Stool Pigeon September 2019 – The Results

By | September 12, 2019
31 Comments

Let’s go through your ANONYGOSS and try and see if there’s anything juicy/truthful.

  • Studio Lambert where attempting but unable to lock down Alex/Kate to play again in series 2 of The Circle. They were going to get him to catfish as someone else. (Ahh, Studio Lambert, redefining the catfish genre. I’m a bit worried about The Circle actually, will people be a bit “so what?” this time round about the catfish element if basically everybody is going to be at it? I also feel sorry for Maya Jama and Alice Levine, as much as I like Emma Willis. Worth reiterating: for all the social media buzz the first series created, it didn’t actually rate all that, so it will be interesting to see if this Does A Love Island or not.)
  • HQ Trivia had a TV show in the works until HQ dropped off the face of the Earth. (Hey! Do remember when everyone was like “heeey, this is the future!” and I went “no it isn’t” and then it wasn’t and it turns out the youth have no critical faculties? Great days. Is that German show based on Quiz Up still a thing? Is Quiz Up still a thing?)
  • I saw Richard Osman getting out of a lift the other day. (Bluff. He’s so tall he doesn’t need lifts.)
  • The masked singer will have Joel Dommett at the helm with the panellists being Jonathan Ross, Rita Ora & the weirdest choice of the 4 being Davina McCall. The 4th panellist is a carryover from the US edition, Ken Jeong. The company doing the translation to UK shores is a newcomer but is Scottish owned. They are Bandicoot who are behind BBC’s chase the case & Test Drive. (Old news, except the bit about Ken Jeong. Thanks anyway. Tickets SRO.)
  • Heard reports that the host of Crystal Maze US is Adam Conover, of Adam Ruins Everything fame. (Ooh. Not really aware of his ouevre. I hope Adam Conover has a combover – it could be his thing, like Ayoade’s hand on a stick)
  • During the taskmaster studio records, Katy wix unfortunately got sick so for episode 5 and 6 she will be replaced by kerry godliman and Katherine Ryan, respectively. That means they will be doing the prize task and the live task and providing the banter, not the pre recorded tasks. (Now that is interesting, although given the series is recorded quite quickly that’d suggest Katherine Ryan and Kerry Godliman are on some sort of speed dial. Intrigued to see if this is correct.)
  • One from the archives: In 1990, NBC relaunched Let’s Make a Deal in the 90’s taking advantage of the recently opened Disney MGM Studios theme park (now Disney’s Hollywood Studios) for its soundstage, and the park crowd for the audience. They didn’t tape every day, but left the sets up for the studio tours between their sessions. However, Disney management were short of content for the park, and were keen to make the park look more heavily used as a taping destination. As a consequence, park staff put together entire fake taping sessions of the show using the standing set and props and some very simple (read: cheap) prizes. I always wonder if the audience were told that there was never a chance of them appearing on TV… (That *is* interesting! It’s like a low-cunning low-stakes version of the TV phone-in scandal.)
  • IT’S A CHALLENGE BRIG ROLLOVER: get a famous game show person (as discussed last month) to take part in a live Ask Me Anything interview on the Bar by the end of September and it’s worth £150 to the UK charity of your choice. Challenge Brig will not rollover again after this unless somebody else wants to fund it. (Nah, nobody will want to ruin their career by coming on. We’re like Eurovision.)
  • Strictly: It Takes Two starting 23rd Sept from 5:15 to 6:30; this time slot for 2 weeks. I see BBC are making attempts to get rid of Pointless. I’ve thought it should since the beginning of this year. Unlike The Chase, the show never evolves. This stops it from being good anymore. (Bit harsh. They’re currently recording more Pointless, it’s not about to go anywhere, it still rates too well (and apparently they were trying out a new end game, although I don’t know if they’ll use it) I have been told it’s largely to do with the World Athletics Championships taking over BBC2.)
  • The Circle is being more realistic year and will feature fake news stories for reactions (Not sure I believe this.)
  • Rylan to host a revival of Don’t Scare the Hare. (Bluff.)
  • Rylan to host a revival of Red or Black. (Bluff.)
  • Rylan to host a revival of Only Fools on Horses. (Bluff. I know this because he’s too busy being lined up as the skyrunner for Treasure Hunt.)
  • I can confirm the identity of the new American Maze Master will be unveiled when nickelodeon will publish their press statement the week commencing 7th October 2019. The date of transmission is expecting to be a 2020 release for their winter slate. (Is it Adam Conover, with a combover?)

IN OTHER NEWS, The I-Land is now on Netflix and I hope to start watching it in the next few days. The blurb makes it sound like the sort of drama Bother’s Bar viewers would like, we’ll see.

Show Discussion: Supermarket Sweep

By | September 9, 2019
66 Comments

Weekdays, 8pm,
ITV2

Store manager Rylan Clark-Neal invites pairs to his supermarket to go wild in the aisles with the heavily trailed 2019 gritty reboot of Supermarket Sweep. If our shoppers are very very good they could be walking out with £3,000.

Really like Rylan, really like Supermarket Sweep but there are question marks. 8pm feels like quite an odd timeslot to strip an hour-long game on a daily basis, especially one as fluffy as Supermarket Sweep – Pointless and The Chase‘s biggest opponents are each other – this will have to compete with whatever the bigger channels are putting out in prime-time and if it’s not must-watch it might end up being not-watched. We also wonder what sort of tone this is going to have, relatively straight or heavily ironic piss-take? Either could work but falling between the two stools may end up pleasing nobody.

Also it’s an hour of Supermarket Sweep. How are they going to fill the time? We’re promised celebrities and new games but will they fit with the format?

Not long until we find out. I’m pulling for it, but it’s not a guaranteed success by any means. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Show Discussion: Treasure Island with Bear Grylls

By | September 8, 2019
14 Comments

Sundays, 9pm,
Channel 4

We actually had not watched The Island with Bear Grylls, the extreme survival reality show, but they’ve changed it up a bit this time round with a twist that might make it more appealing to our tastes so I thought I’d give it a show discussion post just in case.

12 contestants have to survive for six weeks on a desert island with just the clothes on their backs and some survival tools. This year, the big twist, is that there is £100,000 spread across the island, which will require success in survival challenges to win. However to keep the cash they have to get to the end of the experience, if they quit, any money found is returned. How will this effect the dynamic? It sounds a bit like Stranded With A Million Dollars without the buying overpriced supplies element.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Taskmaster Series 9

By | September 4, 2019
26 Comments

Wednesdays, 9pm,
Dave and UKTV Play

It’s time to go again! The comics (from left to right in this picture):

  • Katy Wix
  • David Baddiel
  • Jo Brand
  • Rose Matafeo
  • Ed Gamble

Who will win and will the tasks be up to standard?

Audience stuff

By | September 3, 2019
16 Comments

The weekly trawl of the audience sites has bought up the following:

  • Buy It Now for Christmas, we liked Buy It Now with Brian Conley, C4 are bringing it back (as previously spotted by a reader) with TV’s hardest working man Rylan Clark-Neal and in a peak-time slot as well, apparently. Films 1st-3rd October in Manchester, Tickets SRO.
  • Number 1, quizzers who can be in the right place at the right time can win large amounts of money. Nothing to do with the Krishnan Guru-Murphy show of the same name. Films 24th September in Manchester, Tickets Lost in TV.

Hyperdrive

By | September 2, 2019
6 Comments

Netflix

This has been on for about two weeks, when I first heard about the idea I scoffed, it’s just Ninja Warrior for cars how original, it’ll have, like, the same obstacles over and over again like Ultimate Beastmaster. it’ll try and be achingly cool to the point of laughability.

Readers, I’m six episodes in and I do actually quite like it.

Hyperdrive sees sort-of professional custom car racers battle it out over a series of courses to become the Hyperdrive Champion. There is apparently no money involved and the contestants are using their own cars at their own risk.

It’s set in an industrial estate, at night, with lots of neon and chrome and lights and a futuristic-y font. It’s fronted by a sports broadcaster, a car nerd, a UK MMA champion (to provide colour commentary) and a woman (occasionally).

It has a slightly odd qualifying set-up, the first four episodes over the first four courses each have twelve drivers – in each round the top three automatically advance to the next stage of the competition, the bottom three are eliminated, the middle six take part in the next qualifier with six new drivers – so some people get four chances, some only one. Intrigued to find out what the criteria was for that.

Obstacles mainly involve hitting targets with the backside of the car (important: the sound effect for this is meaty and tremendous and you hear it a lot), pulling handbrake 180s in limited areas, driving through water, driving very fast through very thin places – it doesn’t sound like much but actually each one is pretty memorable, and each gets twisted as the rounds progress. The star of the show and where clearly all the budget has gone is The Leveler (one ‘l’), a giant see-saw drivers must a) get up and then in later rounds b) level out. It’s a good, visual, challenge!

What I would suggest is that the first six-seven minutes of episode one are quite slow, too much scene-setting, opening with an Inspirational Backstory (TM) yadda yadda, occasionally featuring exec producer Charlize Theron, and I’m not sure it pulls off the emotional failure parts too well, it lays it on a bit thick. And I’m not entirely sure what the point of ending episodes on a cliffhanger is, I’ll just watch the resolution and then stop to resume another time.

For a TV show that’s gone big on trying to tap into The Fast and The Furious style cool, incredibly it just about pulls it off. It looks great, it’s genuinely thrilling in places and the contest feels credible. Worth a watch.