Saturday, 6:10pm,
BBC1

No your eyes AREN’T deceiving you, The “The” is now officially part of the title again after twenty years in the wilderness, for no discernable reason.

Look, we wanted Judge Rinder to host. But we like Romesh and can understand why they’ve gone for mildly-pissed-off-uncle in this lighter, brighter The Weakest Link reboot, where eight celebrities will quiz and backstab their way to win up to £50,000 for charity.

Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of the rubbish US reboot DNA lurking in here – a poorly considered chain if the advert to go by (although I accept that having a bottom rung 1/30th of the top is quite generous, that’s just as well as you might as well bank after every answer which isn’t very entertaining is it?), having to push a button to bank (ooh the dynamicism) and we still don’t actually know if there’s a big-money two-player round before the head to head which is an absolutely useless format subtraction. And Christ I hope they’re not going to have to reveal who you voted for before the big reveal of who you voted for. And also by Christ please don’t be plodding with the questions, it IS meant to be quickfire.

I know it’s easy to fall into the trap of going “oh this doesn’t matter, it’s all about the comedy.” Except it’s the quiz that drives the comedy. It’s always been the quiz that drives the comedy. Once you’ve taken the piss out of someone’s job and accent, what are you going to take the piss out of when people making mistakes under pressure isn’t there?

Anyway fingers crossed that it’s good but can well believe it might be rubbish. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Thursdays, 10pm,
Channel 4

The latest creation of Format Powerhouse (or at least, Person) Richard Bacon sees Jimmy Carr asking questions about things that have just happened in the studio for £25,000. It’s an observation and memory quiz basically.

What might be fun is that this interview suggests they’re going quite big on the meta, “we had real fun with the fact that anything can happen. You can have 15-second cameos, you can have false ad breaks, you can mess with people’s minds.” It also sounds like the grand final will have contestants setting each other questions: “I think the best bit of the show is the end round. I’ve never seen another game show do that, where you go, “Oh, you’re setting each other questions”” and I for one can’t believe we’ve all forgotten Mental: The Music Quiz already.

Counting against it: is there going to be enough here to sustain an hour? And it’s not usually a slot that C4 do amazingly well in. Watched it? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Nightly 12th-17th December, 8pm,
ITV

Simon Cowell’s new musical competition/gameshow thing which seems to suggest someone will be walking away with £500,000 at the end of the week.

To be honest, we’re not quite clear on how the format works other than an apparent exciting bit at the end of each episode where the winner has to decide whether to cash-out or walk down an ACTUAL line and gamble their winnings on the next show. Somehow this ends in a Grand Final on Friday which despite being a pre-record had a vote from a virtual online-watching audience and someone wins half-a-mill.

The judging panel consists of Gary Barlow, Craig David, Alesha Dixon and (surely the only possible contender for Bradley Walsh in the competition of The Nation’s Sweetheart) Dawn French, they’ve all had top three-or-better hits in their careers so you can’t say they lack credibility. Whether you would want to risk prize money on the whims of Craig David remains to be seen. The show’s hosted by previous Next Big Thing Maya Jama, hopefully this will be a bit more successful for her than Cannonball.

It’s certainly got a great opening night slot going into the final of I’m A Celeb, whether it’ll keep up momentum remains to be seen. Let us know what you think in the comments.