The Mirror reporting that Who Wants to be a Millionaire? has finally been put out of its misery. Chris Tarrant is leaving the show after the remaining contracted specials.

Millionaire is probably THE most important TV format of the last twenty years and there is not a single show on television these days which doesn’t try and ape the presentation style or real life human drama element. But like any addiction the viewers required bigger and bigger hits, but there was nowhere left to go once Judith Keppel won the million, and by that point reality TV was in the beginnings of its boom and people the drama of people making idiots of themselves became more appealing than people answering increasingly difficult quiz questions.

In its final years it sort of just bumped along with celebrity specials and the occasional civilian episodes the internet cried out for but few actually bothered watching. And bloody hell, the guys from JLS were *robbed*.

Happily for Chris Tarrant who averages about one properly successful format for every fifty he fronts, he’s probably about due another one. It’s been suggested he’s a regular panellist on upcoming ITV quiz Show Me The Telly, a title that is roughly as appealing as Cook Me The Money but you never know.

Who Wants to be a Millionare? defined a time, but it’s of its time, and may be the last show we ever see that will pull 15m ratings on a regular basis in the UK.

Because obviously:

Nice graphics.

Interesting about the lack of time limits to answer, I think that’s what makes a lot of Italians lose, but going by instinct is a lot of the fun of it I think.

Incidentally Twenty Questions Wrong with Ewan Spence is well worth a listen this week. Probably a few too many Person A or Person B questions (a very easy trap to fall into, in the Brig ‘n’ Dan 21QW “production” “bible” we deliberately set out to try and avoid this) but a fun game.

Don’t know when 21QW will be returning in audio form, we all seem to be moving house.

The Italian show seems to be breaking all demographic records, if Italian TV people on Twitter are anything to go by,

Congratulations to Wie is De Mol? FINALLY winning The Netherland’s Gouden Televizier-ring last week after being nominated forever, their highest television accolade as voted for by the public. And in fact it was a good night all round for people and shows with “de Mol” in them, the amazing Linda de Mol won best female and nephew Johnny de Mol winning best male (Art Rooijakkers was nominated for this one as well). After thirteen years, last series got the show’s highest audiences ever – which makes how the Aussies stuffed up their recent version rather look more baffling, especially as their version won Logie awards and plaudits when it was on first time round.

Anyway, new footage of the next series of WIDM ’14 has been released. Squared Eyes has a run down of the celebrity contestants on his blog – my gut feeling money’s on Daphne Bunskoek right now, based entirely on a photograph and short film. And ThatDarkSpark has put up a subtitled version of the first show’s opening that’s been released as a preview (you may need to look at the video on YouTube to get the subs, which you will need to select using the CC/captions button). They’re off to Hong Kong.

There’s also another WIDM Junior next year, so TWO chances to play “recognise where they’ve borrowed the soundtrack”. WIDM ’14 should begin in January.

Want to try out a future format? David Bodycombe is BACK:

LABYRINTH LAB – GAME 2

Many thanks to everyone who took part in the first, very successful “Labyrinth Lab” – a series of new formats being tested by Labyrinth Games Ltd via the internet.

Our second run-through will take place on MONDAY 28th OCTOBER, from 9pm until a maximum of 11.30pm. (As a guide, our first show finished at 10.45.)

The show is called PEN-DAMONIUM and it’s a drawing game. As such, you will require a decent input device on your computer (e.g. mouse, track pad, drawing tablet etc.). Something like a laptop’s “pointing stick” wouldn’t be good enough.

To apply, you must:

– be able to commit to the date/time. Dropouts will cause problems.
– be over 18
– play from the UK
– not be an employee of a TV production company
– have a stable broadband connection (5Mb+ or thereabouts)
– have a webcam, and be prepared to appear ‘on screen’

The following are helpful:

– a headset (with microphone), or otherwise some headphones
– a second screen, or the ability to flip between two windows easily.

£30 will be paid to every contestant, with a further £10 bonus to members of the winning team.

The finished programme may be put online in the future.

TO APPLY: Send an email to thelab@qwertyuiop.co.uk with “GAME 2” as your subject heading. In the main body, state your full name, age, usual location, any quiz experience (TV or otherwise) and a couple of sentences about your background.

Sorry, but we can’t guarantee replies for unsuccessful applicants, but we will try to update this advert once all the places are filled. Everyone, successful or not, is welcome to reapply for future shows. Details of upcoming formats will be posted on Bother’s Bar in due course.

Thanks for reading.

David J. Bodycombe
Labyrinth Games Ltd.

The first one, Windfall, seemed to go down well and I’m informed there may be an edit going up soon.

I wonder what happened to Draw It?

In other news, BBC4 trialling three new shows to replace Only Connect when it moves to BBC2 next year: The Knowledge (BBC in-house), Enigma (Parasol, who make OC) and Eliminate the Impossible (Victory Television).

This might be mildly interesting, CBBC has commissioned a twenty episode run of sci-fi fantasy adventure show Ludus, the channel’s first attempt at a show which has a playalong app. The contestants must complete six levels to “rescue their family” then “win their ticket home”.

The show sounds a little bit like the Welsh S4C kids show Y Lifft (The Lift) and it’s probably no coincidence that the show is co-devised by Cube Interactive who did the app for Y Lifft. The app is pretty good fun – it’s a series of short games played against the clock, most of which work well, much of the appeal being you could play the same games at the same time as the television contestants. The app is free.

Cube Interactive are also responsible for the pretty good fun Catchphrase: Say What You See app which we were very happy to suggest shelling out 69p for, so there’s some pedigree here.

If you can’t wait until the new year for that, the new series of Fort Boyard: Ultimate Challenge begins on ITV and CITV at 8:30am on Sunday. This year featuring tigers!

Surely it’s time for a Raven reboot soon?