Quickie round-up for Bank Holiday Monday:
- The Chase is back after its Summer break today with new Chaser Jenny Ryan (aka The Vixen) in tow. Meanwhile in Australia The Chase feat. Anne Hegerty will be replacing Deal or No Deal (which has been in reruns for ages) and Million Dollar Minute (which I said wouldn’t do that well, but has lasted longer than I anticipated).
- If you enjoy endurance contests/army boot camp things like I do then you should probably give Special Forces: Ultimate Hell Week on BBC2 on Sunday nights a try. 29 (I expect someone dropped out before filming) of our brightest and best are subjected to moderate versions of special forces selection training from around the world over the course of a week (or so) whilst Freddie Flintoff comments “ooh, that looks terrible” to camera with each new exercise. Last night some Navy SEALS shouted at them to do press-ups in the sea and featured a hilarious and surreal moment where everyone breaks out into Westlife. I haven’t yet worked out if this is meant to be a competition or not (there’s an on screen counter to show how many of them remain as drop outs through injury and giving up frequently happen, and there’s a weird bit at the end where it looks like the people in charge are going to force eliminate who they think are weakest every week regardless, Flintoff used the word “winner” at one point) but we’d be watching regardless as Very Much The Sort Of Thing We Like. If you missed it the first ep is up on iPlayer.
- We’re big fans of the Jackbox Party Pack (the highly stylised party game app from the people behind You Don’t Know Jack) and unsurprisingly there’s a sequel coming and this time the central focus will be on Fibbage 2 – this seems fair enough as whenever we get it out it tends to be Fibbage and Drawful we gravitate to, so.
According to a couple of articles Jenny Ryan’s first episode will be Wednesday (unless they shuffle the episode order).
NBC have a new, longer promo for Neil Patrick Harris’ upcoming Tuesday Night Takeaw– er, Best Time Ever. Starting to look like it’s going to be almost -just like- the real thing.
Not watchable in the UK, unfortunately.
Surprising amount of dislikes on that
It’s got no chance at 10pm surely – thought it would be getting an 8pm slot, and that would be tough enough as these sort of shows always struggle with US audiences.
10pm is a decent slot in the US. Their prime time is later than ours.
Yes but 10pm is usually for drama. The lighter stuff and entertainment formats usually air at 8pm, especially those with likely family appeal. It was originally slated for an Oct 13th premiere at 8pm but it’s been moved up to Sept 15th with a 10pm premiere off the back of the America’s Got Talent final, remaining at 10pm the next week (after The Voice) before moving to 8pm – if it gets that far.
Nicole Scherzinger has also joined the show as his “sidekick”.
http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Nicole-Scherzinger-Signs-on-to-NBCs-BEST-TIME-EVER-WITH-NEIL-PATRICK-HARRIS-20150901
The first five-pointer I ever got on Only Connect was pretty much repeated this week, interestingly. Pitched slightly differently, but the essence of the question was identical. Running out of ideas, iffy research, or was the difference in how it was phrased considered sufficiently distinct?
(The question in, er, question being the sequence one that began “RM”, which I clearly remember appearing in a very early series albeit back then with the phrase RM stood for explicitly stated)
Dubbelspel is a new addition to the quiz and triviashows in NL, without much notice actually. Aired yesterday on NPO2, in the “Mes op Tafel” alike shows timeslot and can be seen here:
http://www.npo.nl/dubbelspel/31-08-2015/VARA_101374822
Basically, it’s all about trivia and strategy. First round they pick a category, plus one for the other two candidates; the second round, they give an answer from multiple choice, which the others can’t see. Once chosen, out loud they can say their answer – which may be correct or false. The other contestants need to type their answer. If they follow the given out loud answer and it’s wrong, it’s double points. If they don’t follow the answer, and it’s correct, it’s also double points.
Plus another bunch of rules, but basically – that’s the gameplay. Worth trying, definitely fits the UK profile of quiz shows I think.
Seems a bit like that Double Cross podcast quiz I did some time back with Alex Davis
The rules so you can follow at home:
Round 1: nine categories, each contestant picks one for them and one for their opponents, right answers earn €10, wrong answers instead put the €10 in the pot which will be claimed by the next right answer. The person selecting the questions gets the last one in each pass. Second player deals the categories from the six that remain, final player the last three.
Round 2: each player gets three questions from the same nine categories as before (it looks like this time you select one and the others pick one for you). You get a question with three secret multiple choice answers, you pick one then announce an answer out loud (which may or may not be the one you picked). The other players type an answer without the multiple choices. Every correct answer is worth €10 to you. However if the control player’s announced answer is correct and you don’t pick it, control wins an extra €20. Similarly if they announced a wrong answer and you followed it they also win €20. Lowest score after all nine questions is eliminated.
Round 3: All the money from all three players is put in a pot. Questions will now be fired at the two players alternately. One will answer, the other will determine if the given answer is correct or not. 10 points for a correct determination otherwise the answerer scores 20. First to 100 points wins all the money plus €100.
It’s a more hardcore Celebrity Squares basically. Round two is the star (played with more bizarre questions and a lighter tone it *might* work here, indeed the upcoming Pick Me sounds like it might be going for that exact vibe with a bit more Harvey Family Feud), round three drags and isn’t that exciting, hinging basically on one miscalculation in the middle of 14-15 questions.
I think you’d struggle to get 45-60 minutes out of it here but it strikes me as a good idea for a board/online video game.
It’s surprisingly stylish for what it is. A sort of a late night lounge style from the 90s on top of a Channel 5 afternoon quiz from the 90s.
I didn’t get why the players typed out the full answers when they only had three choices. Was the physicality of a mechanical keyboard so important?
The gameplay has an interesting tactical quirk – you can choose to deliberately give 20 points to a particular weak opponent in Round 2 instead of taking 10 points for yourself. Risky, but potentially worthwhile.
The other contestants whose turn it is’t, can’t see the multiple choice answers I think. That’s why one contestant said “snow bird” instead of “ice bird” although this wasn’t one of the multiple choice answers.
I like the quiz as a format more than a show. I didn’t like the atmosphere which reminded me of Danish high culture quiz shows (you can see some on dr1.dk, DRK is their cultural channel which has a magnificient film magazine and many boring quiz shows). I would watch it every now and then, but I wouldn’t tune in every week, because it is so quiet and calm and I didn’t like the host (I hope it was my lack of understanding, but he didn’t seem to connect with the contestants at all).
All in all it was an alright show, I’d like to see adapted on a German regional channel like SWR.
Last night’s You Saw Them Here First celebrating ITV’s 60th Birthday features brief clips and chat from Phillip Schofield on Talking Telephone Numbers and Tenball