Of interest tomorrow (Monday 5:25pm) on the premier Welsh channel is Pyramid, a new app playalong show.
And we were wondering how you would appalong with it. However, it’s not the legendary word game, rather excitingly it’s being billed as an adventure game set in an Egyptian pyramid beginning with eight contestants and getting whittled down through a series of mental and physical games:
The new adventure show, presented by Rhiain Temple, which takes the 21st Century to Ancient Egypt! Who will solve the Pyramid’s puzzles and evade the traps before the sand hits the bottom of the hourglass? 8 will begin the game but only one will walk away with the Pyramid’s treasures. Some levels will be quick-fire questions; some will be interactive touch-screen games while others will be physical challenges. And you can play along with the show by downloading the app to your phone or tablet.
This, frankly, sounds right up our street. Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like it’s going to have English subtitles, but likely worth a watch anyway (it will likely be on Clic tomorrow night if you can’t access S4C otherwise).
Deal or No Deal renewed through 2015, apparently. 288 episodes.
Sounds like there’s a player-can-force-an-offer twist coming:
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-09-08/its-a-deal-noel-edmonds-signs-new-deal-or-no-deal-contract-to-take-the-show-into-its-tenth-year
Well the numbers for US Utopia came in, and they’re very mediocre. It went from 6.16 million viewers in the first half hour down to 3.80 million in the last half hour (it was two hours), and the key demographics weren’t the best. I’ve been watching the feeds, which are way better than BB’s, but it’s not translating to the show- and the reviews have been tepid at best.
USBB, even though the nominations this week are moot due to a “rewind” twist the HG’s don’t know about, got over 7 million viewers against Utopia- partly because two former HG’s who met in the house got engaged on the show last night…
Is anyone surprised. I’d be amazed if Utopia lasts till Christmas in the US, never mind the whole year.
There are reports that Fox has to air it the entire year as part of the contract when they picked up the show (plus they sunk over $50 million into it, so they’ll want to at least get some of the money back). They’re already airing it Fridays, which is a slow night for US TV- another option could be Saturdays (when they don’t have sports events scheduled). Time will tell I guess..
Here’s your brief review: not as good as I hoped.
Here’s the longer review. Eight children enter, and the show begins with a quiz round. Whoever gets the most questions right steps back. And then there’s another quiz round. And, for variety, another quiz round, and another one. Four rounds in total, the winners are the four children to make the next level.
This is where the appalong games enter. One about finding an Egyptian hieroglyph (or guesting Greek letter) in a series of revolving concentric circles. Another was shooting missiles into coloured lights, avoiding beetles crossing the path. Another is about catching balls as they fall down an electronic Tipping Point machine. Or was it an inverted pyramid of pins?
Three survive to take on the Pyramid Challenge. A number riddle indicates which of ten keys will open this lock, repeat five times. This is the physical game, it’s an actual pyramid, with actual physical padlocks and metal keys. Fastest player wins through to the final.
Everyone else – the remaining seven from the original line-up – are back for one final quiz round.
Winner of this quiz round takes on the Pyramid Challenge winner in the final game. Hieroglyphs (and guesting Greek letters) are used in place of numbers from 0 to 20, they’re shown on the base of a tomb and we can only see two of the four sides. Whoever touches the most right numbers wins. Best tactic might be to guess rather than work it out.
And that’s it: the winner of the maths puzzle wins the prize of some high-tech gadgetry (and a chocolate fountain).
It’s another Boom Pictures production, same people as Ludus and Y Lifft. Another well-dressed set: it’s decorated as an enclosed mausoleum, and features touchscreens facing each other. And some trash talk between the players. (I assume it was trash talk, it looked and sounded like it.) Didn’t go out of the studio, don’t think it quite lived up to the “adventure” bit of the billing.
I’ll need to see another episode, partly because I spent half the episode working out what was going on. Really unsure about half the show being taken up on quiz rounds: if we wanted quiz at this time, we’d watch Y Helwriaeth on the other side.
Yeah, what Iain said.
I got half an impression that the winner of each quiz round was the last player to get an answer correct in the round. (Perhaps it’s most correct answers with most recent correct answer as tie-break?) Slightly cheap mechanic if the case, but at least the rounds are reasonably fast-paced. The last quiz round seems to be true-or-false as far as I can tell.
Round two had three app-along games – effectively one round of double elimination as the player of the four who went lose-lose skipped round three to go to the last chance quiz.
Lots of passing references to Tom Scott and the rest of the Tech Dif along the way. Lovely graphics. Host seemed decent.
Yep, agree with all this. Not quite as exciting as the synopsis made out really.
BBC One
Pressure Pad 0.57 (11.9%)
Pointless 2.64 (23.7%)
BBC Two
Two Tribes 1.11 (7.7%)
Eggheads 1.05 (6.3%)
Celebrity Antiques Road Trip 1.70. (9.1%)
University Challenge 2.32 (11.1%)
Only Connect 1.92 (9.0%)
ITV
Who’s Doing the Dishes 0.74 (10.6%)
The Chase 2.22 (20.9%)
Channel 4
Countdown 0.47 (8.8%)
Deal or No Deal 0.67 (9.5%)
Come Dine With Me (R) 0.72 (6.8%)
Channel 5
Celebrity Big Brother 1.71 (7.5%)
Celebrity Big Brother’s Bit on the Side 0.47 (6.4%)
Sky 1
Duck Quacks Don’t Echo 0.29 (1.4%)
Thanks Paul.
People watch Pressure Pad? Oh, Humanity….