We’ve not done a board of excitement for, like, ages, however there’s so much interesting and intriguing stuff at the moment I’m writing this as much for myself as everyone else. So this is what we’re interested in this week:
- Whodunnit? (Yesterday, ABC in the US) – I said previously I thought it was a bit disappointing and I stand by that, but all the same I’m interested to see how it pans out.
- Avec ou Sans Joker (Weekdays, 5:50pm UK time, France 2) – new quiz with holographic characters. Given that it sounds like France 2 passed on an apparently more-serious-and-point-missing Avanti un Altro, I wonder if this is an attempt to use some of the ideas in their own way. We’ll see. Edit: Well that was fairly wrong. See comments for write-up.
- Le Cube (Weekdays, 6:30pm UK time France 2) – Avec Nagui! And for some reason they’ve changed all the music, and the theme tune sounds like some sort of wacky spy caper. Daily too, you’ll note. You should be able to watch these shows on Pluzz.fr with a decent VPN, although you might be able to watch on a naughty streaming site somewhere.
- The Mole (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Seven Network Australia) – Aussie Mole is BACK and it’s… a bit weirdly scheduled? It’s on three nights this week and the suggestion is the elimination is going to be on Thursday. Also that they’ve taken a more Dutch approach to things this time round. Also that it’s not a classic series. Also I don’t know if it’s being scheduled three times a week for the entire series or just this first week. Basically we don’t know much. I will set up a page for it in due course. Here’s the official page, they’ve basically dropped the Culture Clash thing.
- Exit (Tuesday, SyFy US) – I gather the last room to be revealed is coming this week. When I’ve watched it, expect a post on the show. It looks like SyFy are now putting (geoblocked) episodes up on its website.
- The Hero (Thursday, TNT US) – actually they’re showing a catch-up marathon this week for some reason (Edit: it’s Independence Day. D’oh.). However I really hope this gets a second series to refine the ideas of the first one because I think there are some really interesting ideas at work here, especially now player eliminations have begun whereby if you fail the final challenge you’re sent home but if you win you send someone else home (or take some money and self-eliminate), but does that mean you want to be the one to take on the final challenge or not? And if you’re offered a temptation do you take the money knowing that final task is going to be harder but people might enact revenge on you or what if there’s some sort of switch so you end up getting voted into it yourself and you’ve stuffed it up for yourself and what is America going to think and OH GOD. Also it’s brilliantly shot. I just think they need to consider the money amounts more and set up the final challenge so the result is not basically a gimme on the basis of the team challenge. Otherwise I think this show has a lot of heart, as The Rock (or just Rock to his friends) would probably say.
- 72 Hours – (TNT US, Friday) I was very disappointed that last week’s wasn’t “available” yet. It’s just really solid in a good way.
- Fort Boyard – (France 2, Saturday, 19:45 UK time) OH MY GOD I AM TWELVE AGAIN. Nice font.
Pity none of these shows are British, eh?
I suspect they’re doing the marathon of The Hero because it’s a holiday over here Thursday (4th of July), so no one would probably have watched…
I actually like the theme they’re using for The Cube over in France- it fits the show just as well as the original..
Oh! Good spot, forgot about July 4th.
The Mole’s only on Wednesday/Thursday every other week, I think – it’s just this week that it’s a triple-header. Also, “terminations” can happen at any point.
Cheers. I read about the anytime terminations and wondered if that was directed more towards the contestants than the viewers (who’ll get it on the last episode of the week regardless).
I’d assumed it meant for us as well – I’d assume one a week, but it won’t necessarily be the last episode of the week I don’t think, especially if they’re taking a leaf out of the Dutch version and doing some twists with exemptions/jokers.
This week’s Whodunnit was more interesting. Now that the people know how to play the game, a lot of lies and deception came out in the trading of secrets. Lots of alliances and tension this week.
Too bad the numbers aren’t there- lost 800,000 viewers from week 1 to week 2 (but the 18-49’s held up, though a 1.0 isn’t anything to be happy about).
Is Sunday a good night for numbers usually?
Well here were the numbers for BB and WhoDunnit…
BB- 5.78 million viewers, 1.7/6 in the 18-49 demographic (the 1.7 was the highest number of the night among all the networks, but people are concerned that the first Sunday episode last year got 2.3, though it was about 3 weeks later than this)
WD- 3.20 million viewers, 1.0/3 in the 18-49’s (the 9-10 timeslot was won in terms of viewers with a rerun of the first episode of Under The Dome on CBS, which got 5.12 million viewers, in demos by reruns of Family Guy and American Dad on Fox, which got a 1.3 average in the demo).
Well I thought the crime was cleverer, which was good, and I liked the way the puzzle revealed exactly what happened just how killers do it in CSI, but I still can’t help but think that a show called Whodunnit where the question of Whodunnit is the least important element is a bit silly. It’s not like The Mole where you can infer motive by watching people and interactions, the killer does everything off camera and there’s not like you can do anything if you know who it is anyway, so why should you care really?
I laughed at the end scene. Surely, SURELY they didn’t add it in because people thought contestants were actually getting murdered? I accept that losing in this show is more fun then losing in most shows, because at least you get to have your moment.
You’d be surprised what television viewers will believe to the point that they abandon all common sense. We have been known to get phone calls telling us that the clock on Daybreak is an hour slow from viewers watching on ITV+1. We get constant viewer letters admonishing us for the treatment of fictional characters in the Soaps.
and, spoilers,
I found the crime in this episode to be a bit more interesting, more parts of the puzzle to fit together. I am a bit lost as to the significance of the pendant however. From the riddle conclusion I expected the spark to arc from the middle of the door to the pendant, with hindsight though the marks on the door gave away the point of arcing.
Suspect the pendant is mainly a point of irony.
Check Reality Blurred for your answer to “Surely, SURELY they didn’t add it in because people thought contestants were actually getting murdered?” 😛
You did hit on my biggest problem with the show, in that, unlike The Mole, the player acting as The Killer isn’t required to actually DO anything. They don’t need to be the one actually executing the crime, there’s no loss for them if people solve the murder so there’s no real need or reason to sabotage investigations. It doesn’t really matter WHO The Killer is at this point.
Also, can’t quite say cause it is still fairly early in the show, but the cast seems *really* “samey”. Only three players have really developed any distinguishing personality, and of them, two of them are dead already. And the third, by virtue of not being dead, seems to be getting a Winner/Killer edit.
So I’m sort of left with “It doesn’t matter who The Killer is”, and “I don’t care who wins”.
Just Watched the french shows (Basically testing out my method of watching France 2 for Fort Boyard)
Avec ou Sans Joker
Looks nice. Actually like the idea where u can change the question into some math puzzle to be able to give out the correct Answer. The final game looks good to.
Le Cube
Havent Actually seen the cube in a while. looks like to be a mix of new music and old music. Lots of talk to the familys and the show is around 23 mins long. (thank god no ad breaks)
Intervilles
Should have mentioned this before. Ive never seen the french version before or its a knockout. But i very much enjoyed this.
Oooh, the French graphics are all Russia 2013’y.
Also liking the pre-generique bit basically nicking the theme from Game of Thrones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnRy6ZlVJIY&feature=c4-overview&list=UUj-5cIaiXDL3n25lo51u7Zg
And here’s the full theme music for Le Cube !
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Watched it live today. I had to restrain myself not throwing stuff to my TV during that Calculate fiasco. Otherwise, not bad … eh, that’s Cube after all.
That was amazing. How hard is it to count to 33? After a Simple as well.
Right:
Avec ou Sans Joker (With or Without Joker):
Simple quiz in the Tout le Monde… mode, three people start and they’ll each get three general knowledge questions. They can answer it unaided for four points, or they can go for a “joker” for two – each question has an associated clue which comes up in visual puzzle holographic form in the studio (which is quite neat) – examples of “jokers” in this episode included an alternate question with the same answer, a mental arithmetic puzzle, the “word machine” (an anagram on some block), the Fairy who reveals the first and last letter of the answer, the eraser (which reveals the answer in half rubbed-out form), that sort of thing – it looks like there’s about 30 different ideas, some of which are voiced characters.
Lowest score leaves.
Scores reset for round two, a toss-up question determines who gets to pick the category for the round. Four questions each (one person doing all their first, then the other, second person aware of the score), highest score wins.
Round three: eight questions in 90 seconds for €10,000. Each question has an attached joker (all the jokers are shown before the eight questions), but first contestant basically flew through it so I haven’t worked out the finer details. It was a bit like The Vault in that the questions kept cycling round once you give an answer.
All done and dusted in 25 minutes. Meh. Most amusing thing was the host saying “‘ashtag”.
Meanwhile Le Cube uses a mixture of original music and Foster/Bolam stuff. It’s half an hour and games straddle. Money ladder is €200, €500, €2k, €5k, €10k, €20k, €50k. Le Cube’s voice is amusingly sultry.
I think you are spot on with the rules there. Also note that AosJ uses no less than 18 jokers, clearly a Mini Mondo (Avanti Un Altro) nip-and-tuck.
AosJ might fare quite better than Volte-Face and survive beyond its first series, but it definitely needs a more suitable time slot.
I’m not sure what the significance of showing the jokers before the final was, unless that in itself was meant as a sort of clue to the sort of answer each question would entail? And why wouldn’t you just use the jokers from the off?
It is certainly less boring than Volte-Face. I don’t think there’s enough to it to hold the attention for too long, although perhaps the France 2 audience is dying for a quick simple quiz in that slot, we’ll see.
I think that each joker is allocated to an appropriate question.
For example: when you are unsure in which year John Lennon got killed, you would have to solve a sum.
Mole is apparently three nights a week next week too, with a surprise elimination in the Tuesday show. Though with the ratings it got last night (800k-ish) and the expected dropoff – because it’s the second episode, because the first episode was a disaster, AND because a pre-emption last week means it starts half an hour later than planned – it’ll probably be cut down to one episode a week within a fortnight.
Here’s my take on the problems so far: http://realitytvdesign.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/mo-money-mole-problems.html
Three points of minor interest.
Last Year’s is on TV5 Europe, from Saturday the 13th (ie Saturday week), about 17.25.
gets a review in this week’s Week.
Videogames channel Ginx TV will be appearing on Virgin cable systems next Tuesday, at or about channel 286.