Tuesdays, 9pm,
ITV1
I reckon that a semi-serious celebrity motor racing show might have some mileage (as it were), after all everyone likes the Star In A Reasonably Priced Car bit from Top Gear (and of course Star Makes A Reasonably Priced Omelette from Saturday Kitchen), and driving’s the sort of thing you could get quite good celebrities for as like ballroom dancing it’s considered a “fun” skill.
So with this in mind current newsmaker Vernon Kay challenges eight celebs to compete in various races and driving tasks, beginning with banger racing this evening. From ITV:
Taking to the tracks are rapper Professor Green, singer Ella Eyre, impresario Louis Walsh, comedian Johnny Vegas, Olympic athlete Colin Jackson, TV presenter Mariella Frostrup, weather expert Laura Tobin and actor and broadcaster Angus Deayton.
It’s certainly a good line-up filled with people who don’t really need to do this sort of thing, the big question is will they have the action balance right and have they overformatted it? The fear is it’s Eternal Glory But In Cars and might be better served as a straight celebrity racing league.
Still we’re hopeful and the 9pm slot suggests some confidence from ITV, even if it’s in the Tuesday deadzone. Still, the only way out is to try and grow things, will this be the success?
Well we have a gameshow trifecta- Keith Barry, the hypnotist for You’re Back in the Room, has joined the upcoming US version, on top of the Australian version that premiered this past week…
http://thefutoncritic.com/news/2016/04/05/taye-diggs-to-host-hypnotizing-comedy-game-show-youre-back-in-the-room-working-title-809415/20160405fox01/
I don’t mind YBITR. Decent Saturday night entertainment for the whole family, and watching the contestants have free reign of Phil Schofield often leads to hilarious results
Agree – it’s TV that doesn’t pretend to be anything more than it is and something you can just watch one episode of – or even one part – and enjoy.
Drive makes me wonder how Superchamps ever made it to air. It must have cost an absolute bundle for a small unassuming Channel 4 show. Granted the presentation was low-tech and there were no stars to pay for, and there was such a thing as a budget when there were only four channels. Still, though.
Drive was all right.
This was actually pretty entertaining, albeit a bit cheap looking.
I’m not quite sure what the point of the Wreckers were in round one, they didn’t really seem to do anything except act as rolling roadblocks, I thought they’d be shunting people out of the race.
I’m not entirely sure I get the entertainment in having formats where the winners of the first bit then have to sit everything else out until the next week, similarly I hate the fact we have eliminations as we have now lost the show’s main comic relief in week one and we’ll never find out if they’re any good at off-road buggying (probably not, but no chance of any Johnny Vegas style surprise talent now either).
Night Time Trial more like.
Good interplay between the celebs. I do recommend giving this a watch even if you don’t think it will be your bag.
I think the reality a ‘racing league’ without eliminations just simply wouldn’t be commissioned in this day and age. There has to be more to the format than that for consideration.
That said, I really enjoyed this! Good fun.
On an entirely different note, is this the first time James Allen has appeared on ITV since the F1 rights were lost? He seems to have become the utility commentator for this kind of thing, having popped up when Guy Martin was on the Wall of Death.
Could today be the final ever Deal Or No Deal?
Channel 4 have around 45 more in the can apparently but there is a huge break coming up for more racing and 15-1…after which they may think that they can’t be bothered to show them
Given how expensive it is to make television, and given that it’s consistently getting 300k or so in it’s slot (watch the figures for 15-1 if they get released), I can’t imagine they won’t get shown. Although it’s a shame the show probably won’t get the send off it deserves.
Sadly that’s what happens when a show goes on long after it should have done.
Not watched it for ages but assume the episodes are all quite generic now with no reference to the date.
Just two million for episode one apparently. It deserved more than that.
No rating for episode two yet, which suggests it’s pretty bad.
I still think the show is basically entertaining, despite the loss of two of the more interesting people in the first two weeks, but I can’t shake off the fact it all feels a little bit like an early 90s cash-in VHS.
1.6m all-in!