Ooh, I like the flashy-lights around the main screen. That, and the new titles. It seems like it’s easier to hear the superb theme over everything else this time round.
Sounds like this got almost 3m last night!
In a recent internal survey, The Million Pound Drop was voted the third most missed Channel 4 show when it’s not on air. Have a guess what the other two shows were?
Quiztrippers and 10 o’ Clock Live?
Lol, nope. Most missed show on Channel 4 when not on air is Shameless, second most missed show is Grand Designs (that one is a surprise to me). MPD was in 3rd. MPD Live has a loyal audience, people can’t get enough of it.
That is very interesting actually. I probably would have said Come Dine With Me, but that’s never actually off. I can understand Grand Designs actually, it’d a neat show normally.
I’ll certainly say MPD has found its slot and audience and I don’t begrudge it.
Interesting stats – not surprised about Grand Designs at all, and as much as we complaing C4 are like most things milking it too much too soon, it does seem ages since it was last on.
I think though I’d prefer pacier 1 hour shows – and although C4 were absolutely right to give it a shot in the 9pm hour, I think it sits better at 10pm really – and seems to rate better too.
Richard Osman suggesting CBB got 2.3ish, but was beating MPD where they clashed. I’m not sure this quite tallies with the 2.9 for MPD figure I’ve read but I’m sure it will come out in the wash.
Here we go @bbspy:
C5 won last nights ratings battle: #BB #BBUK had 2.35m viewers (10%), C4’s #millionpounddrop had 1.97m (9.0%) & 219k (1.3%) on +1
I think the 2.9m figure for MPD a peak figure and possibly also included the +1 audience.
averages.
The Million Pound Drop Live 9-10.30pm 1.97m and 219k on +1
CBB 2.35m
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Comedy screen borking on Million Pound Drop Live!
There ought to be whiteboards and a marker pen for Davina to put on top of broken screens. That would be AWESOME.
Doing a quick double-drop for a wrong answer in question 6? That’s…surprising. I’d have thought they’d have dropped one and then done another long wait for the second as they’d usually do. Not that I’m complaining, I liked it.
And I SWEAR not all of that £900,000 dropped down there.
No, two bundles fell off and Davina chucked them down the chute.
Seems quite a tough question for Q1.