Sorry Eternal Glory you’ve been bumped by some potentially very exciting breaking news. C21 are reporting that ITV have signed on a format collaboration deal with CJ E&M.
The deal will see ITVSGE take two of CJ E&M’s Korean formats to UK broadcasters, while CJ E&M will look at two of ITVSGE’s formats for its family of channels. The companies will also work together to develop the formats for interested broadcasters.
Meanwhile, ITVSGE will acquire From Start to Clear and The Genius Game from CJ E&M’s catalogue. CJ E&M’s longest-running entertainment show, From Start to Clear sees a celebrity host and his guests play a computer game – but the twist is they can’t stop until they finish the game.
The company will also take The Genius Game, which sees 13 players from different backgrounds, from poker champions to CEOs and politicians, compete in a battle of wits by playing 12 strategic games.
Korea is getting The Secret Life of Students and Come Date With Me out of the deal.
Look I know nobody actually calls it The Genius Game but AAAAARRRRGGHHH I AM SO SO EXCITED! But let us be clear here, this doesn’t mean that it’s definitely definitely happening and if it does happen there’s no guarantee it will translate correctly. It’s probably a bit more ITV2 than 1 but that’s alright because according to Kyunghoon in an interview he did recently that’s the age range that’s given it it’s massive Korean ratings anyway.
The Genius is the greatest reality game since The Mole. Contestants take part in games of strategy, logic and game theory to try and outwit each other to the top all to an amazing soundtrack and editing techniques. We first looked at it in 2013 and liked what we saw and have been avid viewers since.
Edit: David B makes the very good point in the comments that this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to an ITV channel.
Seems like as good a time as any to discuss potential names we’d like:
Rachel Riley (Numbers Guru on Countdown)
Jenny Ryan (Chaser)
Sue Perkins (Comedienne & Host)
Hannah Fry (Numberphile and mathematics lecturer)
Konnie Huq (Blue Peterer and King of the Nerds’ host)
Liv Boeree (Poker playing extraordinare)
Simon Singh (Well good mathematician)
Wil Wheaton (Host of “Tabletop”, Big Bang Theory serial cameo-er)
Lee Sangmin (Winner of “The Genius: Rule Breakers”)
Dara O’Brien (Comedian and Number cruncher)
Tim Key (Modern poet)
Noel Clarke (Film Director and Mickey from Doctor Who
Obviously I’d be hoping that they’d have some auditioned contestants too (because then I could apply), and the majority of these names wouldn’t really be “ITV2” (Singh and O’Brien I’d think). Personally I’d hope it would be on ITV1 to avoid them mucking with the formula too much, but at this point I’d just be ecstatic to see it make it to the UK.
Good contestant suggestions but I sort of hope they go for all open audition people. Although that would make it a difficult sell to viewers. I think that competing for an amount of money that is meaningful to the players gives the games an edge. I’m not sure the UK is open to celebrities competing for money for themselves and playing for charity makes people play very conservatively.
I do think it’s conceivable that Victoria Coren could be up for this. The filming schedule would be a lot easier for someone with a baby to work with than a 24/7 show, and she has previously expressed the most passing of interest in playing something like Celebrity BB for the experience and because she is convinced that she has a decent idea about how to play it in practice. Zoe Lyons is offering great value as a guest on Frank Skinner’s radio show and has demonstrated that she knows how to play very, very well. I’d say that Kate Lawler might be the one person from Big Brother who could crossover, but the real answer is Vanessa Feltz.
The male suggestions write themselves. Clarke Carlisle sounds plausible. Radio’s “More or Less” (and TV/print journalist) Tim Harford might not yet be enough of a name but could well be an amazing player if he wanted to. Demis Hassabis, the academic and businessman known for selling Deepmind to Google for hundreds of millions, would be a truly spectacular catch and could well enjoy the idea of playing.
Zoe Lyons did Survivor UK, of course.
Reading Demis Hassabis’ Wikipedia page makes him sounds “perfect” for Genius UK. Sounds like a show he’d already be a fan of, too!
I really like your suggestions – of women who do not need particular nerd credentials.
Agreed: Vanessa Feltz could be a wonderful Genius. She has just the right ability to work both the social and mental aspects and be good while entertaining.
She’d be our Gura!
A few other Suggested Contestants:
Carol Vorderman. (If We have Carol and Rachel both on the show the fighting it will be gold.)
Stephen Fry.
Richard Ayoade. (From the IT Crowd)
Charlie Brooker (From Newswipe/ Writer of black mirror – Could very much take the “Gamer” role the Starcraft players had since he is a former PC Gamer writer.)
I cannot imagine five minutes of Food Chain explanation on ITV1 at all.
Get Ant & Dec to read it out?
I can’t wait for Joe Swash as a contestant though.
Dave Lamb to narrate in his usual style.
There are very, very few TV people who I would trust not to totally screw this up. Could we get Clive Doig out of retirement? The real question is how we can get people, who we know understand the game and the genre, jobs making the show not suck.
Jeremy Beadle would have been a fascinating old-stager player.
I’ve always maintained this is right in Glenn Hugill’s wheelhouse, and now he’s at ITV who knows?
The Banker and Bandage Man are *the same person*
Remember that ITV Studios can make this for any channel, so it might not be intended for a channel in their own portfolio. If I’m honest, I’m slightly struggling to see it on any channel other than C4
That bet I had on Dave looking better and better…
You people are ruling out the Food Network a little too quickly for my liking…
“Look, the game is all very well, but can we please focus more on the canapes?”
I’d like to live in the world where increasingly-strapped-for-cash BBC FOUR said “no, this will be the next face of the channel, let’s do a proper job on this”.
Me too.
For me, BBC4 is the best hope for a UK Genius. Garnets probably worth £2.50, but I could still see it working.
If it is Channel 4 – I can’t wait for the Eventual 8 out of 10 cats does the Genius Game.
This is a hell of a shout, for what was Carrot In A Box on the 8oo10C Christmas special if not, at heart, a Death Match? A quick one, a stripped-back one, one that might not completely make sense if not played slightly for laughs, but one nevertheless. It would also seem to point to a solution to the UK TV hour issue: keep the Death Matches, but if they don’t have a twist, keep them really quick.
In fact I’ve scheduled a post recommending Carrot In A Box for 9am tomorrow. Spooky!
Looking very forward to Mark Labbett vs. Jon Tickle in Monorail.
That would be perfect!
Also it feels stereotypical and telling when you compare the shows that the UK is getitng the format rights for with the ones going the other way. Are you sure that the UK still has cultural soft power these days?
I would say that the UK is a formats powerhouse (ITV basically making much of their money on production these days), but South Korea is where all the exciting shows feel like they’re coming from at the minute.
Yes. Why else have all the US studios bought out or set up their own UK branches here?
If they did a UK version, one thing that might help them with casting is the fact that people don’t have to commit themselves 24/7 to the show- they can tape one or two episodes a week like they did in Korea.
(and they also don’t have to build an elaborate set either- I always thought they could do it in an estate house and have a club-type setting)
This is quite interesting actually because the cost of studio hire these days would suggest filming it one big block more than likely over here. How could this effect the dynamic?
Could change things drastically, alliances would have a lot more “hold”, although I suppose that may happen due to the culture shift anyway.
Personally I always thought the Genius could work in the same way the opening to The Apprentice episode’s do; in that the contestants meet at a different location each week, just with the tables/dealers and such remaining constant.
That could be quite interesting, but again expensive.
I think the little world they have is perfectly fine – diving 5-6 rooms in different locations would be a great faff for no extra benefit.
I think they could do a bit more to visually theme the set each week, though.
*Rigging, not diving
Even one game every other day could get mentally exhausting pretty quickly, if they’re anything like the complexity of the originals.
Also He was mentioned in my picks for Contestants for The Genius Game – but Charlie Brooker could be the perfect person for the “From Start to Clear” Here is him Teaching Jon Snow to play video games from 2013:
wonderful news! looking forward to see The Genius UK
of course we’ll never get it in Italy because it needs 13 smart people.
Same reason why they couldn’t film a US version in Washington DC..
So my main issue with any Genius adaptation is the timing. Episodes of the original ran 80-85 minutes plus commercials, sometimes a few more even. Now, objectively speaking I’m sure you could lop some of that off and still end up with a good show, but it would certainly be jarring to us fans. Here in the US you’d be lucky to get half that, and I honestly can’t see that doing the format justice. I know that timeslots in the UK are a little more flexible, so what are we realistically looking at?
I think realistically you’d be looking at an hour, which is about 43 minutes without commercials (assuming the BBC don’t take it which I can”t see happening, although suddenly early Sat evening feels like it might work). If it goes on cable then it’s possible it might get a 90 minute slot but it makes it hard to schedule for repeats I’d imagine.
Having to cut down was one of issues I envisioned when we first mooted it sometime ago. Two things to remember: the first series had a shorter runtime for the most part anyway (and it wasn’t until S3 they worked out how to properly pace the longer episodes) and secondly they’d be making it for a UK audience who won’t have seen the Korean one anyway so it will likely feel different anyway (although I’d love to see a show try Korean style captions).
Thought experiment: what if they got rid of the Deathmatch to save 20 minutes? The Main Match already finds a loser after all. I think it would be an error but I wouldn’t take it off the table.
Thinking about how they formatted Ninja Warrior bring it over here – I could very easily see them having an episode be broken up into two episodes.
It is very easy to put 2/3s of the main match in the first episode and then the last 1/3 and the death match into a second episode.
I think doing it this way could actually make it a good water cooler show since you have the set up and main game explained but the final tactics not revealed so you have people trying to figure out how they would win it during the week.
Taking out the DM would kill the story arcs, in my opinion.
Even if you completely restructure the gameplay to have the focus be on who loses rather than who wins, there’s limited drama to edit out of that.
My suggestion would be a BBBOTS split: one hour main match, move across to a digital channel for a half hour death match and wrap-up. I wouldn’t mind sticking a celeb panel in the mix 😉
I wondered about doing a black-mission-ish hard solo game if you lose the MM. It would work basically like the way of the warrior in Raven: in the rare event someone clears it, the next worst player goes. I think this could save a bit of time, although with both this suggestion and Brig’s, I wonder whether the removal of the chance to pick an opponent (and hence any danger for a mid-table finish) might encourage mega-alliances crica S2 too much.
Loser selecting a DM opponent inserts a requirement for subtlety and back-stabbing. Without it, you get the more common open lynchings seen in much of reality competition.
If it’s a cutting down issue, briefer, more aggressively timed MMs and DMs requiring minimal rule (as opposed to strategy) explanations should suffice (Maybe a fixed DM helps?). Also, TV stations do both unpredictable sports and interminable arts competitions – is the slot that much of an ask?
The thing that I am concerned about is giving the show a big enough time slot so we can see the games unfold. The Korean episodes were around two hours+ at some points. I dont think that a channel would be willing to give a slot up that big for a new show.
Be still my beating heart, I thought we had news!
I don’t think you’d need to. Definitely it would fit into an hour slot on the BBC. An hour slot on commercial telly would be more challenging. I guess you’d have to do some occasions where the deathmatch rolls over to the start of the next episode, or you have some games where it’s possible to end an episode halfway through.