Well, Sport Relief Does We Are the Champions is a bit limp. For whatever reason they’ve decided to do it in a bit of a vaccum (one of the facilities at Ponds Forge), without loads of people cheering the teams on the show does rather lose its sense of occasion and fun. Games retain bonus scoring elements of the original (good) but if I’m being honest, the various obstacle courses aren’t convoluted enough (bad). Paddy MacGuinness spends his time making references that will go over the kids’ heads that aren’t all that funny for adults either, celebrity sports coaches don’t really add very much (other than an ability to look really uncomfortable reading off cue cards), limpness of re-recorded iconic theme sums up limpness of remake, really. It will be here all week.
Pointless changes seem amusingly pointless, although doubtless we’ll eventually get over them. I don’t get why a show whose entire premise was predicated on coming up with obscure answers off your own back has now mainly changed to trying to predict which of several answers the public is least likely to come up with, not so much pointless knowledge as educated guesswork. The trivia element is why the show was liked! In fact I don’t think I like any changes the show has made, the flow and pacing of the show seems very off and I hate the new large square display screen.
In summary: disappointing.
And on things that will happen on Wednesday – I’m off to see Aussie Millionaire: Hot Seat tomorrow!
Writing from a McDonalds in Melbourne, Ryan.
Was there anything in the “Star Wars Films” question to suggest they would have disallowed “The Clone Wars”?
Only the word “six,” I think.
Yes they were adamant it was restricted to the six ‘main’ ones.
It looks like I was the only other person who watched We Are The Champions, and you’re exactly right, this is the one show on television which I think would be improved by a load of screaming kids. Surely the rest of the school could be in the audience? Especially when there are banks of empty seats around the pool.
The celebrities were hopeless, they did absolutely nothing, and Amir Khan couldn’t even do his one job of reading out the score – and why didn’t they retake his fluffs? Also, I didn’t like how Paddy seemed to be taking the piss out of the contestants for coming last when surely the whole point of a) the programme and b) Sport Relief is that it’s the taking part that counts. We didn’t even get the pan along the line of kids so they could do a thumbs up!
I actually had no idea this was on until I saw it in Creamguide, so ta for that.
Also I might be wrong (I’m probably wrong), but weren’t the games in the pool worth double points in the original? COME ON BBC.
Meanwhile UKGS.commers, did Linford Christie host episodes of this after Gary Lineker? I’m pretty sure he had but now I’m doubting myself.
I’m pretty sure he did, he might have done the last one or two. In fact I think there were a couple more hosts who only did one show.
BFI confirms he did the 1994 special. I remember him being an absolutely abysmal presenter on “Record Breakers” so I can’t imagine he was any good on that either.
And I’ve just looked it up and the 1995 special was presented by Judy Simpson, which I’d completely forgotten about. I dunno why they kept on giving Linford presenting work, he was indeed rubbish at it.
The “stringed instruments” round on Pointless today was really cringemaking. It was like something off CBBC, only more patronising.
In other news, I’m a Celebrity US isn’t returning. Aww.
Well, I don’t HATE the new Pointless as the rest of the bar seems to, but my opinion is usually out of step with everyone until I realise they’re right! Perhaps on the first show, the round 2 question didn’t make it look that bad but today’s was just a bit too obvious. I like round 3, but not when they restrict the answers to about 5. It’s like when Family Fortunes would rush through a list of 3 just to reach a conclusion quickly.
According to David Clark on LAM, A Question of Genius is coming back for a second series later this year.
Is there anyone else surprised to some extent?
I thought it had been common knowledge for ages, but then I probably have a twisted sense of these things. If it was a straight choice between AQoG and Knowitalls (and now I think about it, I suppose it probably was), I think I’d have preferred to see Knowitalls back.