44 thoughts on “Alan Carr’s Epic Gameshow starts May 30th

  1. TVs Michael Harmstone

    Curious choice for the first one. Also has implications for whether they’ll hold the other episode of that one back for Christmas or not, given I have no idea how Christmassy that one was. I was told the celeb one was the Christmas one. The other one is PROPER Christmassy though.

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    1. Score

      I believe the plan is 6 x weekly episodes then one episode at Christmas, which I assume will be the proper Christmassy one.

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      1. TVs Michael Harmstone

        I would assume so too, but they’re only adapting five shows, so the one this week would have another episode later in the run. The Proper Christmassy one though? Wowsers.

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  2. Danny Kerner

    Why do they have to reveal the epic twist in the press release? It would be nice if that was kept secret until broadcast. Also, why does ITV have to resort to those 2 as a pair of contestants? I know the first format requires couples but why them. His arrogance really annoys me.

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      1. Danny Kerner

        i don’t mean him. Mr Daytime is who i’m refering to.

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  3. Whoknows

    The Christmas episode is Price is Right and is a non-celeb ep. This Play Your Cards Right episode is the only celeb ep.

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  4. Philip

    So, are all the episodes featuring Celebrities or is this the only one?

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  5. Chris M. Dickson

    You remember the old arcade game Smash TV, right? (I’m definitely sure Matt Clemson does.) It was The Running Man (and hence on-topic) crossed with Robotron. Well, cross that little lot with pinball, of all the things (or at least let the player turn themselves into a pinball and bounce around the screen from time to time, interacting with the occasional ramp) and you have Weird Old Arcade Game of the day, Nitro Ball from 1992. The music’s good, and the in-game host looks a bit like Paul Daniels around the time of Odd One Out, but more like Bill Rafferty.

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      1. Chris M. Dickson

        “I’d buy that for a dollar!”

        Do you realise Smash TV was set in the year 1999 and The Running Man in the year 2017? Man, someone should do Pandemic: The Game Show, while it’s maximally topical and tasteless.

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      2. Chris M. Dickson

        You and Dan should do more 21 Questions Wrong solely for the purpose of describing it as having Brig Money prizes.

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      3. David B

        My uni college’s Principal was so horrified by Smash TV she ordered for it to be taken away. We always had a pinball machine after that, so… an upside.

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    1. Matt Clemson

      Not one I knew, and I’m really liking the look of it.

      Other ‘futuristic violent gameshows as videogames’ that spring to mind would be the fairly well-known “The Killing Game Show” (also known as Fatal Rewind), which despite the name doesn’t really have much gameshowy in it besides the backstory, and the somewhat more obscure “MadShow” ( https://www.mobygames.com/game/mad-show ), which is… very very strange, although I remember really liking some of the aesthetic presentation choices they made.

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  6. James

    Not sure where to put this so I’ve tagged it here. Apologies. Thought I’d do a write up on Fox’s new show Ultimate Tag. There were both men’s & women’s competitions running, so a fair bit of action in an hour. Both competitions start with 3 contestants.

    Round 1: Chase Tag: All three contestants on the course. One tagger is released with the aim of catching only one contestant. Another tagger is then released for another poor soul. And the same fate awaits the last contestant standing. Points are awarded based on when you were caught (1st out = 1 point, 2nd out = 2 points, Last Man/Woman standing = 3 points). There’s a bonus point if you last longer than 2 minutes. No eliminations

    Round 2: Dodge Tag: a British Bulldog style round where players have to get from one side of the course to the other without getting tagged. Hit the buzzer at the end of the course & you get a point. Tagged and it’s back to the start line. Two minutes to rack up points. The points scored in this round are added to those from Round 1 and the contestant with the lowest total is eliminated.

    Round 3: Dome Tag: Interestingly, this was only played by the male contestants. Contestants play one after another, each with 3 lives and a new tagger appears for each life – as in Round 1. Maximum points to whoever lasts longest (I didn’t quite catch the full point scoring system for this round). No eliminations

    For the ladies, it was ‘Revenge Tag’. This was actually shown only as a brief roundup after a commercial break, so it was merely a couple of highlights and how the points were awarded.

    Final: The Showdown: one after the other, contestants take on the two-staged final. First up is a parkour style course followed by ‘Pyramid’ from Gladiators. Aim is to complete the course in the quickest time, hitting the plunger at the end to stop the clock. In each of the 2 sections, there is a tagger chasing you. If they tag you, there is a 5-second time penalty added onto the total course time – and they’re only allowed to tag once. The points difference from the first 3 rounds equates to a time advantage for the leading contestant (1 point = 1 second), who runs the course second. The time advantage is not in the form of a head start, but added to the time they are allowed to complete the course in. Whoever completes the course in the quickest time wins.

    This is very much like Gladiators. I was half expecting a John Fashanu ‘Awooga’ cameo. Simultaneous men’s & women’s competitions, points = time advantage and of course the taggers. Speaking of which, some of the nicknames were rather Partridge-esque: Big Deal, Beach Boy, the Iron Giantess and the Geek!

    Because of all that, and the pace at which it moves, it’s an enjoyable hour. The presenters are good (all 3 are NFL players) and production wise, it looks fantastic. But if those are the only courses they have, it might not grab my attention past a couple of episodes. And, as with most US gameshows, it feels incredibly overproduced.

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    1. David

      From the show twitter, Revenge Tag is like Pac-Man; players have to avoid the taggers going thru the maze as long as possible but there are buttons on towers they can press that will give them 10 seconds to go after the taggers, with a bonus point if they get one (one of the reviews also said that in this event the taggers can’t jump over the walls- this event will be shown in full on the next episode apparently, so they might be switching between the two in recap/fully shown)

      One interesting thing is that male taggers can play in female events, and vice versa; that’s one thing Gladiators rarely did (I only ever remember them doing it for The Wall, and only on special eps).

      It is a bit overproduced I agree- the numbers will be inflated for the premiere because of a scheduling trick (they extended the finale of The Masked Singer by two minutes so that audience would partially count for the first half hour), but it’s new programming when people are stuck inside, so who knows…

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      1. Brig Bother Post author

        Thanks chaps, the Content Grid is full for tonight but I look forward to watching it and probably getting its own post over the weekend.

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        1. Brig Bother Post author

          Did quite enjoy this – it’s closer to UK Glads in sentiment than the US reboot was – no doubt helped by British executive producers I didn’t realise until the end. Probably one of the better examples of This Type Of Show in the last ten years.

          I thought it was a pity that the one game with no real Glads equivalent was only shown in edited highlight form. Chase Tag is basically Pursuit, Dodge Tag is Hit and Run, Dome Tag is Pendulum and The Showdown is the Eliminator with a bit of Pyramid. Revenge Tag is indeed basically Pacman as suggested. Perhaps they should have an event on a vertical wall with overhangs.

          I’m in the process of asking what happens if someone falls off the Dome. (From @gc_hq on Twitter: “If the Tagger falls, then the next Tagger drops in. There are only 4 taggers up there, so if two Taggers fall the player will only lose two tags and receive a bonus point for the Tag they kept.”)

          There was a surprising amount of verticality involved which I enjoyed. Really liked the equipment for Dome Tag.

          There’s something a little bit off the about the double jeopardy in the Showdown, in that it’s only really going to be tense if both players are tagged an equal amount of times – if one person is fast enough to avoid tagging and the other one isn’t, no amount of vamping is going to make the end reveal any more exciting really. It’s a shame it can’t be a straight race, but I accept the limitation of the size of the arena.

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          1. Alex S

            I still can’t really get over that the endgame has practically nothing to do with tag. It’s probably faster to just take the 5 second penalty than to try and dodge the tagger on the pyramid section.

    2. TVs Michael Harmstone

      I think it’s fair to say that Chase Tag would need some tweaks in a second season. Both rounds last night were horrendously broken by the “bonus point every 30 seconds above 1:30 you last” rule.

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    1. Chris B

      Or rather Don’t Unleash The Beast if I’d bothered to even read it properly…

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      1. Matt Clemson

        The Don’t Scare The Hare sequel everyone was clamouring for?

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    1. Chris M. Dickson

      Thanks for sharing! The first link of those two goes to a page from which you can watch (or download) a subtitled episode. Good way to get a fix of subtitled Belgian TV.

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      1. David

        Yeah, discovered that later on- they’ve got quite a few subtitled examples of their shows, including De Slimste Men’s…

        Not 100% convinced of the scoring on the Container Cup though:

        Here’s the rundown:

        Each person does the same 7 events (one right after another) the objective is to have the lowest combined time after all of them. Three events add time, four subtract time:

        Running: 1500 meters on a treadmill (athlete controls speed). Time added to score.

        Monkey Bars: 1 attempt until you fall- 1 second subtracted for every rung you complete (and after 24 or so you have to turn around in midair)

        Golf: Three swings on a golf simulator with an iron for distance; best shot counts, 1/3 of a second subtracted per yard (Example 90 yards=30 seconds off)

        Rowing: 1000 meters on a rowing machine, time added

        Shooting: 5 biathlon-style targets approx 7.75 meters away, 5 shots from a prone position, athlete must load weapon, 10 seconds subtracted per target hit

        Bench Press: Up to three attempts on a bench press machine, Athlete sets weight and can add or subtract at will in 5 kilo increments; 1/2 second subtracted per kilo of best successful attempt

        Cycling: 3000 on an exercise bike, time added

        (They have a short transition time between events when the clock stops, but it’s pretty much continuously going)

        They really hyped up the fact the container is sterilized between athletes (showing someone in full protective gear using cleaning materials)

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    2. Brandon

      I started watching this the other day, it’s brilliant. Needs a VPN to watch on the Vier site unlike De Mol.

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      1. Chris M. Dickson

        I enjoyed one episode but didn’t really feel the need to watch more. Then I spoiled myself on Dutch Wikipedia and all of a sudden I want to see some of the episodes with remarkable performances!

        I miss Superstars, but Socially Distanced Superstars is a product of its time, rather than one I would expect to run for years, unless they manage to produce a dozen identical containers and invite the participants of the nation to have a go. There could be room to vary events up if they ever have a second series, too.

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    1. Alex McMillan

      Ouch at that Press Release entirely writing off the Craig Charles AND Dick and Dom eras of Takeshi! Stephen is a good host, a shame they’re burning that away.

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      1. Danny Kerner

        Should of given it to Challenge. As it seems comedy central might not exist by the end of the year if viacom have their way. Blockbusters would of done so much better on Channel 5. plus the pay aspect of getting it was the downside to me similar to the gladiators reboot. Luckily years later (after it was axed) to finally on free to view.

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        1. Des Elmes

          Sadly, it’s not beyond possibility that Challenge could itself be gone by the end of next year…

          Its website is completely blank; there’s been no activity on its Twitter or Facebook accounts for almost a year; The Chase is on (if you see what I mean) for at least eight hours most days; and non-Chase-related acquisitions are few and far between (and the shows in question tend to disappear as quickly as they came – this certainly happened with Bob’s Full House and Countdown).

          And I’m hearing that its +1 channel is closing down this coming Monday morning.

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          1. Crimsonshade

            It likely hasn’t helped that Sky have moved its channel number on their listings for the second time in as many months…

  7. TVs Michael Harmstone

    If you were so inclined, you could find out what Episode 2 is going to be by looking on the ITV Programme Information site. Of course, you’re not allowed to until Tuesday. DON’T BE NAUGHTY AND LOOK.

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  8. John R

    Well that was a bit of a mess

    Hole in one?! It’s Hole in one or two!

    Plinko…now you can keep that money…or you can err keep that money!

    John Sachs didn’t really suit the voiceover role, surely Peter Dickson wasn’t that busy…

    Also the editing felt a bit off, as in they didn’t even show the price of at least one of the items they just cut straight to the audience yelling higher and lower

    No plunger during the showcase, £3,000 and that is that, what was meant to be ‘EPIC’ about it? Mainly WTF was that pyramid all about

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    1. TVs Michael Harmstone

      So, having been in the audience for this one, I can shed a bit of light (although I’ve not seen the episode yet!).

      * The Christmas one filmed first, so by the time this one filmed we’d been there for…five hours? John Sachs was actually in the building and *really* struggled at points, although by the time this one filmed he found his groove. It’s hilarious to note that the SCS bumpers are voiced by Peter Dickson though.
      * Between shows, all the teams who could have people chosen were switched around so you may have seen me at the front on this one, but I’m not for the Christmas one!
      * I *believe* Hole in One was occasionally swapped to Hole in Two in Brucie’s day too.
      * I *couldn’t believe* the Any Number guy didn’t go for the Pizza Oven. It was the obvious best prize there.
      * If I remember correctly, the Showcase was a bit less impressive for the normal show – the Christmas one is *bonkers* prize-wise.
      * Just as a warning too – the games are the same, and in the same order in the Christmas one. Fact fans – Lucky Sevens was the alternate game.

      I’ll update once I watch the episode.

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      1. TVs Michael Harmstone

        Just skimmed the episode – you can barely see me!

        There was one initial pricing game where everyone went MASSIVELY over, and I can’t for the life of me remember which one.

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