Storm in a Tea Cup

By | January 1, 2013
24 Comments

[By the way, please keep voting in the exciting Poll of the Year 2012.]

storminateacupWednesday January 2nd 2013 represnts an exciting day in the world of television and the world of gameshows. Kids programmes now have their own seperate channels so the main networks are filling the afternoons with gameshows (and Flog It!). This is a good time for format developers who can make a good cheap show with a view to being the next Weakest Link, Deal or No Deal, Pointless, or The Chase.

The itinerary for tomorrow is as follows:

  • Dickinson’s Real Deal (ITV, 3-4pm)
  • Perfection (BBC1, 3:45-4:30pm)
  • Tipping Point (ITV 4-5pm)
  • Deal or No Deal (C4 4-5pm)
  • Flog It! (4:30-5:15pm)
  • The Chase (ITV 5-6pm)
  • Come Dine With Me (C4 5-6pm)
  • Pointless (5:15-6pm)

And if that wasn’t enough, Countdown returns to Channel 4 on Monday at 2:40, followed by a new show that finally seems to have settled on Face the Clock as a title (C4, 3:30pm) (Incidentally, an ironic title as facing a clock is precisely the one thing contestants won’t be doing. Anyway, it will get its own show discussion post). These next couple of months are going to be exciting and possibly brutal, it’s particularly interesting that none of BBC1s or ITVs shows share a junction – the hope is you’ll stick with the channel all afternoon. It’s actually a little bit like cycling, if you see Pointless and The Chase as the team leaders, Perfection and Tipping Point are the domestiques trying to get their riders to the finish line as quickly as possible. Something like that. We all understand cycling after London 2012.

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN? And have they improved Tipping Point for series two? Nailbiting.

Happy New Year!

By | December 30, 2012
1 Comment

Edit: The mammoth Fifty 50 Show Review of the Year is now out. Download it and look at the show notes here, or download it directly.

If you, like me, are the sort of person who spends their New Year getting slowly drunk with friends and playing games and watching films and that, allow us to occupy ten minutes of your time with a game of New Year’s 21 Questions Wrong Hotseat!

Here is the set of 21 questions, they have been created especially, a few reference New Year. I think this set is slightly easier than the last set and you might want to reflect that in your time limits. A reminder of the rules and how it works is here.

If you want to play for real money you should let @danielpeake know as we will be recording our proper New Year Special probably over the next week. Maybe we’ll get a proper domestic version of Avanti un Altro in 2013. It can’t rate worse than Dale’s Great Getaway, etc.

In other news, the UKGameshows.com/Bother’s Bar Poll of 2012 will open on the 1st January.

Super Duper Festive Saturday

By | December 29, 2012
18 Comments

Isn’t it the Dutch that have a word for that period between Christmas and New Year? Anyway it’s the Saturday of it, and it turns out there’s loads on. I’m not qute sure what my strategy for all of this is going to be yet.

  • 30 Years of CITV – I was always more of a CITV person than a CBBC one to be honest – Cosgrove Hall animation, Knightmare, Funhouse, Finders Keepers, Art Attack etc. Blue Peter? Get outta town. So here’s a documentary on 30 years of CITV. (6:30pm, ITV1) Next weekend it’s the old-skool weekend.
  • SuperStarsSMALL-1Superstars 2012 – Haven’t decided if this is going to get a seperate post or not. Anyway it’s back for the nth time, but this time round they’ve got relevant sporting stars which is interesting. I wonder how much it would cost to get David Beckham in. (6:45pm, BBC1)
  • Fort Boyard New Year Special: It’s a real shame that these night time seasonal specials haven’t rated well because they’ve been very entertaining and they’ve put a ton of effort into them, sprucing up the Fort and creating games used once for them and never seen again (although it would be nice if next year there was a bit less “putting a snake in it” in their new games when it could be “being a bit more ingenious”. And cut out a segment and became 90 minutes). Anyway, here’s the New Year’s Special, which we know involves a game where contestants must shake up bottles of “champagne” and then pop the cork to hit a target. Clever. (7:45pm UK time, France 2 and inevitably Youtube before the night has ended)
  • National Lottery Secret Fortune – Not much more of this left. (8:15pm, BBC1)
  • Dale’s Great Getaway – We were at the recording of this, you can read about that here. You might want to direct your discussion of the show there as well. (8:45pm, ITV1)

My Xmas Gift to You

By | December 25, 2012
1 Comment

Merry Christmas everyone, as someone once said.

Now it’s gone 6pm so you’ve probably already had your Xmas dinner. But hey! You’re probably seeing other people over the next few days, and there’s a fair old chance you might still be doing some critical gamage this evening. Well here is my gift yo you: inspired by the brilliant 21 Questions Wrong and the at best mediocre Millionaire Hotseat, I’ve created the game you’ll ALL be playing over the next few days: 21 Questions Wrong Hotseat!

Before you do that you will need to make sure that a) you’ve heard this week’s brilliant Fifty 50 Show as it contains this week’s Christmas Special and b) You listened to the episode from two weeks ago where Jonathan wins a lifechanging sum of money. Oh and c) your frieds you will be playing with have not heard them. Here is a composite set of 21 questions drawn from the last two episodes, we try and reuse the questions we don’t get round to so they’re drawn from the last two episodes, this is better printed out (Note: I’ve also fiddled with the script format a little in an experiment to see if it’s easier for the writers and hosts to work with). You as host will also need to provide a) some sort of countdown clock and b) a prize of some description which might not even get won.

You can play this with any number of players, seven worked quite well this afternoon:

  • First of all you need to determine your time limit, anywhere from 4-8 minutes. You should use your judgement to detemine how long this should be based on your speed as quizmaster, the amount of people playing and their level of quiz prowess. Eight minutes for a group of non-quizzers who had had a bit to drink and seven year old worked out well.
  • Start reading out the questions to player one. The object is to answer each question WRONGLY. Whenever they give the inappropriate answer or hesitate too long in answering , the host immediately starts from question one to the next person in line. If you run out of people, go back to player one. Players may interrupt the quizmaster.
  • If the timer runs out, the person currently on a run is allowed to complete their run until they stuff up or indeed win.
  • The winner is the person who successfully manages to run the list. They win the prize. If nobody manages it, you get to keep the prize. Despite this conflict you will have more fun the better and faster you keep it going.

That’s it! Have fun! I hope you got everything you wanted!