Mondays, 9pm,
BBC4
This almost slipped past but thankfully we remembered just in time, food critic and wargame fanatic Gregg Wallace (yes, really) oversees this three episode reboot of Time Commanders.Â
This time two teams will take on the computer war simulation (Total War, if you were wondering) before taking on each other in the final. In the first episode a team of wrestlers take on a team of board gamers and recreate Hannibal vs the Romans. Will history be changed?
Being honest I didn’t really watch Time Commanders first time round (although we’re certainly open to this sort of thing so it wasn’t on taste grounds) so I look forward to seeing how fans of the original compare this to the original.
There’s a trailer for the first episode in case you’ve missed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4r4YXbndUc
I’m not a wargamer, I couldn’t really get into it up until the final battle which had lots going on and was fun. I found the skirmishes, which I found a bit difficult to follow, detracted from the actually very interesting factual stuff. Impressed at how enthusiastic Wallace was for the whole thing.
Like I say, I didn’t really watch the original so don’t really have much to compare it to.
I have nothing to compare it to either but a few things caught my eye.
If your general dies, shouldn’t your general shut up?
The time outs were just called all of a sudden. I feel a button by the side of the set to hit would make it a bit more of a statement. The general has to pull themselves away to call a stop and you get a good shot of them hitting a button (which i find more exciting). Just a thought though.
It felt quite slow and wasn’t aided by the gamers being some of the most irritating people to watch. The weapon vt’s were interesting and that presenter was fun.
Greg seemed overexcited and I wonder if a second host would do some good.
I did enjoy the camera shots both accross the field and the studio though.
Overall, enjoyable and deserves another chance next week.