Well this is a bumper lot of stuff. As ever, I can’t vouch for the veracity of any of the claims, only the writer and people involved with the things know the truth, but there’s usually grains of truth somewhere. Let’s open the box and dive in…

• Ninja Warrior UK will begin its new tournament on 13th April at 6 PM. (Well, it is news to me I suppose.)
• The upcoming season of The Crystal Maze will be containing a Xmas special which will be recorded on 12th Apr. This upcoming season will apparently be its last but will be spread out throughout 2019 & first half of 2020. Still no news when Season 1 final 3 eps will get its UK premier. (In many ways this represents the exciting dynamic daring Channel 4 of the 1980s where ratings and viewer enjoyment be damned, we’re just going to do it anyway and in some ways it’s to be applauded.)
• Don’t know if it’s common knowledge yet, but have it on good authority that Eggheads won’t be recommissioned after the current run. (Ooooh.)
• There are behind the scenes discussions occurring currently with Sony Pictures Television & ITV to try to bring Wheel Of Fortunes back to the UK. As it is in the early stages the facts are limited but will be done inhouse and not by a third party company.
• Greg Davies was attached for an ITV version of Ellen’s Game of Games. (Right channel if true, wrong host.)
• We Need Answers revival. I’m making this up but I really want it to be true. (Thanks for your contribution. Sarcasm aside, there was suggestion this might be happening a little while ago although not much seems to have come of it.)
• Channel 4 are rather keen on picking up the rights to Mental Samurai for an evening slot. (Now this is something I could get behind, mainly because I want a go in the whizzy chair. I hope they’d have the budget to do it justice, otherwise it’s basically just Child Genius isn’t it?)
• The wrong money tree font in Jeremy’s first series of Millionaire was caused by a simple ‘font not installed on correct machine’ issue that – somehow – no-one spotted. (Mwa-ha-ha!)
• Keith Lemon is being pitched to do a bowling show. (If I don’t see you through the week I’ll see you through the pin fall?)
• Apparently the ubiquity of Paddy McGuinness of late is some sort of attempt by his agency to play the BBC and ITV off one another to get some sort of Golden Handcuffs deal. Already known as ‘TLC’ due to the belief he’s The Luckiest C*** in the industry, there is a suggestion that he’s being positioned to take the Ant and Dec position within the ITV Saturday night framework. The thought goes, however, that if he’d been that essential to their plans, he would have been locked in some time earlier. (Paddy McGuinness is I’m fairly sure a lovely guy but the idea he’s some sort of shiny floor titan is hilarious.)
• What’s the origin of the name stool pigeon anyway? (Slang for police informer, innit?)

We haven’t done one of these for a while.

What’s the goss you don’t want to put your name to? We’re not interested in “news” as such, we read Twitter as well, give us something interesting. I’m out tonight so I’ll keep the box open until around 10pm.

BOX CLOSED, look out for the results later this evening.

Thanks to various on Twitter for pointing this out to me yesterday (we’re postponing Bother’s Bar Plays Badly until next weekend, do join in), the pilot for the US version of The Exit List on ABC and hosted by Mike Greenberg who’s lost his pen since hosting the US version of Duel.

Some points of note:

• The shape of the Maze. It’s a big X!
• Object hints in the rooms.
• The way the game works, that they must visit at least two zones before being allowed to go back to the lift, means at a minimum they’ll have to go through 15 rooms. If they ace all the panic rooms, and get all the questions correct, that’s a minimum list of 11 things to remember. Chances are though you’re probably looking at 20-30 things each time which seems huge. They didn’t make “you have to get back to the elevator” very clear, you can’t just end any time after hitting two zones, so I can’t work out the emphasis on decision making at that point.
• That is a hugely generous bail-out offer.
• I think I preferred the escape from the UK show with its movement. I would have thought that the whole point of putting objects in the rooms would possibly be to help you remember. As it is, the “deeper you go, the harder it is to get out” mantra doesn’t quite work here thematically.
• Nice to see they used Nick Foster’s musical score.

It’s Friday, so Youtube copyright permitting it’s time to run down shows 80 to 71 of Actual Real TV Developer Ben Justice’s Top 100. Some quite brave surprising entrants in this one. Also some dodgy sound around one entry, don’t worry it passes.

In other news I’m looking to record another Bother’s Bar Plays Badly on Saturday night for going out on Sunday. If you’re going to be free from about 9pm until 10pm then hit me up.