Mmm, we’ve been quite down on this in the past despite everyone in TV being adamant it’d be massively successful over here, I just don’t think the format as is/was lends itself very well to being a weekly show (and if you’re going to have prizes worth playing for, a daily show is out of the question). I dislike the early stages which seem barely worth getting out of bed for. I don’t think the rewards for playing on are worth the stakes of having to risk everything you’ve won thus far, and most importantly who wants to see anyone crash out on a question they don’t get to see in advance? You want to see people lose because they’ve got greedy and overstretched themselves doing The Fun Thing. Two ways to lose and one way to win? That sort of thing can get in the bin.

So in what might be a formatting first, Americans have taken the format and improved it, and I don’t mean “improved” it as you’d normally expect, they’ve made some thoughtful changes here. Two teams of two playing for increasing amounts of time in the cage, and increasing values of prizes in the cage, whoever has escaped with the greater value of prizes gets to play the endgame with the best prizes, a tag-team 90 seconds where they’ve got to get at least $50k’s worth of goods out in order to take them home.

I like the new quiz element, it’s a bit like a mini-Wonderwall (Actually the Star Game from Turnabout might be a closer comparison) – eleven answers on a board, 10 clues, 45 seconds, you can’t return to a missed question, 3/5/7 seconds in the cage for each correct answer for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd round, it’s fun. Players get three seconds warning to escape like the original (failure to escape means banking nothing for the round), and each round adds skill-based challenges to unlock big prizes, as the original had. It has the essence of the format and largely eliminates the issues that I think people would tire of quickly.

Jeannie Mai is great as the host on the floor – energetic and natural. Damon Wayans Jr can certainly read an autocue. My main issue is that sonically it all washes over you, not especially memorable, not especially dopamine inducing. I think it’s OK!

Of likely interest, the BBC have launched a quiz one on iPlayer, amongst others (including a Louis Theroux one, an arts one and a history one). It seems to include recent offerings, so don’t go expecting anything historical.

Knock yourselves out.

According to Broadcast. Eight episodes.

Please don’t start episode one with something requiring a five minute rule explanation. Please.

All the media commentators are super-excited and we are just a day away from discovering if actual members of the public are actually going to give a toss. In my head I’m still trying to work out the format – 16 people going in on night one, six weeks later they’ll be a winner, so how’s that going to work? Twice-weekly evictions? Weekly evictions to be Big Brother but then nightly ones going into the final week I’m A Celeb style? Will they be enforcing “no nominations” talk? How long before we get annoyed at people using the phrase “up for nomination” because they’ve not stopped to think about the meanings of words?

Anyway here’s the theme tune you can buy on iTunes or whatever if you want:

The live pre-recorded launch show is tomorrow (Sunday) night 9-10:30 on ITV AND ITV2, followed by Big Brother Late and Live on ITV2 until 11:35pm. The show continues nightly on ITV2 nightly at 9pm followed by L&L at 10pm and nightly live streaming on ITVX, hopefully the housemates haven’t just gone to bed by then.

It was originally announced 18 months ago, which suggests making shows for streaming services is just as slow if not actually slower than famously the-zeitgeist-has-moved-on-by-the-time-it-comes-out broadcast TV (Squid Game: The Challenge).

Looks good though. Teams Do A Bondy Thing then answer a question to win some cash, and if they Do Enough Bondy Things and answer enough questions they win a million. Fail and their adventure ends.