As Summer turns into Autumn, let us see what dead leaves there are to be mulched in the world of competitive light entertainment this week. Yes.
- Dragon’s’s’s”’ Den – New series of the show where Evan Davis basically reiterates something that happened on screen five seconds previously. (9pm, Sunday, BBC2)
- Only Connect – Footballers vs Second Violinists. Clarke Carlisle nowhere to be seen. (8:30pm, Monday, BBC4)
- Dancing With The Cards – the next exciting Bother’s Bar Poker Event, open to anyone with $13.50 lying around in their Pokerstars account and can make Tuesday Night at 8:30. Here are the details.
- The Million Pound Drop – Live! Surprised they don’t just have this on Fridays and Saturdays in perpetuity these days, it’s on over the next six weekends and once again a member of the public will get to play with a celeb. Don’t forget you can play along with The Million Pound Drapp – Live! (Friday 9pm, Saturday 9:20pm)
- QI – Series J. It’s funny to think when I went and saw an episode from the first series being filmed they were suggesting it would be as big as Have I Got News For You. I scoffed. I was wrong. Also Victoria Coren’s in this one. (10pm, Friday, BBC2)
- Comedy World Cup – David Tennant (obviously) chairs a new panel game thing where comedians do battle to determine who is funniest. Presumably. Actually we don’t know an awful lot about this. (8:20pm, Saturday, C4)
And we were hoping to bill Schlag den Raab this week, but that’s actually the 22nd September as it turns out. Still there’s no stopping Ver Raab, he’s doing a competitive big prize political debate show thing called Absolute Mehrheit.
Given that it’s not really pulling in the viewers, why are they still pushing MPD? Is it because they don’t have anything else that will do any better on Friday/Saturday nights? Because the budget must be horrendous – live broadcast, big prize money when contestants do win (over £30,000 a show on average in previous series) – and they can’t be pulling in that much in return. Is it just to keep Endemol sweet?
Okay, rant over.
Two more things:
1) If Mr Weaver’s reading (given that an email address isn’t listed) – Theme to the Vicar of Dibley is a different tune to the one played on University Challenge – the theme is a Howard Goodall commission by the show, the extract played was the hymn tune Crimond. As a choirboy of (mutters) years I was screaming at the screen in frustration during that round. And a couple of weeks ago you spelt the name of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge wrong in the final line, but then again someone I know managed to misspell it on the application form… Other than that, excellent as ever, and particularly enjoyed the usury discussion today.
Okay, extreme and unnecessary pickiness over.
And 2) The ITV website is listing the winner of Red and Black as a carpenter whose parents are named Mary and Joseph. Well spotted, ITV (either that or they’re very easily fooled…)
2) must be a joke? That is hilarious.
Thanks to Luke the Lurker for the positive corrections, which I’ve made; and for the kind words.
With regards to Mr. Fletcher being a carpenter, and having parents named Joseph and Mary, that was the story told on the actual broadcast programme. It’s very likely that I was the only person in the country watching the show live, and that’s only because I’d been royally spoilered in the spring.
And are they pushing because the intended replacement series was , and we all know how that ended.
I thought the summer series (the one directly before Celeb Games) was the intended one to replace The Bank Job. Given they didn’t have a summer series in previous years.
from Italy:
Affari Tuoi returns with a primetime “80s special” this Wednesday.
the new feature of this season is the “super pacco” whose effect was not made known.
some new “pacco matto” random events were mentioned: “modest proposal”, “go or stay”, “open a blue”.
I noticed it was suppose to start last Monday but Rai Uno had other ideas.
Amazingly, I see they got Tony Hadley to appear as a special guest.
reason is simple: those slots were taken by Miss Italy on Monday and a football game on Tuesday, so Wednesday was all that was left
I know it is The Sun, but worth noting- The Sun is reporting that Red or Black is done, with ratings unable to justify the cost. The report said that Ant and Dec were ‘uncomfortable’ at having to record the second series in advance, and the duo has shifted focus to ‘I’m a Celebrity’ and ‘Saturday Night Takeaway’.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/4529203/Ant-and-Decs-Red-Or-Black-show-to-be-axed-by-ITV.html
First it is revealed that Graham Fletcher’s achievement pulled in only 420,000 more viewers than the Last Night of the Proms, and then the Sun puts together that report.
I’m undecided as to whether or not the two events are coincidental… 😉
One would think, though, that that huge win rating so low is the last straw for the monkeys.
After all, didn’t they pull The Vault off the air before the end of its third run in 2004, after it was revealed that Karen Shand’s £1m win pulled in barely half as many viewers as Pat Gibson’s Millionaire success earlier in the year?
We had a $250,000 winner three days into the new season of Millionaire on our new, unbelievably small set.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHs0XGCpGj4
Still been 10 years and close to a thousand episodes since a millionaire, though. It’s been five years since we’ve even seen a million dollar question.
I know this isn’t your style (and I think we both like the shuffle format – I’d like to see a modified version* in the Chase slot during the off weeks), but perhaps once it reaches 1,000 shows it’s time to start referring to it as “Who Wants to be a Hypothetical Millionaire?”, or possibly “Who wants to win something in the mid-five-figure range?”.
You can’t realistically claim to be offering a million dollar prize if you’ve been on air nearly thirteen years and haven’t had a winner in nine years or anyone get remotely close in five. The $250,000 win was celebrated in a way not unlike a million dollar win. The contestants are often pretty smart, but it’s time to shame them into getting potential million dollar winners or making the questions more feasible.
*Slightly lower prizes, (maybe a bank total of £25,000 for ten correct answers) keep the half bank rule, scrap “Classic Millionaire” and have an eleventh question for £50,000 and a guaranteed spot on a regular Millionaire show at the end of the series. Or just ditch the Millionaire link entirely and offer a £100,000 jackpot – with a good host, it would probably stand on its own merits. If anyone wants to give me a format development job, I’ll be waiting by the phone. Always waiting.
Sure you can – The Weakest Link claimed to be offering a £10k prize despite everyone involved in the production, and every viewer, knowing that no-one was ever going to walk away with that amount.
True – but I’m not really sure it’s kosher in the context of a show where the selling point is literally “You could win a million dollars” and the host keeps mentioning how far the contestant is away from a million dollars after each question. I don’t think Weakest Link had quite the same selling point (perhaps in the primetime US version, but here it was never really about the potential size of the prize).
A fair point, but the thing about Millionaire is that, prior to Judith, it was always a case of, yes, 15 questions in a row sounds easy, but it’s incredibly hard. The million was, seemingly, always meant to be incredibly hard to win; the temptation to walk away rather than keeping playing, almost ironically, makes it harder.
I think it took longer for anyone to win the million on our version than anywhere else in the world, in terms of contestants attempting (if not real time)
watched the season 2 premiere of Avanti Un Altro!
there are a few changes in the format, but I’ll post about then later.
one of the new “mini-world” characters is Mr. Adam Grapes from Southampton, a quote-maker who is making a name for himself in Italy.
here’s a interview and a video of him
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=388006517907446
I’m really hoping an episode of this becomes available at some point because I’m desperate to write a feature on it.
Are the questions difficult or the contestants stupid? i’m watching (I think) Monday’s episode and onky two people have completed a set so far.
Oh, I quite like the idea they can freeze the money and have one final go, that solves the ‘they don’t stand a chance’ potential issue.
worry not, the second episode was much better
Yes.
I would just like to add that I *really really* like this show and Paulo is amazing but I also quite like a lot of things the Spanish adapted into it – the challenges, the final five minute speed round, the pacing.
I would kill to have it on my channel.
Full episodes are on the website and are ungeoblocked.
http://www.tv.mediaset.it/canale5/avanti_un_altro/
L’eredita is also ungeoblocked.
http://www.rai.tv/dl/replaytv/replaytv.html#day=2012-09-10&ch=1&v=145786&vd=2012-09-10&vc=1
892k for OC last night on overnights. Episode 1 got 967k on official figures, so it’ll be even money as to whether we’ll break the 1m barrier later in the series.
Wowsers, brilliant numbers. Well done David.
I’m just pleased for the team, and the BBC generally. It’s taken us much longer than I’d have thought to get to this stage, but we got there. In the old days, although we were doing well for a digital show, it always seemed odd how few UC viewers bothered to turn over to us. But build it and they will come.
I have a question for you more intelligent folks. I was watching an old episode of Divided with my dad and the team got this question:
Which of these words has the the highest value in a standard Scrabble game?
A. Crazy
B. Piqued
C. Tuxedos
Right answer’s A, like I thought, but my dad said the answer should be C, as if it were the first word of a game it would count as a bingo. I was wondering if, had the team picked C and been wrong, could they have successfully challenged the show on those grounds?
Sorry, I’m in a bit of a wordy mood.
Yeah, it’s a really duff question. They should have asked which had the highest total face value of its tiles.
…and it doesn’t even have to be the first word of the game either. There’s hundreds of ways you could put it adjacent to another word on the board.
Ah, thanks much.
Coincidentally, ‘Divided’ has been pulled of the schedule in the Netherlands, after a revival in a daily format after just 4 weeks.