Well this looks as though it might be fun, Tiger Aspect looking for people to play detective. Click for slightly larger, but send an e-mail to detectives@tigeraspect.co.uk if you’re intrigued.
Someone mentioned The Murder Game and Whodunnit? on here quite recently, both deeply flawed but both mildly entertaining, hope this is better.
Well whatever it is, it must be Better than escape the night.
Time to open that well again by sharing with you an emial i had with andy denhart on reality blurred!
Hey Andy.
Have you ever got around to watching the rest of Joey Graceffa’s, Youtube red show Escape The Night? Its….. Disappointing, Tbh. To quote an (entire) post i had on a fourm once…
“Oh by the way…. escape the night (that youtube red tv show/whodunnit… ripoff/clone) got renewed for a second season. http://www.tubefilter.com/2016/10/17/youtube-red-renews-joey-graceffas-escape-the-night/
you can watch the first season in its entirety using dark arts here.
(LINK REDACTED. IF YOU WANT, REPLY)
You know that first episode that looks promising? After that it gets worse once you realize the format is “solve escape the room puzzle, than vote people up for elimination with no link between.”
Seriously.
Quoting Wikipedia for the show…
“To find the artifacts, the guests must solve puzzles the house presents to them in order for them to continue. Once they have found an artifact, they must vote for who to participate in an elimination challenge. There, if they lose, they are eliminated via death. This is the standard format for the episodes, as there are variants where guests simply vote on who is eliminated, others have the guests work together in the elimination, where failure meant a specific elimination for a guest.
(Spoilers for the episode 5 and the rest)
Halfway throughout the series, it is revealed that in order to truly defeat the house the remaining guests have to free the spirits of the previous owners by doing their unfinished business. This is done via solving puzzles and voting guests for elimination; otherwise, there is no difference between this and the first half.[9] In the final episode, one or more guests must solve puzzles and succeed challenges to defeat the “Wicked One” seen in the cold openings, complete the vanquish spell with the artifacts and bury them before sunrise to “escape the night”. The winning guests are able to leave the house and travel back to 2016.”
You think there’s more, but THAT’s it! The group is either solving escape room puzzles. or voting people of for the elimination challenge, with no link between,meaning that the best player at the puzzles could be voted off and eliminated. Why? ill get to that later. And that until sunrise “time limit”? only relevant at the final episode. At least whodunnit had a GAME.
You think that unlike whodunnit,since there no traitor this time that leaves more time for the group to solve puzzles, well at the end of episode 2, it revealed that “one of them is working for the evil” Who is it? why its NONE OF THEM. But the head of staff ,an NPC! meaning that a guest could be eliminated because there SO good at the puzzles that the guest suspect that they are the “wicked one”.
when in reality it just creates more group tension and filler and worthwhile players get eliminated due to unnecessary suspicion. And what is with this “society against evil” Stuff? (it sounds like a bad supernatural fan fic.) its only there to mark clues and Thats it.
SIGH….. Over all, its worse than whodunnit. HOWEVER I am going to give it a second chance due to the renewal. Im mad Cause i liked whodunnit but That dosent get renewed, And it got plagiarized by this.
(did you know this got produced by brian graden. media, witch later made finding prince charming, a straight up bachelor clone?)”
After rewatching the entire series, my point still stands. While the (purely) scripted segments are nice, i would of preferred it if there were more of them throughout the entire series, instead of just relegated to the cold openings. I like the puzzles too, though i wish they matted more in the actual game and stuff,
Later episodes have weird challenges were players could be eliminated from the challenge, then when its over they come back. IDK what happens if all of them lose, but to me, it should be that those challenge losers could be voted for in the elimination.
My main problem with the show is that the puzzles are just something the contestants DO most of the time when their not voting, and there is no advantage or punishment for being good/bad at them. other than “you can go on to the elimination”. Quest and whodunnit”s puzzles and challenges determined who stayed and who goes, while this? Filler. all of the time. Except the first episode. Which is sad, Because the Presentation most of the time is really good! quest good even. One scene looked so genuine to me, it looked like immersive theater.(episode 3 ‘s seance) its better than whodunnit in terms of that department. One problem with the presentation i do have, is the guest… “Roleplay” Though(sometimes) they act if the events were real, they dont act like their in “character” but they act like themselves most of the time. This itself isint a problem itself, but it makes you wonder why did they have titles like “the savant” or”the mobster” in the first place when their not going to do something with them. And they honestly dont know what to do what to do with Joey, the “host” most of the time. he acts like a contestant most of the time, solving puzzles and participating in challenges, to the point where he is voted into an elimination challenge in one of the episodes (episode 4) yet in the first episode he a opening sequence VEEEEERY similar to giles in whodunnit, implying he knows(somewhat) about the events to come. I honestly suspected HIM to be the wicked one, yet no.
Sigh… This is a very frustrating series for me. as there are good parts there (some even exceeding its predecessors), But there is no GAME to speak of, unlike whodunnit and the quest. It yet still proves we are still struggling to make The fledgling Reality/scripted genre work, and if they do work, they are short lived. (This is honestly a good idea for the confessional, probably written by me.).
However, There is still hope for this show as there is a (upcoming) season 2 slated for this year. If they change the format So that there is actual link between solving puzzles and putting up people for elimination, Decide what to actually do with joey, hopefully get rid of the whole role-play aspect or do Some thing with it, Then this could Be a version of whodunnit that is just as good, if not better. As it stands right now, Its disappointing and frustrating. A mixed bag if you will.
But what do you think? After all, you are the critic here. 🙂
If you’re wondering what the redacted link was, it was this.
123movies.is/film/escape-the-night-season-1-13759
EDIT: 123movies.is/film/escape-the-night-season-1-13759/watching.html
If anyone has been persistent enough to scroll down and read this post after the last one…
Hmm. Tiger Aspect are behind this. They are the prod company who make the patchy comedy ‘Murder In Sucessville’, so wondering if this show is a ‘not for laughs’ version of this.
Murder in Successville is coming back for another series too, apparently.
You probably will need the dark arts to see it outside the US, but the trailer for MTV’s “Stranded with a Million Dollars” is up…
http://thefutoncritic.com/news/2017/01/18/mtv-announces-provocative-new-survival-series-stranded-with-a-million-dollars-833311/20170118mtv01/
This could be interesting- especially with the “need vs greed” aspect of it (do you want to spend $30,000 on a two person tent to help the others out- or do you think not buying it will get someone to quit, increasing your share of the money?)
I read about this this evening, it seems to be exactly the same idea as Dutch show Get The Fuck Out Of My House but on an island with 10 people rather than an overcrowded house with 100.
Bit of unrelated news, but if you don’t fancy watching Trump’s inauguration this afternoon and have Freesat, on channel 250 (called Frontrunner) at 4pm, there’s 2 episodes of The Indoor League
Also available to Freeview HD viewers who can access stuff like Vintage and Talking Pictures TV (i.e. the other temporary multiplexes). I believe it’s the first (non-networked) series, which was also shown over Christmas to much joy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2017/new-daytime-commissions
Info on upcoming BBC One game show ‘The Boss’:
“The Boss is a brand new quiz show hosted by Susan Calman full of clever questions, cunning contestants – and real fun. In each episode, one contestant becomes The Boss and then has to use judgement and tactics, to decide which player is best suited to answer a mixture of general knowledge and brainteaser questions. Making the right choices is crucial and The Boss has to identify each player’s strengths and weaknesses early on. The right decisions will ultimately decide how much money can be won at the end of the show.
But, to win the cash, The Boss has to stay in power – and, at the end of every round, the remaining contestants could choose to challenge him or her, in a tense and cut-throat head-to-head battle that will see one player eliminated. At the end of the show, only The Boss and the one surviving player remain. As their loyalty is truly tested in one final twist, who will take home the cash?”
I’m really happy they chose Susan Calman, she is fantastic on Top Class.
That last line screams Prisoner’s Dilemma to me, I do hope not.
It is a BBC Entertainment (Salford) production, so maybe not.
By the way – something of a rarity these days – it will have your proper actual real audience.
‘Raises hand in the air’ interest form on the BBC Tickets website.
If it was an EndemolShine format – I’d say “here we go again, give it up will you?”
It could be that The Boss at the end has to decide how much money to give the last player standing. Not exactly prisoner dilemma, more ‘casting and final decision’
However, the way the format has been written just feels like a re-tooling of something we’ve seen before. Beat The Pack, maybe?
This sounds quite a lot like GR££D with Jerry Springer, which isn’t a bad thing I think I was the one viewer channel 5 got for it when they tried it out.
I’m trying to remember a game show I used to watch, but can’t for the life of me think what it was called.
It was an outside obstacle course, but also was set in a studio for questions or something. I don’t know what channel it was on originally, but I think it was on Challenge around 2010.
Another thing, from what I can remember from the contestants’ clothes, it aired originally in the 80s or 90s.
I would say it’s The Krypton Factor, but surely you know The Krypton Factor.
Aha! It is The Krypton Factor.
I really should have known that, but I have never actually watched it before. I only got into watching game shows recently and this is one of those I haven’t watched much.
I remember enjoying the obstacle parts, but it must not have had a very big impact on me otherwise I would have remembered the name.
I used to find the revived series quite cool with the opening titles in how Sage the sponsor managed to blend in so well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8SsvZLcDSY
Activate the Kube
In fact the entire set almost feels like a bit of a pilot set for Tipping Point
Speaking of the clothes worn by KF contestants… whose big idea was it to make them wear polo shirts in ’92 and ’93?
More often than not, they didn’t look all that good on the ladies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4DAsJRkKLE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccLTPIYmYO0
It was much better when they were allowed to wear what they liked, provided it included something that matched their allocated colour. Men wearing ties, ladies wearing dresses – and Marian Chanter wearing a red scarf in the ’87 final.
I always thought that was quite clever, and they never really pointed it out either.
But in ’87 they also had the hideous tracksuits for Response and Physical Ability in the player colour with odd bits of futuristic trim around the shoulders in a different player colour.
Unlike Marian Chanter, they did not cope well with being dropped in the water and mud at the end of the assault course.
Not a bad effort on editing out the Lotto references on Who Dares Wins, although it did feel very weird during the end credits without the voiceover from Deadly!
The titles also seem a bit bare now they’ve removed the National Lottery strap too!
I agree – it felt like something was missing from the titles.
Aha! I must be Mystic Meg! I felt there’s a gap in the TV spectrum for an immersive, smart murder mystery thing (and not just done “for laughs”, as you say). Hope this makes it to TX and is at least half decent. 😀
(By the way, needless to say Spies was boring as hell – super disappointed with that one. Just dull and poorly executed).
Agree re: Spies. Really not delivering what it should and could probably do with more of a structure with a mixture of individual, team and deception missions. Also just seems no point – any sense of achievement the winner will get is undone by the fact doing it on TV, even with underwhelming ratings, means it isn’t going to open a new career path. Well, unless it is the perfect cover.
The whole ‘Control observing the candidates’ thing is really slowing down the pace of Spies. I can’t recall a whole lot about it now, but BBC Three’s ‘Spy’ had a lot more footage of the street exercises and therefore more chance of ‘incident’ happening.
Also, Spies is taking about 2.5 hours to get to the level that Spy got to in its first 20 minutes (namely, ID, getting info from strangers).
This sounds interesting – I used to love The Murder Game and with a few changes it could have been a really good show. Whodunnit was also interesting and a good watch, though again needed a few tweaks to make a bit more sense!
Two more things of note – Swedish Fort Boyard is back on. I actually much prefer their version to the French one – I think the end game is genuinely more exciting as you often don’t know who’s going to win right up until the very last moment.
Duell der Stars on Sat.1 is actually quite good too – a few interesting games in there!