Show Discussion: The Fortune Hotel

By | May 12, 2024
18 Comments

Monday-Thursdays, 9pm, also repeated around 11:45pm and 3am
ITV1

Thanks to The Traitors, we’re probably in for a full raft of strategic reality games where people hold some sort of secret but we as the audience know everything and the contestants don’t. For The Traitors, our privileged position works, conversations aren’t just conversations, they are loaded conversations and the results are dramatic and funny and the strategy is long-term. Here Tuesday Child are hoping the same magic works with, effectively, Find the Lady.

Ten couples check into Stephen Mangan’s Fortune Hotel and are handed a briefcase. One of them contains £250,000, eight are apparently empty, one of them contains an “Early Checkout”. They will do challenges and the night ends up with a case swapping party in Lady Luck’s Bar (I would presume doing best in the challenge means getting to swap a case last but I don’t know). Keep hold of the money, avoid the Early Checkout. It feels like the game is not so much having the money as avoiding the elimination, so with nine suitcases effective victories I’m not entirely sure “we know everything” is going to have quite the same cache. I’m hoping there’s some nuance that’s not coming through with the press releases.

We’ll see though, ITV have gone quite big on this, it almost seems a shame to have wasted a big sunny getaway resort just as the UK is beginning to bask in a load of sunshine. I’m afraid because this is peak period for my actual real life job I’m not going to get to watch this as it goes out, I’ll be playing catch-up, but I look forward to reading your comments below.

Show Discussion: Double the Money

By | May 8, 2024
8 Comments

Thursday, Fridays various, 8pm,
Channel 4

Channel 4 take on the BBC’s successful Enterprise Thursdays block with a new reality gameshow. Sue Perkins gives couples £250 seed money which they have to double within a time limit to stay in the game, then they must keep redoubling until presumably one team remain standing who win… some money. To make things harder, you can’t use the same method in a later round.

The advert where there are loads of people standing at podiums whilst Perkins goes “did you… double the money?” already feels like quite a tedious moment of tension and it hasn’t even started yet, you should already have an idea surely. Still we may get some entertaining side-hustle ideas. I presume starting an OnlyFans is out.

We’re going to have to watch the first episode over the weekend but if you’ve watched it let us know what you thought about it in the comments.

Edit: Thanks to Gameshow Herodotus Daniel Hurst, the schedule for this is Thursday, then Friday the next day, then the following Friday, so best of luck following that.

Board of Excitement – Early-to-Mid May 2024 Edition

By | May 6, 2024
2 Comments

There are quite a lot of things happening across the next fortnight, so to help you keep track here’s a list of new things that are happening:

  • The Finish Line (Weekdays 4:30pm, BBC1) – new series of the kinetic quiz. Kinetiquiz. I hope there’s a bit more dopamine this time around. We discussed Series 1 here, we’re not going to do a new post for it.
  • Celeb Beat the Chasers (Monday-Thursday, 9pm, ITV1) – New episodes.
  • The Eurovision Song Contest (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, 8pm, BBC1) – if international affairs suggest this might be a controversial Eurovision, just wait until everyone sees Olly’s staging, if the shots are anything to go by.
  • Double the Money (Thursday, 8pm, C4) – New Sue Perkins entrepreneurial gameshow format encouraging side-hustles, everyone starts with seed money of £250, they have to double and then keep redoubling it within time limits to stay in the game, using a different method each round. The last team standing presumably wins some money.
  • Celebrity Popmaster TV (Monday and Tuesday, 9pm, More 4) – I don’t know if Monday and Tuesday are the plans going forward (they’re also both repeated on More 4 at 6:55pm on Friday if streaming is a problem for you). A whole week of it felt a bit much last year, so it’s probably for the best. We discussed Series 1 here, we’re not going to do a new post for the new series.
  • The Fortune Hotel (Monday-Thursday, 9pm, ITV1) – Stephen Mangan encourages ten couples to play big money Find The Lady in a hot beachy part of the world to win £250,000. First ep goes on until 22:10 displacing the news, get over yourself frankly Mangan.
  • The 8 Show (17th May, Netflix) – new entry in our favourite GAMESHOW OF DEATH K-dramas.

Also more Taskmaster is being added to Netflix on Thursday, which I suspect is better news for our international readers than anyone who can just get All 4 or whatever.

Dead Chiffres et Dead Lettres

By | May 5, 2024
1 Comment

It’s being reported in the French press that Des Chiffres et Des Lettres is finally being put to pasture (or out of its misery depending on your point of view) after fifty years.

That’s really not bad going considering it’s basically spent the last twenty years of its existence fighting to stay on the screen, after repeated asks to be more relevant and attract younger audiences. In 2022 they replaced long-running and popular co-hosts Arielle Boulin-Prat and Bernard Renard and moved to a weekend-only slot, neither strategies bucked the numbers.

It will end with some sort of bang, a celebration of sorts with original host (and sometime producer) Patrice Laffont and current host Laurent Romejko (who has been hosting since 1992).

This is quite a boring week

By | April 29, 2024
2 Comments

Next week you’ve got The Finish Line series two (BBC1 weekdaily), Double the Money (C4 Thursday), I Kissed A Girl (BBC3 (Sunday), a week of Beat the Chasers (ITV1 weeknightly) and of course The Eurovision Song Contest (BBC1, Tues/Thurs/Sat). This week: Na-da. Nothing. Same old.

So here’s a regular feature from the Discord, some BARB Top 50 ratings highlights for The Sorts Of Things That Are Relevant. If you want numbers up to FOUR significant figures, you can find them and the entire top 50 on the BARB website. These are consolidated +7 numbers, including pre-transmission and devices.

Bother’s Bar BARBed Wire 15th-21st April 2024
1 – Britain’s Got Talent (Launch) 7.0m
2 – BGT (Sunday) 6.2m
4 – The Apprentice Final 6.0m
6 – Race Across the World 5.0m
8 – The 1% Club 4.7m
12 – Have I Got News For You 4.0m
29-32 (Various, 3 eps) Masterchef 3.3-3.4m
30 – The Apprentice: You’re Fired 3.4m
37-50 (Various, 5 eps) The Chase 2.4-2.9m
38 – Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr 2.9m