Show Discussion: The Challenge UK

By | February 19, 2023
14 Comments

Weeknights 20th-24th Feb, 11pm,
Channel 5

Well here’s some fun, the UK’s first domestic season of The Challenge, MTV’s demanding physical challenge with a bit of strategy and usually a bit of fighting and shagging show, comes to Channel 5 and they’re so happy and confident in it they’re putting it out over a week at 11pm and in a way that makes it look a little bit like this was meant to be ten-episodes and they’re having to butcher it to five just to get it out of the way. But we won’t know the truth of this until the first episode goes out. In theory the winners win a share of £100,000 and go through to a The Challenge World Championship on Paramount Plus next month, in reality this too seems to be a watered down version of the original stated idea which now seems to feature the local winners and anyone else the producers seem to just fancy adding into the mix.

The Challenge is a difficult show to love but we’d be lying if we said we haven’t enjoyed it in the past – it’s empty calories, but some of the challenges look quite neat, they seem genuinely demanding and there’s usually some sort of soap-y drama happening to carry it along. I’ve described the original before as Survivor Legacy, many of the seasons have a common and rotating bunch of characters who have all developed beef with each other. The Challenge UK is obviously not going to have that, short of what these people may or may not have said about each other outside of the reality shows they’ve done already.

Interestingly there have been a number of UK competitors in the original Challenge as its expanded over the last five years or so and even an entire US vs UK series with stars of Geordie Shore, Ex On The Beach, Love Island and the like (War of the Worlds 2, season 34 if you want to look it up, they’re usually on a streaming service somewhere but there’s no rhyme or reason as to which seasons are on which services) so it’s not an unknown quantity, and some UK competitors have been cast regulars for a few years now. We will see how this new batch competes, and if Mark Wright is any good as host, in due course.

Watched it? Let us know what you think in the comments.

The increasing pace of the death of television light entertainment

By | February 15, 2023
5 Comments
  • Ninja Warrior UK – DEAD
  • Catchpoint – DEAD
  • I Can See Your Voice – You can’t anymore, DEAD
  • The Masked Dancer – DEAD (sorry, “resting for the Rugby World Cup”)
  • Youngest Media, creator of the award-winning Moneybags (DEAD) – DEAD

The great news is though is that we’ve still got another series of Moneyball to look forward to. Television is SAVED!

Edit:

  • Epic Gameshow – DEAD

Edit edit:

Happy Valentine’s Day

By | February 14, 2023
2 Comments

We were wondering what we were going to put for this today, then yesterday out of the blue Youtube archivist Neil Miles put up a video with the opening few minutes of Sky One’s legendary Wife of the Week, a show where Christopher Biggins tasks homemakers to compete to see who is best at, er, wifely duties, in order to win a rolling pin. A show which it’s fair to say probably hasn’t aged well. It starts 10:20 in, if the video doesn’t jump there automatically.

Stool Pigeon February 2023 – The Results

By | February 8, 2023
15 Comments

As ever, we can’t vouch for truth or accuracy but we try and weedle out the clearly untrue ones, the unfunny ones, the crap ones, and hopefully we’re left with some stuff that has a grain of truth in it or is at least quite interesting. Alright, eyes down look in.

Reports of Squid Game carnage have been vastly exaggerated. It’s four *minor* injuries from a cast of over 450, statistically it’s safer than Bake Off.

To be honest, we’re hoping for a Quiz style drama based on The Making Of Squid Game: The Challenge – can someone get us footage of Michael Sheen acting as Stephen Lambert saying “I’M GOING TO REDEFINE THE GAMESHOW GENRE!” Thanks.

Whether or not four injuries is an acceptable amount, I’m not sure choosing to illustrate the point comparing it with a show that’s at least guaranteed to feed its contestants properly was the cleverest choice, but there we are.

Nothing confirmed yet, but they are attempting a new pilot of “I Literally Just Told You” in the USA with Jimmy Carr for Comedy Central aka Paramount Plus.

I don’t know if this is true but it certainly sounds plausable.

One Question has been renewed for a second season, but season 2 will be more aligned with the ‘original concept of the show’ (no clue what that means though)

Hmm. Given we were a bit worried when we first heard about the original concept I’m not sure how good an idea that is, but I also don’t know how good an idea that is.

A few months ago, a runthrough was stopped abruptly when a contestant stopped an enormous, unfixable flaw in a format that somehow nobody had noticed up that that point. All that work gone down the drain, we all felt so stupid.

This is obviously like moth to a flame for me, but really it is also only half a story. Do send us more tales of formats that completely broke in the runthrough, I can’t get enough of them.

Sitting On A Fortune coming in the Spring. Moneyball in Summer.

It’s almost been so long since the first series of Moneyball they could almost get away with calling it a reboot.

Moneybags was cancelled for a very specific reason, as will become evident soonish.

Expect a Chaser refresh after the next 100 episode record.

Oooh. Are Channel 4 going to start doing a magazine show at 5pm? Primetime version of Moneybags? None of the above? Chaser refresh – some moving on, some new blood? It’s not *normally* a good sign but I don’t know. I really think ITV might be overplaying their hand re: Deal or No Deal, but we’ll see.

Virgin Media Television in Ireland are currently casting for what sounds like a hybrid of Love Island and the already-forgotten Davina McCall vehicle The Language of Love. Hopefuls will aim to find love on an Irish beach whilst also trying to improve their grasp of the Irish language. Will be filmed in a Gaeltacht (Irish language speaking areas) region. Working title is Grá ar an Trá (Love on the Beach).

Something like this might be quite a good way for the regions to fill some quota time, or at least it would be if anyone watched The Language of Love.

get ready to see a pilot in the works for the new daytime quizzer, “Switch”. Yes, the one on Game Show Network in the States. Yes, we just had a game show called switch.

Where would it go, though?

The Masked Dancer is doomed. Not returning this year some people think.

I’m just printing this because it suits my confirmation bias.

Well there we are.

Big Slick

By | February 6, 2023
3 Comments

Here’s some Monday fun, a video with the very first edition of Card Sharks in the US, which is pretty slick, and the very first edition of Play Your Cards Right from 1980, which feels like it could topple over at any time. Brucie hasn’t quite got his patter down yet, nor his card turning technique (not helped by having a broken right wrist) but despite everything just about keeps everything under control, if not error free. That desk looks pretty awful.

We love a car crash

By | February 2, 2023
3 Comments

A Vice report that’s floating around on the ongoing nightmare of Studio Lambert’s take on Mr Beast’s Squid Game video: Squid Game: The Challenge.

Of course the main difference between Mr Beast and this is that by all accounts there haven’t been many high profile complaints about how contestants have been treated on Mr Beast’s one. I mean, it’s not a great look is it? God knows what’s gone wrong here. Did they only discover they were going to be looking after 400 people the night before? And, frankly, when contestants have nothing to lose, why not tell all? I have little doubt there’s an element of sour grapes to some of it – if there’s incompetence in catering, chances are there’s going to be incompetence in the mic pack arrangements as well. But if that turns to incompetence in the referee-ing then yes that probably does need to be looked at.

Still, looking forward to seeing how they’re going to get 90 minutes out of Red Light Green Light. Or the Glass Bridge, a game where *basically nothing happens*.

Edit: Sorry I realised too late this post should have been titled ‘Studio Lambert redefines the contestant welfare genre’, this is just something I will have to live with going forward.