We weren’t expecting this to be a greatly exciting week in truth, believing the highlights to be For What It’s Worth starting again in the afternoons and 500 Questions starting in the US again tomorrow night but one the things I like most about running this place is the things that unexpectedly come up – we meant to have a look at Belgian Mole earlier in the year but didn’t want to get into it the same time as the Dutch version, and it’s brilliant, a really modern and stylish vision of the format as if it were just starting out and highly recommended.
But I was sent a link to something yesterday which I remembered watching when it went out 25 years ago and didn’t think I’d ever see again, the broadcast pilot of ITV’s Skyrunners from 1990, hosted by Andrew O Connor and featuring Gemma Craven and Suzi Quattro. It was evidently designed to be an ITV take on Treasure Hunt (women in helicopters! Clue solving!) which would have finished a year earlier but manages to be genuinely terrible in quite interesting ways that ambitious shows from the early 90s often are.
What’s kind of incredible is that they’ve actually basically invented La Carte Aux Tresors five years before La Carte Aux Tresors but where that has beautiful scenery, a sense of adventure and an amazing soundtrack here we have Austin Mitchell trying to solve clues without any information to go on (I love how Andrew basically has to just tell them the answers half the time), a theme tune that doesn’t really fit (although admittedly I quite like the incidental music) and some hilarious proto-ADR. I don’t get why the penalty for extra hints is only ten seconds when it takes minutes to fly anywhere – you might as well just take them early. The teams are working towards a puzzle which seems to have no consequence whatsoever.
Still it’s great news for fans of early Compaq laptops as two feature prominently.
With thanks to Gordon Donaldson for the tip-off.
So some news from German 500 questions: It starts July 4th and will air in the same slot as Jauchs Millionaire, on mondays at 20:15 Uhr. The rest is almost identical to the things we know so far, I think. We have rounds of thirty questions sorted into ten categories. Each correct answer that is the first answer given gives you 1000€, every othe correct will just get you through without one of the max two mistakes (third mistake means your out). The mistakes are erased with the next correct answer. There are four types of questions: normal ones, lists, duels and speed rounds (not sure we had them before: you get 10 questions that are general knowledge and current headlines but you just get one try per question). And getting through all 500 questions will be awarded with an additional 2 million €.
Furthermore there is a referee: Ralf Schnoor, one time millionaire winner who will also be one of the celebrities the 1250th episode of millionaire, will clear things up whenever it’s a close call. No idea how this is necessary, but the press release thinks it is.
Noel and the ‘future’ of Deal
http://noel.world/deal-or-no-deal/
The speed round is new this time around here in the US as well- though it’s 2 minutes and the 3-miss rule is still in play (one thing that’s different is that while the time to answer for each normal question has been cut from 10 seconds to 5, they get money if any answer is right, not just the first one)
Interesting, we only have 5 seconds and the old rule. I’m curious to see how difficult questions will be then.