Saturday 7:15pm,
ITV1
We’re not going to lie to you readers, we put this up as a show of note but I suspect most of the regulars will be watching Britain’s Brightest on at the same time if anything at all. Still it’s certainly a format that’s been causing a, heh, splash in the format development world. If anything 2012 will go down as the year of DIVING SHOW WARS. It was unexpectedly a massive hit in The Netherlands last year and that is why you see it on screen tonight.
Anyway tonight Vernon Kay and Gabby Logan host as Tom Daley trains up celebrities for diving with hilarious results probably. Live from Luton! We miss The Games.
The direction is frankly not very good (especially for the setpieces), and it feels like a lot of effort for not much reward, but I can see why it might be successful. It’s the sort of show that tends to have good communal currency, the sort of thing that’s fun watching with other people even if they know it’s a bit rubbish.
It is too long though, especially without the communal fun of watching it 2 hours later than everyone else.
Summary: You know how I quip, “we watch these shows so you don’t have to.” This.
The first night notes:
* Five celebs, 90 minute show. A dive will take about three minutes. They’re all diving twice, right?
* They’re all diving once.
* Fill. Fill. Fill.
* Journeys and lots of calls to vote. 35p a vote.
* Acoustics sound like they’re in a swimming pool.
* Shot direction is hideous. Hint: everyone will enter the water, so a flat shot along that line.
* Jo Brand on the judging panel, not a million miles from her work on Countdown.
* Commercial for Celebrity Big Brother in one of the breaks. This does not feature in the Week’s next few editions.
* So very very tempted to turn over to Bob’s Full House.
* Lots of shots of Tom Daley wearing very little.
* Feels like a live-ish broadcast, subtly edited by one of the dozen or so credited producers.
* A very short Active Voting Window – just a recap of the numbers and an ad break.
* Interval act of people diving, oddly enough.
* Scores combined in Strictly style: winner to semi-final, second and third in a dive-off, all announced with the usual interminable wait.
* And all this takes 90 minutes. Which I’m not getting back.
For review and archive purposes, I’ll be sticking a tape under next week’s show, strictly for fast-forwarding.
Can we have a full series of Dale’s Great Getaway instead? At least that was endearingly naff, and moved faster than a glacier.
5.5m for this, yesterday’s most popular show, although for all the buzz it created I thought it would be a bit higher. It’ll be very interesting to see how it does next week.
It did very well. I don’t think it’ll be that high next week tough, as it had a large lead in from the FA Cup. Breakdown wise, it was relatively stable throughout.
If it performs like the Dutch show, it’s looking at 7.5m for the final. If.