Show Discussion: The Jump

By | January 26, 2014

TheJump8pm tonight through Thursday,
9pm thereafter
Channel 4

Davina McCall and Alex Brooker host as a bunch of celebs take on alpine sports, the worst performers having to do a live ski-jump at the end of the show to keep their place in the competition. It’s the Winter Olympics in a few weeks you know.

Wasn’t expecting much from this to be honest, but a few things have changed my mind a bit pre-show – first it’s only an hour (I was expecting this to be a dragged out to a daily 90 minute Famous and Fearless bore-a-thon) and secondly it does have some quite good and unusual celebrities in it amongst the usual suspects:

  • Sir Steve Redgrave!
  • Sinitta!
  • Richie from 5ive!
  • Nicky Clarke OBE!
  • Melinda Messenger!
  • Marcus Brigstocke!
  • Laura Hamilton!
  • Kimberly Wyatt!
  • Henry Conway!
  • Darren Gough!
  • Anthea Turner!
  • Amy Childs!

If it turns out to be half as good as Endemol’s The Games it might end up being quite watchable, but Britain isn’t really so interested in winter sports so we’ll see if that lack of interest translates into low viewing figures at all. Celebrity Ski Jumping didn’t do so well when they tried it in the Netherlands.

20 thoughts on “Show Discussion: The Jump

  1. Squared Eyes

    Quite looking forward to this for some reason. The Dutch non-live series was a disaster in any segment and format structure, will be interesting how this plays out live.

    How many episodes are there?

    Reply
  2. Brig Bother Post author

    OK, I didn’t think this was completely awful – the pacing felt a lot better than Famous and Fearless for a start. The timing reveal was surprisingly unexciting.

    The big issue is that watching people ski slowly wasn’t particularly exciting or heroic, I really think it requires a professional doing it at full speed so the average person has an idea of what’s possible and what’s good. Winter sports tend to be based around skill and precision which is difficult to get across well. People understand running fast and lifting heavy things and somersaulting, skiing manages to be both fast (when its done well) AND a bit dull really.

    The jump was hilariously damp squibbish, the problem is it didn’t look or feel scary because we know what a proper jump feels like. This felt rather like crap parcouring.

    And yet. And yet and yet and yet. The girls doing the skeleton tomorrow looks like its going to be both exciting and hysterical. So will probably still tune in.

    Reply
    1. James

      Someone on Twitter said that it reminded them how well Raab did his events. Sadly, I thought the exact same thing.

      The Jump was bloody awful. A lot of padding, and the ‘danger’ of any winter sport was removed. The skiing was painfully slow and the hill was small and not that steep. Alex Brooker was about the only highlight of the night, he was actually pretty good. Davina was a bit OTT, and the end jump was basically people going down a hill and off a kerb in skis and winter clothes.

      Raab’s 13th Wok WM is coming up soon, and having watched The Jump tonight, can honestly say i’ll enjoy the Wok WM more; even though it’s 4-hours long! I think The Jump may collapse.

      Reply
    2. Brig Bother Post author

      Well the first twenty minutes lived exactly to the promise, then it was boring, then Amy Childs didn’t jump. Incredible.

      Reply
  3. Alex S

    Aside from what has already been said, it seems a flaw in the format that the people who are likely to be the weakest at the jump are also likely to be the weakest in the events, so the most likely to actually be doing the jump. It would perhaps have been worth the celebrities having more training time, especially if some of them aren’t even allowed to do anything but the small jump as Richie seemed to suggest. They’re not likely to progress from that to the big jump over the course of a week or so, expecially if they’re doing the other events daily (unless they’ve all been pre-recorded and they’ll just show us the runs of whoever hasn’t yet been eliminated).

    It doesn’t help that in all the promos they showed footage of a full sized ski jump, so even if you weren’t familiar with the event, they’ve already shown everyone what the real thing is like so the jumps they’ve got look a bit crap in comparison.

    Reply
  4. Paul B

    A respectable 2.6m for this last night (including +1). 36% up on the slot average. Given the success rate of new entertainment shows over the past few years, and a tough slit against Call the Midwife and some of Dancing on Ice, I’d imagine they’ll be happy with that. I also suspect ratings will dip. Question is whether they slide a little or fall off a cliff (boom boom!)

    I thought it was fine but dull, and The Jump itself was such a mammoth anticlimax it was comical.

    And I could t disagree more about Alex Brooker, who was almost as bad as Brian Dowling on BB. His cadence was completely off and he made everything sound hugely dull. Clearly the producers weren’t particularly sold on him since they gave him basically nothing to do.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      I think that’s an incredible rating considering how dull most of the action was. Very interested to see how it performs the rest of the week, tonight shows some promise at least.

      Reply
  5. DC

    The problem with it was, like other recent new shows such as the Taste, it seemed to forget it was there to be a TV show. Even with pre-recorded action and a tiny ski jump there were surely ways of making it more exciting using graphics, replays etc. Each run down the GS course was almost note for note the same in terms of camera angles etc, and the reveal of the scores was almost comically bad, with people having to search out whoever had just gone as they were not highlighted at all. Even Top Gear makes this bit more exciting with a market pen and a piece of card.

    I imagine people may have tuned in for the fact they had some interesting people in the case (e.g. Sir Steve Redgrave) but can see ratings quickly falling if the first episode is anything to go by.

    Reply
    1. Alex S

      I suspect the lack of variety of shots in the GS event is likely an unavoidable issue due to the size of the course, you really can’t have lots of shots to choose from when you’ve such a big area to cover.

      The reveals were ridiculous, let’s stick the scoreboard on a big screen in the background so everyone has to turn away from the camera to read it. Doing it one-by-one for the final reveal was equally frustrating, so much focus is placed on not being in the bottom two that when they suddenly made a point of Sir Steve being the ‘winner’ it seemed very out of place to me.

      Reply
  6. John R

    In other news, the penultimate episode of Millionaire is on tomorrow night at 8pm.

    Not sure how much will make the TV edit but I quite enjoyed Adrian Chiles and Frank Skinner’s game! (As I went to the recording).

    Reply
    1. Tom H

      Did we know about this until now?

      “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? Chris’s Final Answer! will bring the iconic gameshow to an end on February 11, with Tarrant taking a look back at some of his favourite moments from the show’s 15-year history.”

      Reply
  7. Alex

    I didn’t see this last night, saw tonight’s one. I completely lost it when Sinitta jumped. That is just the most anti-climactic thing that I have EVER seen.

    Reply
  8. Brig Bother Post author

    2.3m last night. It’s certainly outperforming what it really deserves – it’s largely dull with the occasional flashes of amazingness (Sinitta generally, Amy Childs not jumping), although it is doing a lot better than Famous and Fearless which is fair enough I think.

    Reply
    1. Paul B

      Pointless 3.7m (23%)
      The Chase 3.5m (23%)
      University Challenge 2.8m (12%)
      Celebrity Big Brother 2.8m (12%)
      The Jump 2.3m (10%)
      Coach Trip 1.5m (9%)
      Perfection 1.1m (15%)
      Deal or No Deal 1.1m. (10%)

      Including HD and +1 where appropriate.

      Reply
      1. Paul B

        Also, The Jump was bolstered by Benefits Street being on directly afterwards. It peaked with 4.1m (Benefits Street averaged 4.7, peaked with 5.2). The 15 minute breakdown went 1.9/2.0/2.3/3.0. Still, if it stays there they’ll be thrilled, and a very good night for C4, with the Mormon doc doing well at 10pm as well.

        Reply
  9. David

    Three people injured enough to have to withdraw from the show already- the insurance people must be soiling themselves hoping that no one really gets hurt…

    Reply
  10. David

    And now two of the final four had to pull out with injuries, including the favorite…I’m wondering if they’ll change the rules so that the winner will be whoever gets out of the hospital first…

    Reply
  11. Daniel H

    I quite enjoyed this series bar The Jumps which went from so bad they were good to just downright anticlimactic with additional viewings – even Joe’s winning jump from the big jump was pretty much the same as those from the others!

    I quite liked all the main events though, particularly the Ski Cross though there wasn’t much of it. Can’t help thinking it’d be better to do it like The Games keeping all the competitors all the time as here the action:filler ratio varied a lot day-to-day with the variable numbers of contestants. (Not sure how you’d shoehorn The Jump into that, mind!)

    Joe winning means it was a stand-in victory and also, with his wins on X Factor and Popstar To Operastar, that he has now completed the Reality Show Triple Crown!

    Reply

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