Right, sorry about that we had a database issue, and right now I’ve done something a bit crazy that might make the Bar fall to its knees in due course, I don’t know. If you see anything funny occuring, outside of my usual cracking jokes, do get in touch. Anyway for now here’s a round of up of some things:
- Hypnotic game You’re Back In The Room starts tonight at 8:30pm after Ant and Dec, despite being advertised as 8pm for the last week or so. When we saw the first series being filmed I thought it was going to be either massive or a flop, and it turned out to be just a moderate success instead. We discussed the first series here.
- The new comics lined up for series two of Taskmaster have been announced and it’s a good selection! Jon Richardson, Katherine Ryan, Joe Wilkinson, Doc Brown (the only real unkown for me) and Britain’s Hardest Working Man Richard Osman complete the panel. Greg Davies and Alex Horne once again host, the studio stuff starts filming this week so hopefully it will hit our screens soon.
- A second series of Insert Name Here with Sue Perkins, Josh Widdicombe and Britain’s Hardest Working Man Richard Osman has been commissioned.
- Physical Touch It Win It game Can’t Touch This starts on Saturday 26th March, presumably cutting The Getaway Car series in half, otherwise that’s a very action packed night on BBC1. The trailer makes it look like it might be The Whole 19 Yards kind of fun, and we like the production team, but whoever thought having Sue Perkins commentating a physical gameshow so soon after Don’t Scare The Hare needs shooting.
Finally here’s a brilliant gag regarding the fact that John Cooper Clarke is on the Sports Relief Only Connect special on Monday. This would have got thousands of Retweets if Britain’s Hardest Working Man Richard Osman had made it:
Tworeedsley Street https://t.co/3pWYv8DYtK
— Brig Bother (@BothersBar) March 12, 2016
I mean honestly.
I saw somewhere that Taskmaster would start in June. Can’t give you a link now though, sorry.
It started end of July last year, and I think they’ve filmed the tasks for two series IIRC, so June may well be about right, thanks.
Have I done something with my TV or have they added that absolutely stupid filmic effect to YBITR?
Joe Wilkinson, that is Taskmaster ruined for me then.
To be fair, I remember thinking that when I first saw Rosin and Romesh on the first series, I wasn’t really a fan of the stuff I’d seen of them before Taskmaster. My opinion changed very quickly watching the show though so I’m hopeful they’ll have built a similarly diverse cast for the subsequent series’.
Had you not seen Rosin on the UK version of Impractical Jokers. Having to eat chips from a bin as a punishment converted me to her.
Joe was ok on Celebrity Squares but on Cats does Countdown spoiled the show imo with his “comedy”.
I was, and suppose I still am, very much expecting Mark Watson to show up on Taskmaster at some point, to complete the We Need Answers trifecta: Horne co-hosting, Key playing series one, Watson… “doing his thing”.
Would there be interest in a Taskmaster home game weekend, in theory? People would be given interesting things to do with a little bit of scope for creativity on their own, but under identical conditions, then come together to watch the combined efforts and argue as to whether they were or weren’t cheating, plus a few in-person multi-player events. I have no ideas at all as to what these interesting things might be, merely that it might be something that people might want to do.
That could be fun, albeit hassle.
Here’s something different: the latest episode of Super Brain from China was broadcast last night, and it was a Chinese team of three vs. a guest team of four from Great Britain, one of a series of international matches and apparently a rematch from the counterpart match in the previous series which the Brits won 3-1. The Wikipedia page discusses the format in great detail; there’s a complex qualification series for the Chinese team with the international matches as the reward.
In an hour and 40 minutes there are four (4) challenges, so it’s one to download and watch in VLC with speed on 2x or 4x. There’s a frankly ludicrous polygon-matching challenge, a wire-cutting colour-sequence memory challenge, a remarkable colour-and-picture memory challenge and a physical object memory challenge. The British team is captained by dear Ben Pridmore, as self-effacing and humble a man as you will meet, who nevertheless is required to deliver a series of overblown lines as if he were… well, these days, the closer analogy would be as if he were a Chaser. The show looks like a billion won (choosing to be literal here, even noting that I’m referencing the wrong currency). Take a guess at the score in advance; I’d be impressed by someone who could guess it correctly. There are incredible scenes along the way and some Dramatic Storytelling over the issue of the British team featuring four contestants and the Chinese team only three.
Hard to imagine where a British version of this might ever find traction, because it does need a certain sort of earnestness and reverence that normally doesn’t fly here – the closest I can think of would be Dara O’Briain’s School of Hard Sums but with fewer gags – but then again Rick Edwards did quote π to fifty decimal places on Fighting Talk today so you never know for sure. If the Quest channel ever had a budget of more than 50p then I might guess there.
“so it’s one to download and watch in VLC with speed on 2x”
No need: on the desktop version of YouTube, go to “Settings – Speed – 2”.
Quite interesting that most of it is build up and there’s essentially one question for most of the rounds. Maybe the amount of mental reconstruction to generate one answer is substantial, or perhaps it’s a case of diminishing returns.
Endemol France strangely dropped some compilation albums on streaming websites/iTunes – there’s APOAL (mostly the most recent run’s themes), Money Drop and some other gameshows too.
Incomplete tracks here (limited to 1’30) : https://play.idol.io/jean-michel-bernard-a-prendre-ou-a-laisser-la-musique https://play.idol.io/various-artists-moneydrop-la-musique https://play.idol.io/various-artists-les-meilleurs-generiques-tele-la-compilation , most likely also available at your legal music streaming service of choice.
Oh brilliant, I loved the APOAL soundtrack.
Aw, shame it doesn’t have the licensed stuff as well.
Did the recent remake have the same theme?
They’re on iTunes in the UK, £3.99 a pop, except for the 12 Coups de Midi soundtrack which is £4.99.
They kept a good chunk of the musical beds during box opening from Arthur’s original run and the rest was re-made.
Ninja Warrior’s getting its new series shown on Challenge from Monday.
They kept THAT quiet, didn’t they?