That’s right, join us as we spend next Saturday night embodying Reithian values when we inform, educate and entertain over another five hours of German megashow Schlag den Star, the first of six for the year. This month Elton will be hosting as handball icon Stefan Kretzschmar takes on pop star Tim Bendzko. There’s a new commentator in the form of Elmar Paulke, and the German Eurovision entrant will be guesting (with their song, presumably).
Meanwhile we’ll be trying to work out what’s going on and will have fun and games and interactivity during the adverts and boring bits.
So make sure you join us at 7:15pm UK time next Saturday!
Here in Ireland, TV3 is showing an old episode of The Cube every Saturday night.
Of course, there hasn’t been a new episode for 18 months now (and hence the show wasn’t eligible for the 2016 Golden Five). The tabloids claimed last June that ITV had said that the show was “in the mix” for 2017 and hadn’t been axed, but AFAIK there have been no further reports since.
Obviously, The Cube is far less popular now than it was when it began. And it inevitably stopped being event television once Mo Farah’s win had aired.
But it *did* get over five million viewers when it led into the X Factor; it *has* spawned eleven international versions (plus the CBS pilot with Neil Patrick Harris); and it certainly has been a national talking point.
So for it to be quietly cancelled without even an official confirmation would be a real shame. I think it deserves one last series, with a proper and dignified farewell at the end (and maybe – just maybe – the Body could finally unmask herself, too).
For all its success, there is a nagging doubt that Cube has consistently underperformed ratings-wise – an expensive show with good lead-ins should be doing better numbers than it does – and it’s hard to put a finger on why. Certainly the way it was edited in the early days with ‘neat’ episodes didn’t help the tension. And that nobody with fewer than 3 lives left is going to play the next game no matter how much money you offer them.
One TV exec I talked to said that, for all of its lovely style elements, it’s not a very appealing show to women, and I guess I can see that. I don’t know if that’s borne out by the demos it gets.
My understanding is that for it’s low raw figures it was getting very handy demos – very young men, basically, who weren’t watching much else on ITV, so it was filling a gap.
I liked The Cube but there were several series where I barely bothered enough to watch it.
It’s not a very appealing show to women, eh?
Well, it *does* feel like there have been more male contestants than female ones (I haven’t watched every episode, mind). Plus all five six-figure winners – civilian and celeb – have been men.
But I certainly wouldn’t use the word “blokey” to describe The Cube, even with the Body and Colin McFarlane’s voice. And pretty much all the games are capable of being completed by men and women without having to be tailored for either gender.
Any sexism is not intended.
Didn’t someone from the Saturdays get £100k?
Not according to UKGS’s All Time Winners List.
Tom from McFly did, though.
I know for a fact Mollie King from the Saturdays won a hundred grand because I watched the episode. I’ll fix it when I get to a computer.
It was 2014 I think? Final game was I *think* Structure, I don’t remember much of it because I was in a hotel room at the time and it was in 2014 when everyone collectively stopped watching.
After coming across it on YouTube, I stand corrected. Thanks, Thomas and Alex. 🙂
Capacity was her £250k game – five attempts at reducing her time from 27.5 seconds to 20. I think she was quite right to say no.
And it did indeed air on 28 June 2014 – by which time, it’s probably fair to say, considerably more people were talking about a certain afternoon show hosted by Ben Shephard… 😉
The 1980s computer game aesthetic couldn’t be more blokes unless Dolph Lundgren fired off live ammo during the games.
Fair enough.
Francesco Gabbani won the Sanremo song contest and will represent Italy at the ESC!
Here’s a random find. A episode of the citv gameshow eliminator
This is really quite an underappreciated show.
Although the first team got some quite hard level two questions towards the end on the rooftop I reckon.
The 12th episode of Society Game is up. I haven’t seen the last 7 episodes, but maybe this is the finale and worth watching. I really hope for a lot of flashbacks, so I understand it entirely.
Thanks, I gave up after episode three so might give it a look.
In the realm of underappreciated shows, an ep of Time Vine’s masterpiece Fluke has finally shown up.
https://youtu.be/C4TKxfK9TDE
Nice!