Well chaps, I’m very very busy for the next dew days so have a new post to talk about things.

I will put up a new post for discussion of Your Country Needs You on Friday, and at the weekend I’ll put up a few more old features and get round to analysing the numbers for General Knowledge on The Krypton Factor, which I expect you all thought I had forgotten about.

So I know the result already. But you can talk about it if you like.

Meanwhile, edit -spotters may note that the The Whole 19 Yards description has been edited slightly to avoid giving away exact details on the blindfold task in case they use it again, but a description of the end game has been added to compensate. So there you are.

Connecting Walls 11 through 15 are now online, apparently.

Well, Sport Relief Does We Are the Champions is a bit limp. For whatever reason they’ve decided to do it in a bit of a vaccum (one of the facilities at Ponds Forge), without loads of people cheering the teams on the show does rather lose its sense of occasion and fun. Games retain bonus scoring elements of the original (good) but if I’m being honest, the various obstacle courses aren’t convoluted enough (bad). Paddy MacGuinness spends his time making references that will go over the kids’ heads that aren’t all that funny for adults either, celebrity sports coaches don’t really add very much (other than an ability to look really uncomfortable reading off cue cards), limpness of re-recorded iconic theme sums up limpness of remake, really. It will be here all week.

Pointless changes seem amusingly pointless, although doubtless we’ll eventually get over them. I don’t get why a show whose entire premise was predicated on coming up with obscure answers off your own back has now mainly changed to trying to predict which of several answers the public is least likely to come up with, not so much pointless knowledge as educated guesswork. The trivia element is why the show was liked! In fact I don’t think I like any changes the show has made, the flow and pacing of the show seems very off and I hate the new large square display screen.

In summary: disappointing.

For various reasons (I’m off to see Stewart Lee this evening, Final Fantasy is out tomorrow YESIKNOWSHUTUP) this week will probably be a bit “quiet”.

So if you want to talk about Pointless or We Are the Champions which both start today and which I won’t be able to see until fairly late this evening, here is the ideal place for you to do exactly that. Or whatever else you want to bring up.

It’s getting lighter outside, but it’s getting heavy on the Board of Excitement, or something.

• The Bother Series of Poker Game 3 (Full Tilt, 2000 GMT/1500 Eastern, Sunday) – basically I’m missing flops and playing really badly, so it’s just free money. Let’s hope that no German bandits interrupt our game (thanks to David for the spam-filtered link). The page for Game 3 discussion is here. Edit: Congratulations to David for winning this, and unbelieveably we were attacked by German bandits. Oh man!
• Man In Box (All week, The Internet): I’m sort of not-quite addicted to this, but I am intrigued to see how it will all play out. Will it be break free… or breakdown?
• The Amazing Race (CBS, Sunday): The Cowboys are one of my favourite teams ever, I think. Although it was quite lucky that the tasks last week basically involved being a cowboy.
• We Are The Champions (CBBC, 4:30pm, Monday to Friday): Back for Sport Relief and repeated on BBC1 next week. Paddy MacGuiness hosts, swapping ‘Take Me Out’ for “away you go!” and celebrity coaches are promised.
• Pointless (BBC2, 4:30pm. Weekdays): The return of last year’s surprise sleeper hit with Alexander Armstrong and geek hero Richard Osman (presumably). It’s still 45 minutes, but there is one less couple so I don’t know how it’s going to work.
• Only Connect (BBC4, Monday, 8:30pm): Second quarter-final with the Brasenose Grads versus Tommy Scott And The Hitchikers.
• The Krypton Factor Grand Final (ITV1, 7:30pm, Tuesday) – Strange things are afoot – not only are there now proper adverts during the ad break, but it was actually advertised before Push the Button last night, despite not actually having been advertisied before now and the fact the ratings have consistently dropped over the series. I’m idly wondering if ITV are considering making a third series off their own back this year if Sage drop out. Anyway I was at the final so I know who wins, it’s a very exciting finish.
• Survivor (CBS, Thursday): This really has been tremendous so far. Although this weeks looks like another brawling-based challenge which seem to be getting more and more violent, which is increasingly uncomfortable viewing.
• Your Country Needs You (BBC1, 8:30pm, Friday): Yes, it’s time to vote for whoever is going to sing Pete Waterman’s Eurovision winning song this year. After last year’s successful series, this appears to be a one off vote.
• Solitary 4.0 (Fox Reality, Saturday): After a rather lacklustre previous episode, last week’s was once again tremendous featuring a bust-out of prison challenge (and OF COURSE the final key was hidden in the officer’s trousers that were hanging up – very Mole-like, which is interesting since US Mole had a similar task of its own a long time ago) and the return of the spin-lots-of-times-on-a-chair-until-you-can-take-no-more Challenge, this season with added mini-golf element. What’s not to like? I confidently predict this episode will be similar to the previous one, but with one less contestant.

Do you remember that thing that was briefly discussed a little while ago about DJ Tim Shaw being put inside a box for thirty days or until someone finds him and wins some cash?

It’s actually been going on for a few weeks, and seems to have had little-to-no publicity. So here is a link.

This week we enter the world of Australian sketch comedy with the very funny Shaun Micallef, and one of his Game Show Segments from The Micallef Program. Note: contains fake body parts.

I like his Blankety Blanks parody as well, and if you know who Ugly Dave Gray is you’ll get a little bit more from it.

…as this year’s UK Eurovision hopefuls are released (they all look boring), and with Pete Waterman writing this year’s tune, why in bloody hell haven’t we got six ex-Hit Factory people to choose from, that some people in Europe might have heard of to give us bonus points? Everyone in Europe is MENTAL for Sonia, and that is CAST IRON POP FACT.

Meanwhile, it looks like The Colour of Money has been accidentally left off the BAFTA TV Awards nominations

Actually whilst I’m linking to the BBC, why is it if you look up radio shows on iPlayer, all the DJs are represented with half their face cut-off? This is nothing to do with gameshows, it’s just an observation.

with it’s inevitable shark-and-other-things jumping on June 22nd.

That’s about the time we can expect to see episode two of series three of Total Wipeout, ho ho.

It’s Thursday, that means it’s time to put a picture up of a trophy to entice you to come and play our little game on Sunday night.

Details of The Bother Series of Poker can be found here, whilst the page for game three results and discussion can be found here.

You do not need to have played in the BotherSOP previously in order to play this time, although if you’re serious about winning the league and you haven’t played yet, you should play this one as two of the standard games results will be dropped at the end of the season, and you’ll already have two zeroes. and if you’re not serious, come and join us anyway for fun chat and gambly fun fun.

Although after last week I’ve compiled a list of people whose chances I don’t fancy: YOURS.