Sundays, 7pm,
Sky One + HD
Konnie Huq invites eleven of Britain’s brightest to Nerdvana to take part in a series of tasks and challenges based around pop-culture, intelligence and ingenuity over eight weeks to determine who will get to sit atop the Throne of Games.
The original US show is good fun so we shall see how this Objective Production translates.
It’s another example of trying to directly translate a US reality show, with all its foibles (exciteable diary comments with lots of gestures! Fast cutting! Background music that’s a bit too loud!) and it coming across as *a bit weird*, because we don’t tend to do half that stuff over here. Greg McHugh’s voiceover is a sop to The Sort Of Way We Do It, but all he really added was a spoiler for a twist and therefore not much use.
Konnie Huq came across as really awkward, although ironically that fits quite well.
The biggest problem the show has, and admittedly this is going to be more limiting for those who have seen the original, is that it’s only half the show really – the Nerd Wars look like they’ve been lifted from the original which is fine and dandy, but the Nerd Off looks like it’s taken all the fun and great looking challenges from the original (the very first one was lifesize chess with pieces made of foam so they could be destroyed in an engaging manner) and replaced them with… a quiz. And even then they’ve done the quiz quite badly – a quiz with acronyms you didn’t really get a chance to playalong with because of the way it was edited together.
So taken on it’s own merits it’s a fun enough idea that comes over as a bit weird. Perhaps this is what they were aiming for.
Glad they kept the theme and opening sequence though.
I have to agree with Brig, they copied the first series of the American series, but with a far smaller budget (like The Mole UK – Series 1).
The contestants are great, the voice-over is also rather good, but Konnie is an absolute mess. The US series had energetic hosts, and you can see why, the show really needs it.
Can’t really judge the shows task, as there really weren’t any in the first episode. A bit disappointing that the Nerd Off is a quiz every episode, but that was clearly to cut costs.
It has a half-decent attempt and enjoyable enough, but it’s not something to go out of your way to watch.
As bad as I feared, but no worse.
Plays to every stereotype of “nerds” – limited subject matter, social outcasts – without seriously challenging them.
“Sworn enemies”? More like “friends we’re not allowed to fraternise with”. “A week”? Felt like two days.
Literally no expense spent on the toys. “An Apollo 11 ops manual!” £18.
Part 3 was wasted; at this stage, plotting is just shuffling names. The contestants know each other, we don’t know them at all.
Kneeling before the throne? I find that offensive, and I can’t quite put my finger on why.
On the positive side, the show has a distinctive style, and vam-vam-vam cutting works for this show.
They have gone out of their way not to associate “nerd” with “bloke”.
And Konnie, if you’re going to say “Podgorica”, please learn how to say it. Pod-go-REE-cha.
I’ll watch episode 2 for review, and that may be it.
I’m really, REALLY fed up of the “diary clips to illustrate the action”-style employed in some gameshows (and practically every reality-style show, but let’s not go there!!). I found the clips during the nerd off – which I assume were filmed after the event, in a “tell us what you were thinking at this bit” fashion really annoying – for me, they got in the way of the quiz, slowed it down and added the sum total of zero. And when the lady who lost left, “zapping” her into thin air whilst Konnie looked on just seemed ridiculous – it worked for the Adventure Game, as you’d already suspended belief by virtue of watching the show and joining in with the tongue-in-cheek antics…but in a show like this…just a gimmicky, poor afterthought. And I completely agree with those who said Konnie was uncomfortable – it was like she didn’t want to be there…and not in an ironic “bloody nerds” way…
In TV Land, those things are called “confessionals” and they are omnipresent in US reality shows and even many game shows.
There’s a good article about them here:
http://www.avclub.com/article/please-kill-reality-tv-confessional-215420
I’ve never been a fan of Konnie as a host, but this show is exactly why. She wasn’t great. I think I did spot a former US Nerd-Off in the bit at the start, so maybe the Quiz won’t be every week.
According to The Mighty DS Ratings Thread, 99k for this and it lost half its audience across the hour. That’s about half what Wild Things got, for reference.
So that second series they sent a flyer round for might be rather optimistic.
Oh God, I had almost forgotten that it’s impossible to have a US-style show that doesn’t do the ‘oh I’ve got no chance of winning’ ‘OH BLOODY SHOCK HORROR I’VE WON’ which literally happens literally every week on literally every reality show. Christ.
Who’d have thought, the person getting the ‘I’m going to lose’ confessional edit goes on to win. Again.
At least the castle building challenge felt basically entertaining, with wind-assistance.
The board game questions were boring and easy. I know you have to try and appeal to a general audience but *come on*. No proper nerd plays Monopoly for a start.
It does seem to be the case that if you get a more generalised topic in the nerd-off (see: board games, geek TV), the questions seem to be much easier than the more specific ones like Middle Earth and Capital Cities.
Sounds like it’s on the rebound! I heard 160k for week 3.
Yes, you probably heard it from here!
I’m basically hate watching it but a viewer is a viewer.
I’m warming to it, especially with how active they all are on Twitter. Matt is a Survivor/TAR/Mole fan, so basically needs me to root for him.
I can’t get over the fact we’re only getting half a show and the confessionals are super aggravating.
Also they didn’t have an audience for the debates. That’s not public speaking!
I suspect it’ll have a lot more money thrown at it if the audience holds steady and we get another series, so hopefully all our gripes will be solved.
I wouldn’t be getting overexcited, 160k still a ways beneath the slot average, and right now we’ve got no knowledge if it’s an outlier or not.
Dead cat bounce, 101k this week (with thanks to grondagronda on the DS forums).