Show Discussion: Small Fortune

By | February 2, 2019
51 Comments

Saturdays, 7pm,
ITV

Saturday night’s king of smart-casual Dermot O’Leary challenges teams to games of skill in worlds of miniature.

There’s some serious money on the line as well with up to £150,000 to be won. Will anyone have the dexterous digits required or will Dermot just end up giving the contestants the finger? It’s The Cube, basically. Although much smaller so it’s more like The Dice, or something.

There’s already an app out, which I’ll politely suggest is free to play with a rather shocking 99p charge if you want to buy an extra life (although to be fair you can also ‘share’ the fact the app exists for the same payout). It’s… a bit repetitive, although they’re promising to add more games at a later date (there are only five right now and two of those require unlocking).

Anyway, we think the show looks fun but we’ve only got the trailer (and the app) to go on. Let us know what you think of it in the comments.

Talk About Ireland

By | February 1, 2019
6 Comments

Here’s some fun from Wink Martindale’s Youtube channel (which has some great stuff on it, if you were unaware), an episode of Bother’s Bar favourite Talk About from Ireland from 1990, featuring prominent Irish categories ‘convents’, ‘the Pope’ and ‘Larry Gogan’. Evidently this was a Saturday night show there.

Upcoming thrills

By | January 31, 2019
8 Comments

Some Bother’s Bar Events to look forward to, I think such exciting things should go on a board:

  • 1st Feb (that’s tomorrow) – I’d like to make a Bother’s Bar Plays Badly episode for going out on Sunday. I require four contestants. It’ll be fun, you’ll be needed 9-10 on Friday night, if you’re free and interested then let me know. Microphone required as ever, camera not so.
  • 2nd Feb – Show Discussion for Small Fortune, which I’ll be watching on catch-up Sunday morning probably.
  • 9th Feb – It’s Schlag den Star!
  • 16th Feb – Bother’s Bar Game Night 14: Valentine’s Special – I’ll put a shout out for contestants in due course.
  • 23rd Feb – The return of The Great Briggish Jack Off, but this time there are fabulous cash prizes (prize) up for grabs. Again, looking for contestants in due course.

And that’s your February here on BrigBC One.

Show Discussion: Britain’s Brightest Family S2

By | January 30, 2019
11 Comments

Wednesdays, 8pm,
ITV

The Governess is back with a new series of Britain’s Brightest Family, and it looks like there have been enough changes to warrant a new discussion post, not least a change in prize – the ultimate tournament winners now take £25,000 home, a change in set (out go the raising armchairs, in comes a large video wall) and a slight change in format with a new memory round.

Better than the first series? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Another brick in The Wall

By | January 29, 2019
10 Comments

If you hadn’t worked it out, this is for a UK adaptation of The Wall by the way.

So many unanswered questions. Can the BBC offer up the sorts of potential prizemoney to make it seem exciting? They’re not going to offer anywhere near the $12m potential of the US one. Will the public take to The Nation’s Sweetheart Danny Dyer hosting quite a complex shiny floor gameshow? He might end up being OK at it, but would he be believable?

Why hasn’t anyone pitched Dyer for Boyard Master of the Fort yet?

Sounds like a pilot is filming on the Polish set next month.

Stool Pigeon: End of Jan edition

By | January 28, 2019
4 Comments

A new series of Tenable started today and that is good news and everything but I’m not sure they’ll be anything different in it to warrant its own post.

So I opened up the Stool Pigeon. Eyes down, look in:

  • Can anyone recommend a good psychiatrist for Challenge’s obsession with The Chase? (They only put it on because it gets the numbers.)
  • I have no problem with Dara hosting Blockbusters but I fear Comedy Central will take it too far downmarket. In other news, maybe I should start touting the format I have created around.. (I genuinely can’t wait for it, because it won’t do very well and we can all go “well what were you expecting?”)
  • A joke I thought of right after the box closed last time: “‘The Fix‘ on Netflix is a panel show hosted by Jimmy Carr. That sentence serves as both a summary and a review that tells you exactly how much you’ll enjoy it.” (The Fix is quite interesting seeing as it’s basically Americans having a go at doing a UK panel show in the UK style (with lots of UK people in it) and actually not doing an atrocious job. Perhaps they should buy up the rights to US Taskmaster and see if they can make it work without a whooping audience and space to breathe.)
  • Look out for a reinterpretation (and improvement) of an old format coming to YouTube at some point, hopefully soon, as part of a slightly larger thing. It should be very good. (Comedy Central’s Blockbusters as part of a Youtube Bruce’s Big Night reversioning and revival. You heard it here first.)
  • I’ve been looking at various versions of Wheel of Fortune from all over and throughout the years- and it just bugs me that in the UK version someone could go to the bonus round without solving any puzzles because they bank all the points they spun after each round regardless of if they solved or not. As an aside, I’m kind of shocked they haven’t tried a revival over there- you could easily have a weekly hour-long version at least (they do daily hourlongs in Spain and Greece for example and they pace pretty well- probably better than the US actually-if you set the prizing up right even a daily one could work) (I quite liked the French one from about ten years ago. I think an hour of Wheel would be a tough watch. The other unusual thing about UK Wheel, of course, is that we rarely bought vowels, yet they buy them all the time in the US and US words barely have any vowels! Crazy.)
  • About “Questions pour un Champion” (French “Going for Gold“) – A special episode will be shot in few days to celebrate Grandmothers Day. This episode features 6 grandmothers with one of their grandchildren each. Thus, the game will be played in duo : that’s the first time that the game format will totally change (especially for the first round). On air : Friday March, 1st. – The future of the show is (as often) threatened. In fact, some production companies are thinking about a new show to replace QPUC (maybe Sony with a second French adaptation of “Jeopardy!” but really not sure). QPUC would not be cancelled but advanced in the schedule of France 3. (Imagine if they got Julien Lepers to host Jeopardy.)

Not a golden Stool Pigeon I think, but thanks to everyone who contributed.