With thanks to Jack to alerting us to the new Turkish version of Avanti un Altro! which is OK but a bit baffling.
However this morning we watched Au Suivant, the French-Canadian version currently airing on Radio Canada which you can watch using the dark arts. It’s actually very good, by far the best version of the format outside of Italy. It plays down the comedy aspect that defines the Italian show (although don’t take that to mean it gets rid of it, host Stéphane Bellavance is as congenial as they come and looks like Chris Moyles) whilst keeping the energy up and plays up the quiz aspect – around fifteen rounds in its 35 minutes of main game. It does not have a regular set of characters, instead twice a show the stage opens up and people are bought in to show off their talent or skill and then a round of questions is asked on it. The carousel seems to have a lot more special scrolls, including bonus prizes.
I really like it, it’s proof the show can work without Paolo Bonolis if it’s approached the right way, although I’ve got no idea how well it’s rating. It’s been running weekdaily since September.
Actually two things: The questions in the final are clearly fairly easy (Q21 in yesterday’s episode was ‘Pixel or Pixar, which is a Disney animation studio?’) and there doesn’t look like a sudden death element which remains a silly omission.
Just watched this-it’s actually good if incredibly cheap. My french isn’t perfect, but I think Stephane said at the top that the top prize is $50,000- surely that’s practically impossible to win with those amounts.
Another interesting concept I noticed on the episode I watched- if a contestant picks a Duel scroll, they get to re-pick their scroll (rather than it just being a 0 scroll as it is with La Pariglia in Italy).
Yes, I actually think that’s a solid change I’d have done. They’ve thought through a lot of the implications. I’m intrigued by a lot of the special scrolls on the right, is that $1k and spin again?
I don’t know if you only get to keep the bonus money if you’re sitting in the Champion’s seat at the end or get it anyway, it looks like you get some cash for winning regardless. Neither of these things are bad.
The prizes are quite cheap, but I suspect the low prizes are because Radio Canada are a public service broadcaster and have to be a bit careful. I think the way they’re positioned with the big money in the middle column rather then in order left to right top to bottom doesn’t feel quite right.
Bonus scrolls are : 1K/750 and a ask-the-audience if you’re stuck on a question , and the other ones seems to be guaranteed 500$/trip whatever happens (nice way to get some product placement). There’s also a minimum 1K house minimum for a failure in bonus round.
I do like the way they’re dealing with special themed questions – it’s obviously discarding the zanyness from AuA but quite well made.
Yes, 50K$ jackpot, that’s French-Canadian public TV so the top prize can’t be that high. At least the cannister prize structure is flat (15K/10K/7.5/6/5/4/3/2/1.5K), 10K added in the final round – also it it’s toned-down to be not Nintendo Hard level like the original Italian version well you can’t make the jackpot that big 🙂
(Quebec province also has a tax on promotional contests offering prizes to Quebec residents, % based if it’s quebec-only or wider and total prize offered. Don’t know if it’s applying also to game shows but that could hurt prize budget quite a lot)
It seems as if Who Dares Wins started a new ‘series’ tonight (but in reality, just a mid series break) so it seems a bit stupid that the BBC couldn’t find space for last weeks episode a couple of months ago as tonight started with 2 brand new pairs!
I couldn’t quite tell but it looks as if Nick and his cards / tablet were missing the National Lottery strap this week too so looks like they may have known about the Lotto axe before filming this part of the series
If memory serves, this ‘series’ was recorded in early October – so whilst not widly publicized at the time – 12 Yard & the BBC would have known it by then.
As someone who went off WDW in 2012 before getting back into it last year, one thing I’m curious to know is: why did they stop displaying the surnames of the contestants after the 2012 series?
Was it merely change for change’s sake… or was it for reasons that are fairly obvious but probably shouldn’t be mentioned on this site?
Anyone know about the Daniel Radcliffe credited as an Additional Question Setter on this week’s Only Connect?
He’s been a contributor before IIRC.
Big fan of the show, apparently. His was the one about secessionist states.
His previous one, according to a small amount of research, was about the record labels of the Sex Pistols – he’s certainly got a number of of outside interests!
Gyles Brandreth was on Pointless Celebrities tonight – his third appearance at least.
I believe Trev and Simon have made at least three appearances on Pointless too, although of course the 1000th episode technically wasn’t a Celeb episode.
Have any other famous faces had at least three goes at winning a Pointless trophy at this stage? (I say “at least”, because I just don’t have the time to look through all the episode guides on the BBC website – plus the ones for the first few Celeb series don’t list all the participants.)
Pretty sure the Chuckle Brothers have been on three times.
I think I’ve read Richard Herring say he’s got a third appearance coming up but not sure if it’s been aired yet.
I also have a feeling that Arlene Phillips might have been on three times
Cheers Daniel.
Looks like Christopher Biggins has been on three times too.
Here’s something extremely cool for Amateur Adventure Hour… well, sort of.
An escape room in Canada ran a short-term/pop-up room escape game with a festive theme, but not one of the usual festive ones, before Christmas. Once the game had completed its run, they invited a group who run an escape room podcast to play the room but to do so wearing GoPro head/chest-mounted cameras and turn it into a video. So it’s a walkthrough of an escape room that no longer exists. Each of the four players wears a GoPro so you can get four different perspectives on the action. It’s unusual and extremely cool; you can spend forty minutes quite happily at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRlNeFsLFto if you like.
Why is it only sort of amateur? Well, it’s definitely amateur in that there’s no money in it and it was done out of love; it’s arguably not amateur in that the guy who made the video does the same thing as his real life job. He’s put a lot of work into this; the production values are sweeeeeeet. Does this make it Semi-Pro Adventure Hour? Semi-Go-Pro Adventure Hour?
The new commentator for Schlag den Star has been revealed. His name is Elmar Paulke, and he’s well known for commentating on the World Darts Championship for German TV.
Next show is on Saturday 18th Feb
I was recently pointed to the Au Suivant episode of one Ryan Vickers, who you declared to be a FotB in 2013. Worth watching!
Yep, long time FotB, watched this when it first went out.
Chris – glad you enjoyed! As you might have guessed it was a wonderful experience – especially the hosting bit! If you have any questions please let me know!