A big surprise is promised. What could it be?

In the meantime, if I can sort out the iPad’s exciting synching issues, look out for a review of the The Cube app sometime on Wednesday. I’ve got seven or eight things to review lined up.

Right, I’ve got a jolly exciting idea coming this week, in the meantime here’s what immediately springs to mind Board of Excitement wise – if you think there should be something else on here, put it in the comments:

• Only Connect (8:30pm, Monday BBC4): It’s the new one, and apparently there’s a surprise in store. What could it be? Lets hope it isn’t massively disappointing. Epicurans vs Courtiers – it’s good to see they’ve raised the highbrow bar in the teamnames right there. The BBC blurb suggests that one team is three university chums with a love of food, and the other a trio of Ulstermen but I couldn’t tell you just by looking which one was which.
• Ultimate Big Brother (From 7:30pm, Friday, Channel 4): The final to end all finals, until it probably moves to Channel 5 next year.
• Ipod Therefore I Am: Basically I’m buying an iPad this week and will start reviewing apps that the Bother’s Bar puntership may or may not find intriguing. I hope you will find this exciting and fun.

Good times, as Justin Lee Collins would suggest.

For those who haven’t been following, the difficulties and cash amounts for the first ten quetions are now shuffled before the game. Cash is cumulative, but make it past question ten and you play “Classic Millionaire” for the big money.

The questions are rather difficult in that they’re quite US-centric, but it gives quite a good flavour of the new game. The music is quite good, a sort of take on the style of the original, but with a bit more Magnum PI.

The show begins in the US September 13th.

Question from Twitter: Does anyone know what font is used for the letters on Countdown? Alex?

I can’t work out who is lead commentator with Robert Williamson III… is it TV’s Richard Orford?

No Run for Money yet. So for now, here’s something else from last week, in case anyone’s bored and wants something to watch.

A few years ago I mentioned Million Family, where three members of a family had to hide in their house for 30 minutes to win a million Yen. They also set traps to hinder the hosts as they tried to find them. Well, the series ended a couple of years ago, but now they have occasional specials.

A bunch of celebrities have to hide in a big areas (shopping centre, school, park) for several hours. If they can stay hidden until time’s up they win a million Yen.

Last week’s episode was the biggest ever. 3 hour time limit, and a playing area of a big village:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snsT_Rgz7qQ
Pt 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqxKuA3iISw
Pt 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtwSqOVBMRg
Pt 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imHIZ5mFJDo
Pt 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHK_g-RUZ-M

Thanks Daniel. Also hurry up and upload Run For Money, people of Japan!

The biggest change is in round two which works quite well and opens up quite a large avenue to explore – the category is given (in this first episode “movies and their taglines”) and then six tagliunes are bought up. The object is to select one and give the correct movie the tag comes from. If they are correct, they score the same amount as the amount of the 100 people who also got it right (so the object is pick the ones you know that also fewest people knew), a wrong answer scores an automatic 100. A second set of questions comes up after the first sweep. At a very basic level, you could ask any set of questions that has been tested on the 100 respondees here, turning into a sort of Pointless take on Beat the Nation. It looks like there’s a pointless answer on each list as well, although this isn’t explicitly stated, and in the first episode brings some surprising results. I prefer it to series two’s round two, which seemed a bit easy.

Round three has been reduced to best of three rather than five. Otherwise no other changes to report. Pointless is probably the best daytime quiz on the telly right now, and possibly one of the most consistantly entertaining quizzes full stop.

Basically, it’s a Bank Holiday and I’m going to a barbeque so I’m taking the day off. But if YOU were writing the Board of Excitement for this week, what exciting things would you put in it?

Stick suggestions in the comments and I’ll update this later.

Edit: Right, so what in the opinions of the punters are the interesting things on telly this week? Sorry for the typos if any, I’ve just got back from being drunk.

• Run For Money (the Saturday just gone, Fuji TV): Oops. Still, what better way to celebrate a Bank Holiday (in the UK) by someone hopefully putting it up on YouTube, or other video sharing site?
• Pointless (Monday-Friday, 4:30pm, BBC2): Thanks to Perfection not being able to record things properly, the third series of popular Alexander Armstrong quiz has been bought forward. Now apparently includes a modified second round where you need to show some knowledge of the thing you intend to pick.
• Fangarna pa Fortet (TV4 and online, Sweden, Monday- Wednesday): There may well be some squiggly things above some of those letters, but it’s late and I’m tired. The Prisoners on the Fort‘s return to Swedish screens seems to by all accounts be a big success, and has probably made a better job at a competitive version than even the French. Or at least has retained some of the old personality. You can watch them here. Two more heats and the grand final on Wednesday.
• America’s Got Talent (America, Tuesday, Wednesday 8:00 EDT/0000 GMT): We’re four shows into this week’s Board of Excitement, and only one of them is British. Or perhaps two if you count America’s Got Talent which is as good as.
• A party (Friday): Alex is off to a party. I don’t think we’re invited
• Two weeks to it being the next Schlag den Raab (Saturday night): Self explanatory.
• University Challenge (8pm, Monday, BBC2) – Newcastle vs Sheffield. This should probably have gone nearer the top.

So there we are. British competitive entertainment is in rude health! Still, Only Connect is back next week.

But more interesting than that, the show that begat Des Chiffres… namely Le Mot Le Plus Long. I thought I would write a feature on it, so here you are.