Saturdays, 8:20pm,
ITV1
Phillip Schofield and Irish magician and hypnotist (and ex host of Deal or No Deal) Keith Barry invite five people to try and complete simple challenges for money, the twist being is that they’ve been hypnotised to make everything that much harder… and funnier! There are four episodes in this run if I recall correctly.
We went and saw an episode being filmed (by the sounds of it, this episode is going out as the show’s premiere tonight) and did find it very funny to watch. I think the show has a decent chance of being a hit but there are two quite important caveats – the first is the usual one about the editing, and second and most importantly the audience has got to buy into it and believe what’s happening is actually happening and this one might be a little bit more difficult to overcome.
It’s not really a game-y game so don’t go into it expecting high drama and jeopardy but you should hopefully be able to expect lots of laughs.
There is no way that this show is 100% genuine.
Is this show meant to be funny? I thought Get Your Act Together was bad this is 10x worse
Does seem I’m the only person on the internet who enjoyed it – sadly people just don’t get TV nowadays which aims to do nothing more than be a bit of fun. Would much rather watch this than yet another boring lottery quiz.
The gameplay is fine and the editing isn’t too bad – didn’t think the VT intros were necessary at the beginning and the precaps were a bit too lengthy but it moved along at a nice enough pace.
Some of those slagging it off comparing it to Harry Hill’s Stars in their Eyes and saying the only way it could have been worse is with Harry Hill hosting – but actually that’s not such a bad idea. It’s pure silliness so would have suited Harry much more than Stars in their Eyes.
It was never going to rate brilliantly and from tonights reaction the drop off will be huge over the hour but I enjoyed it so that’s all that matters.
I don’t think it’s so much they don’t get it, but with the myriad other options at their choice if the audience thinks you’re wasting its time, they won’t just threaten not to watch, they will actually not watch.
I enjoyed it too! A good bit of frivolous light entertainment for a saturday night, which has been severely lacking lately. Schofield is a consummate host in the face of all the adversities the contestants throw at him!
I thinking a lot of the internet seem to be thinking about it too seriously, too hung up on whether the contestants are actors and sceptical about the hypnosis process. They want usual formulaic game show structure, reasoning and order, where disorder, chaos and playing for laughs is the remit.
That’s the trouble with Twitter – people are too quick to make snap judgements, heavily influenced I’m sure by the other snap judgements being made – rather than just sitting back and seeing whether they actually enjoy the show themselves.
Completely agree with you on the chaos v order front. I was skeptical at first, but it grew on me as I watched.
This was in a bonus Popbitch mailout on Friday, its veracity can’t be confirmed but I’ll repost it for colour:
Hyp replacement << It's just an illusion 7zark7 writes: "I was on a train a couple of months ago sitting opposite a glamour model type [who was] bitching about this other girl who got a part in a TV programme when she didn't. The part for which she auditioned, I overheard, involved having to pretend to be hypnotised. "I didn't think anything of it at the time and then I saw the trailer for the hilarious new Philip Schofield fronted show, in which 'contestants' are supposedly hypnotised..."
OK, I do think that as creative risks go I can definitely see the merit in it, and stand by that in the studio it was funny. The edit wasn’t a complete washout by any means (although the VT packages were a bit uncomfortably spliced in), but what a tight couple of minutes of TV requires actually misses some of the natural ebb and flow and hence the comedy timing of seeing it in long form, and some of the funny interaction and general madness is lost in having to concentrate the camera on only one or two people at a time. Not sure what the solution is really.
Pip ad libbing probably the best bit.
It doesn’t surprise me that social media is a bit negative, Watching Normal People Being Self Conciously Wacky isn’t all that popular these days, that’s why nobody’s favourite bit of Ant and Dec is the Supercomputer.
Certainly not as bad as everyone makes out, but not so LOL I need to watch it every week.
I personally found it hilarious (as did my mum). From my perspective, they seemed genuinely hypnotised. I can see that it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea though, and I was hiding behind my hands for a lot of it!
Reading through DS comments now, actually a higher proportion of positive posts than I expected (about 15%).
Will be interested to see the numbers in the morning. It literally be anywhere between 2m and 5m. My gut says it’s probably done a bit better than social media would have you believe.
This is one show I was so close to being able to go and see being recorded, and really wish I had been there watching it now!
Sadly I already suspect it hasn’t got a chance of a Series 2.
Sir Brig of Bother, a couple of months ago you wrote “In game two the contestants must blow up balloons for a children’s party. Two of them blow them up, two tie them to sticks and one of them must take them and put them in a stand. And when a balloon bursts they must hide behind a table. Something very funny happened here before the game starts which they probably are not going to be able to show in a primetime broadcast, but if they don’t I’ll tell you what it was when it comes round.”
Was it the episode you saw? Was the funny thing edited out or broadcast? (No, I haven’t seen the show…)
Yes it was kept in, although they didn’t use some of the shots we could see on the audience monitors.
Thought it was a well made show, but personally I got a little bored of the same joke… Watch these people make a tit of themselves.
The tv intros could have been left out, bit dull.
Pip was on brill form…
4.34m apparently last night. Not a bad start but it could go anywhere from here.
Yep, think they’ll be pretty pleased with that, especially if it holds over 4m for the rest of the run.
They should be pretty satisfied, especially as it seems to beat Win Your Wish List which got 4.08m.
That’s twice as many as I thought it might have been. Is a danger though even for those of us who liked it the joke might wear off quite quickly.
One thing on a production note I thought was strange was how all of a sudden for the final there was a commentator – didn’t really seem necessary.
I thought it was hilarious, certainly a much better execution of the hypnotism concept than it could have been.
I bought into the idea of hypnotism a lot more than I expected, and all the contestants were very convincing, save for Ross, I think his name was. Something about how over the top he was just struck me as being totally fake. I was going with it until they made him James Brown, and from then on I was kinda stuck doubting him.
I only watched this because I can’t access Sky on Demand.
Initial thoughts: It all felt like a quite good round of whose line is it anyway. I think Keith should be explicity evil, like a Chaser (although I think other people have spoken before about the need to keep a sense of mischief on shows, and they have done that well here). Schofe has a massive role to play in making this funny and in a way is working harder than the contestants ((In an alternative universe, this show is called “help, someone has hypnotised my gameshow contestants!” and has a guest host winning a share of the money for charity every week)) . I think he should be playing it straighter – IMO Paolo Bonolis would be the perfect one for it. having the cutaways between rounds… hmmm. I’m not sure, although it might help the audience believe. I liked it quite a bit, but that might have been because after a few minutes I decided I wasn’t *trying* to asses how ‘real’ it was, but to instead treat it more like a skit / improv comedy show. In that sense it felt weirdest when ‘real money’ was suddenly being awarded, and I actually wonder if the show could actually have done with **less** cause-and-effect.
3.85m without +1 last night. Will have been around 4.0-4.1m with +1 so a decent hold (last week was 4.08m without +1 with 260k on +1), especially as the whole show faced The Voice this week, as opposed to only the first 10 minutes last week.
It’s got so mental now with overplaying acting!!! Saw an interesting video about it being fake that makes some sense. Says they are only doing it 4 the money:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ECLuB5SXkA
I do like how Phil managed to nick the title of the show as his own little catchphrase for returning after the breaks!