So here’s fun, from next week it looks like Deal or No Deal is moving to 3pm where it meets Tipping Point and The Link. The winner gets to play whoever wins out of Cambridge United and Manchester United in the next round.
We don’t quite understand the logic here although I’m sure there is one – DOND is currently sitting at 700-800k in its 4pm slot against (the tanking, as we suspected might happen) Mel and Sue. Traditionally against Tipping Point in the slot DOND loses about 300k and they move straight over to Ben Shephard. TP is by no means a Bargain Hunt-esque monster, but it’s performing admirably well in a slot it doesn’t deserve and it’s being missed as a lead-in for The Chase. Meanwhile Antiques Road Trip is pushing 3m, and Pointless is regularly getting 4.2m (which is making The Chase‘s 3.3m-ish looking lacklustre even though by any other standard it’s a huge number to be getting regularly).
The replacement is the mildly entertaining Shipping Wars UK (where people bid against each other to make deliveries, it’s Postman Pat as competitive reality show) and Couples Come Dine With Me.
And then there’s The Link. It’s probably too early to suggest your second favourite new show (certainly not mine) is just the latest show to overperform in its first series and underperform subsequently, but for all the idea that the second series was going to iron out some of the issues of the first one I’m not seeing it. The first round still has too many situations where your reward for getting the link right is to literally directly benefit everyone else (hint to format designers! If your two options are not “do something to benefit me” or “screw someone else over” you don’t have any strategy or any decisions with any meaning, and getting the contestants to talk about their irrelevant decisions doesn’t suddenly make it in any way strategic.) Round two is still decided on basically what sort of mood the clue setters are in when they set the questions. The Superlink is a fine idea in theory but so rubbish in practice – the reason there aren’t many winners? Because sometimes they’ll give a list which requires a straight answer, and sometimes they’ll give a list where they want something more specific but don’t tell you this, so when the contestant gives a completely reasonable and technically correct response it’s judged wrong and they don’t get the time back, once or twice a game. It could really do with the “have another go” rule on Only Connect. It makes me SO MAD, BUT WHO AM I TO ARGUE WITH YOU, THE PUBLIC? It’d do a quarter-mill less without Mark Williams’ eccentric hosting.
Afternoons from next week, there.
I have to agree with you about The Link- maybe if they put money in their banks for getting a question right in round 1 regardless if they get the link right or not, it would be a little more fair (because a team could theoretically get more questions right than the other two combined and still not go to the next round because they got them right at the wrong times).
The endgame probably needs to be tweaked (I agree with you on the judging). I think I mentioned it before when the show first started- put them on separate podiums, give one person the answer on a monitor and let them stop the clock when they feel there’s enough information for their partner to give that answer- alternate between answering and buzzing.
And anyone hear anything about when The Edge is supposed to start? After The Link finishes this run or maybe later?
Even if it was just a token £50 for solving a link, it would make each bit feel relevant on at least a basic level and does at least offer some benefit, and could make a difference when it’s a couple of hundred separating the bottom two. And it’s unlikely they’ll be paying it out currently.
The Edge was meant to be Jan but is now allegedly sitting on a shelf.
I’m surprised by the DoND thing too – pushes Countdown to 2:10 again – can’t see it lasting if Shipping Wars does poorly
As for The Link:
“Mango, Arrah, Jhansi, Kota, Patna, Jaipur, Chennai, Bangalore, Dehli, Mumbai”
-Buzz-
“India?”
“Is The Link India?”
“No” – it’s Indian cities…
Yes, that sort of thing really annoys me – yesterday that had types of bed and theme parks as straight lists, and then specifically England football captains (England footballers disallowed) and girl group members (female singers disallowed). Both answers perfectly valid of course.
There’s been at least one series of Shipping Wars UK, it was on Sunday evenings a while back. No idea how well it did.
Yes – they should either allow the less-specific answer or try to weed out such ambiguity.
Shipping Wars – Evidently they thought it did well enough to warrant a series but interesting that the slot has moved to daytime so those who did see the broadcast pilot may miss this run.
Interesting on today’s DoND: Box 23 bought for a record-high £17,500 and finding Half.
These storage shows seem inexplicably popular, though 4pm in the afternoon is clearly not the right slot. Also can’t understand why Couples Come Dine with Me (why not just call it Come Dine with Us) is 45 minutes rather than an hour.
Talking of couples I see the 5am repeats of Deal are labelled couples editions – are these what will be airing at 3pm or have they already aired? And have C4 finally dropped the weekend edition – it didn’t work when the show was popular, never mind now!
Odd both Decimate and The Edge seem to have vanished…
Decimate was due out in Dec, then Jan… no signs. And the Edge drops onto the bottom shelf.
DOND – 3pm, madness! Leave it where it is whilst Mel and Sue are tanking!
Shipping Wars has had one UK episode, 7pm on the first Sunday of the new year 2014. Just over a million viewers put it behind Deal or No Deal. Cor, remember when Noely had audiences of a million..?
With Mel and Sue doing less well than expected, a bold commission at 4pm *could* gain an audience. Especially if it’s very different from the property and antiques on BBC1.
Blimey was there really only one episode? I was in the right place at the right time, clearly.
I didn’t find the post where someone was talking about the The Jump App, but I actually quiet like it. And so do the other 9 people who downloaded it in Germany (at least it has 10 downloads and a 5 star rating).
It doesn’t look good and the controls don’t work all the time, but it’s fairly easy to get far quickly and this makes it fun besides those little flaws.
The Jump app has a weird bug. I have a semi complete blank goal worth 54 bells after getting to the K200 and playing quite a lot.
In other news, Piers has called it a day on the Den – so both the new dragons gone within a couple of years. Can’t say I’m too surprised, just wonder if the BBC will call it a day now. At this rate Evan Davies will have to fill in a chair!
Evan : I’m out
Voiceover Evan : I’ve declared myself out
Ha ha!
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a625645/first-look-at-bbc-threes-zombie-apocalypse-reality-game-show.html
Anybody know anything about this? Contestants spending the night in a shopping mall avoiding Zombies
They were looking for contestants a while ago, I’m glad to see it’s finally happening.
It would surely not be even slightly an unreasonable request to live in the alternate universe where this amazing tune, that we know from The Exit List, were actually the theme tune for the opening titles of The Chase.
Think about it. You could have the first twenty seconds or so of establishing shots as the Chasers emerge one at a time from the mist, embellishing their credentials, or alternatively you could Scavengers it up and have a really quick introduction to the contestants over the quiet bit of the music for maximum efficiency. Then, bang, the tune really kicks in at about 26 seconds, full of “This is the Chase” and “The Chase is on”, and the graphics illustrating the different bits of the gameplay practically write themselves, suggested by the different motifs at different times.
This kind of feels like the sort of post I’d have made at half my age, but half-my-age!me would have had a point then because it’s still a point now.
The Link – it’s a gererally good show but with a flawed end game. Surely the end game would be better to have them keep what they earned and then play for an extra two grand in the end game, not just that have the end game format changed so that they have to get a certain amount of answers in each topic right in order to win a linked cash prize.