Big Brother started last night and it was good fun, Emma Willis was great and Rylan was much better than anticipated on Bit On The Side. The big twist is that contestant Michael is an actor and is “The People’s Puppet” – not a true housemate and can’t win, and he’ll be doing our evil bidding. I think his story will be fascinating come the end of the series, this is much more interpersonal than say The Mole. I suspect to pull it off you’re going to need rather sociopathic tendencies. We’ll see how long he’s able to pull it off for.
Anyway there’s a second launch show tonight with six more housemates going in, let’s hope it does a bit better than it did against The Secret Life of Cats last night.
Except it’s up against the new series of The All New Million Pound Possibly Two Million Pound Drop, also at 9pm on C4. What’s gonna happen?
Meanwhile they’re bringing back Blind Date with Cilla for a one-off 50th anniversary of Cilla in showbiz special. Let’s hope they bring back the “ditch or date” element and voiceover Tommy which were really successful in rejuvenating the show in its final years *straightface*.
In other Endemol news, the celeb line-up for Your Face Sounds Familiar has been released and, well…
- Alexander Armstrong
- Bobby Davro
- Denise Lewis OBE
- Natalie Anderson (Emmerdale)
- Matt Johnson (dunno)
- Cheryl Fergison
Alexander Armstrong. Blimey. Also Bobby Davro. I wonder. Anyway, starts end of June on ITV.
I think the MPD changes work OK- if a team of four comes on, they lose the chance to pick categories, and only two can play at a time (but they can swap after the see the category- though I was kinda vague as to if once they’ve been subbed, they’re out or can they do multiple swaps).
The Double or Nothing question may or not work- they get to see the answers (but not the question) before they decide to play or not- you’ll have to be very confident as to what the question might be if you want to go for it (though if a team survives with only 25K or 50K I could see them having a go)..
Once you’ve been subbed out, you can’t come back in again (although whether you’d all get to play the Final Drop yet to be determined).
The 4 player teams just didn’t work for me, and the gamble question seems pointless. Also don’t see the point in dropping a question when most pairs seem to reach the end anyway (that’s half the problem). To save time probably better to keep at 8 minutes but cut the clock to 45 seconds for the first 4 questions.
As for Alexander Armstrong – I guess Richard must be involved then in Stars in their Eyes II and has somehow blackmailed him in to doing it.
Well… I don’t know.
They’ve discovered dubstep about two years behind everyone else. I quite like the new clock music, although I also think it’s probably a bit too full on – I love percussion, but if the intent is to build tension I’m not sure it works greatly here.
Four player games involve a massive amount of faff. What is it with Endemol and faff these days? Question writing designed to appeal to twelve year-old schoolboys. Meh.
I think the average age of the contestants feel slightly higher.
The problem is that NOBODY is going to go for the double or nothing question, I thought it was a stupid idea when I heard about it and now I’ve seen it I still think it’s stupid. The issue is that you have to FIGHT your way to win anything at all, so once you have the chance to walk away, even at “only” £25,000, my prediction is everybody is going to take it. Because you’d feel like an idiot having to bet it on effectively a coin flip and losing.
If it was £2,500 then maybe. If they adopted the Million Dollar Mind Game system of everyone having to decide separately and simultaneously with them playing if just one says yes then maybe. As it is? I’m putting my money where my mouth is, I’ve got a (chocolate) bet with someone who used to work on it that NOBODY will go for it over the next six weeks.
It also makes the ending when they do win and decide to walk away a bit weird. You’ve beaten the Drop and can walk away with a lot of money! Except you might not have!
I just sort of felt a bit empty after watching it.
I’m with you on this Brig. I thought that the whole thing was a bit empty. They’ve rested it (and God it needed resting) and I thought they would’ve done something much better than this. It feels different and quite boring to be honest.
Not a fan of the 4 player teams. Just so much sitting idly waiting for them to decide who’s going to play. You can see why they didn’t offer them the choice of category aswell, we could have been there for hours.
Don’t like the changes made to the theme and cues either. The originals were really good, why spoil it? Some nice minor alterations to the set though – the clock lights around the platform are nice, if unexploited.
Just felt like so many changes and none really that much of an impact on how exciting it was – the Final Drop should do this, but it is just silly and I’d say showing the contestants the answers is unlikely to change their minds.
Horrible questions tonight too.
I almost wish they’d just left it as it was. I really like the format but this just didn’t cut it for me tonight for some reason – I know what you mean Brig when you say ’empty’. Shame, I was looking forward to its return actually.
BB beat MPD by about half a million viewers last night, although MPD avg’d just over 1.6m, so I think everyone will be fairly happy.
MPD on at 8pm tonight where traditionally it doesn’t do quite so well. Also surely they’re going to have to play it a bit more straight with the questions? No way are they going to be able to have that Robin Thicke question that early.
Oh wow I’ve just seen my first two episodes of BBUK and it is amazing! I love Emma Willis, I love the house and I loved the audience in front of the house. In Germany no one would ever boo a person just because of his teaser. I think the British audiences are more emotional and useful for TV than German ones.
Ha, they’ve been booing on launch night for *years*, but sometimes the HMs are surprising and they win the audience over over the course of the series.
Launch night boos are nothing compared to the booing when some housemates are kicked out. And in recent years even the winner has been booed!
As Davina used to say ‘It’s all panto’. We cheer the ‘good guys’ be boo the ‘bad guys’ but we love them all equally. I can’t remember the first series where housemates were booed into the house, I think possibly it was series seven, although I think Mary could have been booed in at the start of series six.
Incidentally, I was really hoping that in a properly surprise twist last night, BB was going to reveal to the housemates that Michael is a mole and they have to keep the knowledge secret, but not tell him that everyone knows that.
I suspect this will almost certainly happen during the series, doing it on night two would be funny.
Might well be happening tonight.
No, it looks like he’s leaving tonight as well.
Shame, feel like they’ve missed a trick there.
Here’s Episode 2 of Exit (watch for pop-ups) I intend to watch later:
http://vidbull.com/6ixpokn4wvmf.html
Still enjoyed this despite its flaws, many of which stem from trying to turn games which in the original allowed partial success and failure into games where you can only win or lose – the shredder is great visually, but the jeopardy that you could lose brains over the course of the game in the Japanese show is neutralised here, and as such there’s false excitement and disappointment knowing that nothing’s going to happen until the end.
I think it’s be a greatly better show if each team started with 2 or 3 people and they ressurected losing team members from non-eliminated teams between games.
I was rather annoyed on the second episode of the Million Pound Drop that Davina was stood in the closed cage to start the show off.
It just isn’t the same without her doing the trademark wave to every single camera on the set while trying to walk up the staircase!
Coincidentally has anyone been in the audience for MPD?
Me and three friends are in London on Friday 5th July so wouldn’t mind going to be in the audience…does it fill up pretty quickly or are they usually struggling to fill the spots these days?
Funnily enough I read something the other day suggesting they have little trouble getting an audience for it, so apply early and get there in good time would be my advice.
Given it’s Applause Store. You’ll need to be lucky to get any tickets. If you do, make sure you get there early. They always overbook.
OK, I applied for 4 tickets and I got them, my email mentions they are priority as long as we get there 45 minutes before the official opening time…so basically we’re guaranteed to get in if we stick to that rule?
Yes, priority basically guarantees if you get there before the time, although I still advise not leaving it to the last moment just in case.
You’re lucky but as I suspect. This will be the first time you applied through the website. They’re giving you a welcome gift.
Given you’ve been given priority tickets, your odds of getting in has decreased. Basically you will be in a much shorter queue and will be let in first.
It’s a fact viewers who pays into Applause Store’s Priority Pass Club don’t even get priority tickets when applying for any shows.
Hang on…now you get to see the question and the 2 possible answers for the final drop without having to commit!
Went to see the drop on Friday, rather exciting stuff really and to the misfortune of television viewers my mug ended up on the tele once or twice so probably good Wimbledon was on…
Not such a huge fan of the 3 hours of waiting around, 2 of those without any possessions (Although nice to get confirmation the money is real!). Maybe just my lack of ‘being in the audience’ experience there though.
Was nice being able to see a winner live and then someone losing a large amount of money on one drop. Although quite hard to get too excited about the celebrity couple playing on my particular show neither of which I had heard of! (When Davina mentioned Royle Family I was hoping more along the Sue Johnstone or Ricky Tomlinson lines!)
I’d say that’s pretty unusual for a TV recording to be honest, certainly most (caveat: this is when you get past the lining up to get into the studio stage, although I’ve never been in a line more than 45m-60m early) will take you from the holding area into the studio within about half an hour (and that’s if there’s a holding area, ITV Studios will just get you straight in the studio).
It’s also pretty unusual for your possessions to be taken away prior to a recording, although at least it means the stuff they used to say in the old opening sequence is basically true.
Glad you had a good time though!