The Mirror is reporting that 15 to 1 is going to have a one-off come back with Adam Hills hosting.
I’m not going to pretend I’m excited by the prospect, but I understand a decently large group of people probably are, so knock yourselves out.
Edit: Meanwhile, Tim Child talking about the extended version of the Geek Week Knightmare soon to be released. One of the interesting questions for me was if it did make a full time comeback, how would it get round the issue of commercial breaks? We’ve previously established it wouldn’t be for kids television, and it’s more likely to be 45-60 minutes. I’m not sure I like the idea of a bell going off every twelve minutes, temporal disruption should mean finality, but how do you do it without being too cheesy? Just fade to commercial after a room and don’t mention it?
Yeah, but, yeah, but Channel 4 don’t do revivals so it’s not going to come back on C4 unless their *so( desperate for ratings…
I could see Challenge giving it a crack, though. Surely it’d be easier to revive than Blockbusters?
That must be pretty desperate, it was only getting about half a mill daily when it was axed. Admittedly more than Countdown’s getting now, but that’s hardly aiming high.
I would be *fascinated* to discover how 15-1 would do on Challenge.
The gradual decline in the ratings was just down to the fact there’d been 35 near-continuous series! I think there probably is room in the schedules once more for a speedy Q&A show, though part of me wishes that we could come up with new ideas than retread something older. Unless there are new questions to ask about the Elgin Marbles.
You don’t see Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune being axed any time soon despite 30+ years of being on every weekday, do you?
Edit: Or even – BOOM – What did Countdown have that 15-1 didn’t?
Countdown is also a much more accessible format, which can be played on any level. 15-to-1 was very rigid, couldn’t see it holding up well today.
Didn’t it bomb simply because it got pushed back before 3pm? And I thought it ended because WGS didn’t want to do it anymore?
I quite liked it when it was on 3 months at a time. On all year, it got boring for me very quickly. I’m not sure about this Adam Hills chap but I’ve never seen anything he’s done. It’ll be interesting anyway.
80’s weekend and no Treasure Hunt…?
Adam Hills is the Aussie comic currently hosting The Last Leg on C4. He’s usually fairly measured I think, so as choices go I don’t think it’s completely awful.
However also yes: no Treasure Hunt?
I’ve just had a look at some of his stuff and I think he could actually be quite good so long as the game is respected. If it sticks at 30mins, which hopefully it does, there probably won’t be much room for faffing.
I can’t help but think Jon Snow would be great at it. Probably less of a draw though, admittedly.
I thought I would be really pleased to hear something like this, but I’m a bit ‘meh’ really. People seem to laud it as the ‘best quiz show ever’, but I can’t help but think if it was revived on Challenge or wherever, lots of people would watch one episode and then be kind of ‘Oh well that wasn’t as fun a game as I remember’, even if it was a perfect revival. I just think there are much more entertaining quiz shows out there nowadays, and that a new series would only prove that.
If they can make it cheaply enough, they might be happy with half a mill in the afternoon, although doubtless it’ll skew fairly old. I don’t really see any reason after an initial period of excitement it’ll do any better or worse than Countdown currently does.
It’ll be quite difficult to gauge how viable it would be to make a series based on a one-off, I think, especially if they go and plonk it in weekend primetime. I’m not quite sure how they’ll hoping it’ll play to social media, it’s not like the average tweeter is going to start going ‘dur, that contestant didn’t even know what a Mandelbroht set is! #thick’
Also, ALSO, if you want a speedy Q and A show, The Chase isn’t doing too badly for itself, but beats 15-1 in that it isn’t dry and manages to get its engaging personality across pretty naturally.
Also University Challenge and Mastermind are no slouches for questions per minute…
I guess Jimmy Carr wasn’t available. Good to see it return and wouldn’t mind it coming back as a series – far better than any of the recent attempts at 3.30pm.
1) Never. Go. Back. Just as Channel 4 need never bother with , so they need never bother with a direct copy of . Even one played for silly.
2) What’s got? It shows its contestants over an extended period, long enough for them to be able to tell a story. For instance, on today’s show, the loser was absolutely and comprehensively beaten, and we could see the toll this was taking – and how he was doing his best to remain competitive. got rid of two-thirds of its contestants before we could see their characters, never mind watch them develop.
In drama terms: allows all of its contestants to be some sort of hero. So does , so didn’t .
I guess had 15 to 1 been invented today contestants would have at least a couple of chances. One thing which did annoy me though with 15 to 1 was returning champions – not the next day but series after series after series.
DS suggesting it’s going to be a celebrity special.
Edit:Richard Osman’s confirmed it. He’s not a contestant or producing.
There’s also going to be an 8/10CDC 80s special, but Richard suggested on Twitter that what they really want to do is 8/10C Does Treasure Hunt, which would be a must watch for me, although I don’t know exactly how serious he was.
Oooh yay, yet more Catsdown. Nothing says 80’s like 8 Out of 10 Cats!
The latter would be AMAZING though, especially if Wincey and/or Anneka returned.
I bet Wincey would do it, and if Anneka didn’t want to do it they could get Danny Dyer in for it, “where’s the FACKIN’ clue?” It’d be hysterical.
There’s mileage in this “8 Out of 10 Cats Does Daytime Game Shows” thing. Can we imagine “8/10 And Friends Does Going For Gold”? Anyone for “… Does Turnabout”, if they can find enough rude words. Ditto for “… Does Chain Letters”. I suspect that “… Does Supermarket Sweep” looks better on paper than in reality.
It’s not just daytime shows. “… Does Five Minutes to a Fortune” would have been about as much fun as the main show. “… Does In It to Win It” could hardly be less fun than the main show. “… And Friends Does University Challenge” would get old very quickly, as we saw with the Comic Relief specials some years ago. “… Does Only Connect” might float. “… Does The Generation Game” probably.
The whole project asymptotically converges on “8 Out of 10 Cats Does Interceptor”.
I suggested on Twitter the other week that 8/10 Cats doing Countdown is probably the nearest the UK has to a Japanese-style variety show. The Cats being a troupe of comedians who do stuff, with a core group and various hangers on, is fairly compelling as a thing.
We are very much over due some Treasure Hunt nostalgia. It’s been far too long since Suzi had her go at being a skyrunner and I’d merrily have her back. If we’re playing for laughs then Miranda Hart would be great. On the other hand if there were a full time vacancy, Helen Skelton is a daredevil looking for a job.
I watched the Knightmare revival and loved it!
now wishing that RAI brings back Luna Park, or at least the Gipsy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RurLqP9Mxxc
Pretty much. They overdid the “time out” in later series anyway with the huge hourglass graphic – as much as anything else, it was an excuse to recap in “mid-game” at the start of the following episode. In S1, they didn’t even have a bell! (Hell, they used a stock ending & opening – apart from the recap – in S1 with Treguard “looking” at the off-screen team and then the fire freezing behind him. Never quite got why the stock footage).
I’d expect that they’d “swoosh” to a graphic, and have Treguard doing recaps & precaps in voiceover at every ad break, annoying as they are (especially spoilers in precaps!)
Nobody has heard anything more about this extended cut in the last few weeks, have they? A quick check of the K. forum suggests not but I may well just have gone too inattentively. (Apparently the reason for the short version is that Google apparently wanted something no longer than 25 minutes, and the longer version is intended to promote the format for resale.)