A producer writes:
“I’m making an investigative documentary about big money game shows and how they are made.
I’m looking to get in touch with contestants who took part in Million Pound Drop on Channel 4 (not £100,000 drop) at anytime it was on air, live shows and the later prerecorded ones.
At the moment we are just at the research stage so there is no obligation for anyone to take part in the programme.”
If that’s you then drop them a line.
Fridays, 8pm,
C4
It’s Taskmaster but with precocious kids!
Normally we wouldn’t bother listing a kids version of an existing show, but there are a few things that make this a bit more interesting. The Taskmaster is Rose Matafeo with Mike Wozniak as the assistant, which strikes us as being a pretty good combination, both feel like they have the right sort of demeanour for the job (although how spiky Matafeo will be with the kids remains to be seen). There’s a new Junior Taskmaster house (although if I was a kid would I like this or would I want the full-fat proper Taskmaster House experience?) and the whole thing seems to be being done in the tournament bracket style, with winners of each episode advancing to a semi-final and then final.
The Friday 8pm slot is one that C4 traditionally struggles in and Taskmaster is unusual in that it’s an entertainment show where about 60% of its viewers watch in +7 so I probably wouldn’t read too much into the overnight figures for this for now, although if it does half-a-mill plus on the night I expect everyone will be happy. For me I think there is A Bit Too Much Taskmaster These Days so I don’t know how much I’ll be watching, but still the reactions to it, and how well the target market react to it, ought to be interesting.
Let us know what you think in the comments below. There will also likely to be some chatter at #taskmasterchat in the Bother’s Bar Discord.
Saturdays, 9:10pm,
ITV1
TV’s biggest comedy double act – Romesh and his mum Shanthi, put celebs and their parents to the test in a quiz to win money for their chosen charities.
The celebs will answer the questions, their parents will be making bets on what and how much their kids know. Will they let their parents down? The winning team get the chance to double their bank in the endgame. Romesh’s mum will be keeping score and making sure her son does a good job.
Having the host’s mum as scorekeeper isn’t quite original, it’s something they played with on the US revival of To Tell The Truth not that long ago and they got six years out of it. We’ve quite enjoyed watching this relationship play out during BBC2’s The Ranganation across the last few years so it will be interesting to see how it fares in quiz form. It’s good of ITV to put this on in the few weeks Romesh wouldn’t be hosting The Weakest Link on the other side.
Watched it? Let us know what you think in the comments.
We had a fun e-mail from FOTB Gary Monaghan yesterday (titled BANZ-A.I. if you want to see where this is going) who is trying something out on Youtube (as it’s very hard to get this sort of thing commissioned on linear these days). To answer your future questions: “27”, and “I suspect it might end up being a lot of effort for not much reward but it might take off you never know.” He is intrigued by the feedback.
I scored one (I got the last one right) if you’re playing along at home.
Upcoming attractions: tomorrow there’s another Schlag den Star which we’ll be watching in the Discord, and we’ll have a Show Discussion post up for Romesh Ranganathan’s Parent’s Evening.
I don’t think I’ve seen any advertising for it outside of Stephen Mulhern’s Twitter. I’m slightly baffled by this new world of ITV advertising where they don’t seem to bother putting any effort into advertising the return of their popular shows (see also this year’s Big Brother). Last year it launched to a 2.5m overnight which was pretty incredible, can’t see it doing the same thing this time.
Two things caught my eye today.