It’s the new Ultra Quiz

By | March 18, 2024

Alright, look, can people stop announcing stuff about half an hour after I’ve just done a perfunctory “We’re not dead” post? Thanks.

Amazon Prime have announced Beast Games. Mr Beast’s hosting, 1000 contestants, one top prize of $5m (“biggest single prize in TV history”, provided you don’t count The X Factor US, presumably). That’s basically the story. I’m presuming it will be a “lighter” version of Squid Game: The Challenge, essentially.

This week’s excitement

By | March 18, 2024

…is on Netflix! Physical 100 2 starts tomorrow and is set in a mine. We enjoyed series one, great set pieces, although some of the early rounds suffered a bit from “yes i get the idea… oh there’s another hour of it” which hopefully series two will improve upon, the first one was a massive, possibly surprise, hit, one of their highest originals of 2023, which might explain why they haven’t dragged their feet on getting a second run out.

Last series started with people hanging onto a bar above a swimming pool, looks like this series is starting with a treadmill test.

Also ITV are repeating old episodes of Winning Combination in the afternoon 3pm slot, for some reason. They’ve not made new episodes since 2021.

Flush 400

By | March 14, 2024

We mentioned this about a month ago but it’s this Saturday that it’s happening, modern day Chris Goss Ben Lathbury AKA Royal Flush AKA Persephone’s Chair is doing his 400th quizzy Twitch stream and it’s a giant all day-er, featuring most of his original formats you’re encouraged to playalong with with various web apps. It’s all in aid of CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, so you’re encouraged to give generously. You can watch and join on his Twitch channel on Saturday from 11am – 1am, although my money is on it overrunning, he should have a sweepstake.

Unfortunately for me he’s timed it to coincide with a Saturday I have to work, but I should be about for the evening session. If you like quizzing there will be a lot there for you. Ben otherwise usually streams most Saturdays from 8pm UK.

Who else anagrams to David Tennant?

By | March 13, 2024

That is a *get* if true.

In other news, both Loaded in Paradise series 2 (ITV2 and ITVX) and The Underdog: Josh Must Win (E4) both scheduled for 9pm 25th March launches. A multichannel battle for the ages, there.

Hey! Do you remember Gambit Game?

By | March 9, 2024

Well it’s back! Or at least the series that started last March is going to finish, the last three eps are going up the next three Sundays at 3pm EST starting March 10th, Americans put their clocks forward tonight so I can’t quite figure out what time that is GMT, that’s why I watch these shows and not take part in them, something like 8pm.

If you liked The Genius and you can’t wait for the UK one, and you’ve already watched The Devil’s Plan on Netflix, this will be something to get your teeth into if you missed when we were talking about it last year. The Youtube channel is here.

Basically some more rare old stuff

By | March 6, 2024

Look, Bridge of Lies is back on Monday. That’s news and exciting isn’t it? And I’ve got a tenner on Fern Britton to win Celeb Big Brother, and I’m hoping they’ll book Fred Dinenage on Late and Live. Josh Must Win starts on E4 soon and has all the hallmarks of a show the media set will go big for but nobody will actually watch, so look forward to that.

Anyway here’s five minutes of Trivial Pursuit with Rory McGrath, from 1990 BBC2. I’m convinced the head-to-head game had some sort of bridge building mechanic which isn’t on show here, perhaps they changed the rules.

Meanwhile Made in Maidstone is currently knocking it out of the park with their uploads at the moment, here’s an episode of a quiz called That’s What You Think! hosted by Irish TV legend Gay Byrne which I don’t remember at all despite growing up in TVS-land.

Hoping for lots more regional quizzes even if they might be a bit crap. But what if they’ve got the full Stu Francis run of Ultra Quiz? Readers I might faint.