I Forgot A Zombie Apocalypse

By | March 2, 2015
19 Comments

Do you know? This morning I had a feeling that there is something I’d usually do on Sunday night which has just passed me by this week. And then I remembered I had completely forgotten I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse was on, I was too busy doing things that were actually quite exciting, like playing Assassin’s Creed and watching House of Cards.

Has any other show gone from excitement to forgotten exists within the space of two episodes?

Wild Things

By | February 26, 2015
14 Comments

Hey! Purveyor of unusual comedy gameshows Gary Monaghan has been in touch:

Hi Nick – just to let you know we’ve got a new game show coming out on Sky One on March 15th called Wild Things. It’s hopefully quite a funny physical game show that unusually for me is for a family audience, and it’s hosted by Jason Byrne and Kate Humble. It’s going out at 7pm on Sunday nights, the idea being that it’s like your last weekend treat before bedtime and school the following day . I think it’s quite good, although I would say that wouldn’t I

This is the link to the Sky website:

http://www.sky.com/tv/show/wild-things/video/owl-fall

Hope you like it

Best

Gary

The clip is quite funny, it is of a man in an owl costume who can’t see anything running through the woods. It’s the slapstick version of that bit from the film Intacto. Something that might be worth looking forward to at any rate.

Edit: here’s the press release. Short version: couples complete, one dressed in a woodland creature costume. That person can’t see. They must get through obstacle courses in the woods, with comedy consequences. The end result is GOLD.

BGM

By | February 26, 2015
7 Comments

Interesting interview with Paul Farrer on Buzzerblog this morning, now mildly irritated that TV people put so little stock in their background music when for me it can absolutely turn an OK show into a more watchable one, and goodness knows we’ve got annoyed by shows that used good stuff and replaced it with tuneless rubbish.

That’s Yer (Pi)Lot: The Hit List

By | February 24, 2015
19 Comments

tomdavidhitlistTuesday 24th Feb, 4:30pm,
Youtube

Well more of an exciting runthrough, but it’s got proper TV people working on it and a set and everything.

You may remember Tom Scott doing a live Youtube show called First Person Quiz last year, this is a v2.0 of that with a view to actual real television.

Again a contestant in studio will be racing the internet to find as many answers as possible to David B’s questions but we’ve been told to expect a lot of format tweaks. Personally I have some question marks as to how it would work with an audience of millions, so it will be very interesting to see how it all comes across this afternoon.

I’ll put the video back here if an edited one goes up. 

There might also be a practice go earlier in the afternoon, so make sure you keep it locked to @hitlistquiz on Twitter for the latest details.

Show Discussion: 1000 Heartbeats

By | February 23, 2015
65 Comments

1000hbsWeekdays, 4pm,
ITV1

After a false start it’s time for everybody to get the chance to watch ITV1’s newest afternoon quiz 1000 Heartbeats.

Contestants can win £25,000 if they can calmly make their way through seven rounds of questions testing knowledge and mental agility. They are wired up to a heartbeat monitor and they must go as far as they can – and play the final cashout game – before their 1000 heartbeats run out. Wrong answers cost 25 heartbeats, and if they don’t like a question they can switch it for an additional 50 penalty.

From what we’ve seen of it it’s a nicely made albeit highly derivative show – the structure of The Cube meets the games of Five Minutes to a Fortune meets The Chair, but all those shows had something going for them. As a show based around minigames, we will have to see if there are enough of them and minigame fatigue sets in. There is a rather large question mark over having the timer tick down whilst the questions are being read.

The show’s USP is that the music in the studio is provided by the actual real light entertainment music legend Paul Farrer (who devised the show) conducting the Heartbeats Strings quartet, four professional violinists who will vary the speed they play at depending on the contestant’s heartrate. This is designed to panic! This is also, I think, the first time Vernon’s done a daytime show since T4, although I’m sure you’ll correct me if I’m wrong.

Sunday general notices

By | February 22, 2015
2 Comments

Alright we’re in the middle of a busy period so here to act as a general thread is a round up of things you might have missed and things that are happening and things generally:

  • Last week David Bodycombe won Quiz the Nation. You can have a go yourself tonight at 8pm, once again it’s free.
  • Sunday night means I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse. Not much buzz around tonight’s episode, I hope the first one didn’t blow it. That’s tonight at 10pm.
  • On Friday night there was Bear Grylls’ Mission Survive and Million Pound Drop.
  • Yesterday night I went and saw upcoming big BBC1 Saturday night adventure reality game show quiz Prized Apart in a hangar in Farnborough, you can read about that here.
  • Monday at 4pm 1000 Heartbeats begins on ITV, the first episode was accidentally watchable but has been taken down now. The Show Discussion post for it, which will be done up and moved to the top of the page tomorrow morning, can be found here.
  • Tuesday is very exciting as it’s Tom Scott’s and David Bodycombe’s LIVE Youtube quiz The Hit List around 4:30pm. We’ll be putting up a pilot discussion post for it (although it’s more like a runthrough) for it on Tuesday afternoon. Information can be found here.
  • I still want to know your favourite promo shots of hosts holding a card.
  • Finally quiz nerds if you’ve got a PS3 or PS4, there’s a game out called Trivial Pursuit – Live! which is quite fun, although I’ve not been able to complete an online game yet for whatever reason. Questions a little bit tougher than previous versions, but as most are multiple choice hardened quizzers probably won’t have too much trouble with most of them. It’s closer to Buzz! than traditional Triv, and it’s currently £12. Add me as a friend – Brig Bother, we might be able to have a game sometime.