Alright, the Olympics are practically over and we have to get back to normality (until the Paralympics start). In the meantime you ought to know that my e-mail is currently buggered, so if you need to get me then try and catch me on Twitter or something.
Here’s what’s interesting on this week:
- The Great Escape – Glad I stuck with this. (Sunday night, TNT in the US).
- Pointless – New episodes! They’ve just recorded 100 more, and I think there were still episodes left over from the last batch they recorded. So look out for more repeats in about a fortnight’s time. (Monday, 5:15pm. BBC1)
- Amazing Race Australia – The final three episodes of what has been an enjoyable series go out Monday – Wednesday nights.
- Big Brother – I’m going to lump all of it here. It’s the civilian final of BBUK on Monday night (9pm, Five) and then Celebrity BBUK begins on Wednesday (9pm, Five). Whatsmore new Australian BB starts on Monday on Channel 9.
- The Olympbrig Boxing – Poker! Tuesday at 8:30 and all the details here. I’m currently looking a bit lonely 🙁
- And that’s it until…
- All New Total Wipeout – all old jokes. (Saturday, 5:25pm, BBC1)
- Red or Black – We’ll have a show discussion thread about this. (7:15pm and 9:15pm)
- The X Factor – New series (Saturday 8pm ITV1)
- Secret Fortune – This week has Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull as lead-in. Good luck! (Saturday, 8:20pm, BBC1)
- Fort Boyard – and adventure fans are well catered for on France 2 (Saturday 7:35pm UK time, France 2)
Olympic Games? WHAT Olympic Games?
In other news, it looks like another episode of Bother’s Bar favourite quiz-with-deathtraps Japanese show Escape Game DERO! has been translated into English. And here it is! Only three rooms this time though.
Friend of the Bar VierkanteO explains that the new series of De Slimste has been doing very well in the Netherlands, yet there’s still no sign of a UK version. FOR SHAME.
Finally US host Bill Rafferty passed away at 68 over the weekend. Here’s a video of him hosting the original US version of Every Second Counts:
I’m going to bet that Indiana Jones beats Red or Black in the ratings. By miles.
I’m massively intrigued to see what Red or Black does. I think it needs at least 6m.
I think the scheduling will not do them any favours, if I didn’t read this blog I wouldn’t have known that the second series was coming. I fear the show will do worse in numbers for week one at least, although I’m hopeful that the show itself will be an improvement from the first run.
Ah, did our learned correspondent not see the two trailers inserted into last week’s ? What? Didn’t see the programme because of something more compelling, like ? Good call.
The corresponding week last year saw get 5.6m at 7pm, had 4.15m at 9.25. could use the bigger numbers throughout.
The corresponding week last year also had one significant advantage, the majority of the country hadn’t been watching the biggest sporting event in the world on it’s competitor’s channel for the majority of the day. ITV need to absolutely hammer the advertising for both Red or Black? and X Factor to even begin to get decent figures I think.
The Olympic legacy, part 1: damaging Simon Cowell?
That would be amusing since three of his acts performed at the closing ceremony on Sunday night.
Well ITV are certainly trying their utmost to make it a hit with the “X-Factor sandwich” scheduling.
I think they’ll publicly claim vindication for recommissioning it if it tops 5m. Personally I’m expecting it to be in the 5-6m range. Having said that I have never wanted a show to flop more than I want this to flop – and I want a *lot* of shows to flop (partly to free up slots that I can pitch for, but mostly because I’m vindictive).
Wowowow, VierkanteO has found a Syfy preview thing for Exit:
As predicted, a less funny than the Japanese show.
And quite interesting given that I don’t think they’ve even signed a contract yet.
Not only did Bill Rafferty host “EVERY SECOND COUNTS”, he also hosted the most recent US version of “BLOCKBUSTERS”, and a version of “CARD SHARKS”. He will be missed.
I’ve found something interesting for fans of the Amazing Race. There is esentially a rip-off of it being shown on Watch called Expedition Impossible.
13 Teams of 3 race across all different types of terrain in Morocco. The last team to reach each final checkpoint is eliminated and at the end one team will win $50,000.
There are also challenges like finding water and counting the number of snakes in a snake charmer performance.
Mmm, I watched the first episode of this last year, wasn’t very impressed as I recall. It’s MArk Burnett combining the Amazing Race with his adventure racing background.
I’m sure I wrote some stuff about it, but a search of the comments suggests otherwise. Hasn’t come back for a second run.