OK so here’s fun, you might have seen the story recently that ITV were looking into a few shows that skew male (because traditionally we’re difficult to reach, and hence advertisers will pay a large premium if they know young men are watching). The terribly titled but might be OK upcoming Mission Survive with Bear Grylls has this in mind, and it looks like they’ve asked TwoFour (currently making waves with the ABC1s on The Jump) to do a version of Belgian format Eternal Glory, broadcast locally as Eeuwige Roem.

In it, sportspeople (both men and women) compete in tests to see who is the ultimate sportsperson across disciplines like perserverance, stress, team building, power, that sort of thing. There are three tests each week, and the people at the bottom of the weekly leaderboard have to do a difficult Night Test to stay in the game. So far so Celebrity Born to Win with Dermot O’ Leary.

However there are a couple of things that make it a little bit more interesting, namely it’s a format from The New Belgian Primitives who sound like a 90s indie act but in fact are the guys behind Bother’s Bar favourites The Mole and De Slimste Mens ter Wereld amongst other things.

And look! Happily here’s the very first episode from the very first series on Vimeo with English subtitles so you can have a look for yourselves:

The challenges are quite fun (albeit, and you’ll notice this, hugely cheap) but there would certainly need to be some presentational changes if it wants to work in the UK, fewer empty shots, more focus on the challenges which will likely need to feel a bit bigger in scale if not be a bit bigger in scale. We’d probably drop the panel of sportspeople talking about things bit. I like the idea of the elimination challenge not necessarily ending with an elimination (Although I gather that in later series this isn’t the case, it becomes a duel).

The show had three series in Belgium and one in the Netherlands and sounds like it’s gone down well in Scandinavia (where being hardy is the regional sport). Could it work over here? It’ll likely depend on the names being lined up for it I suspect, it’ll likely suffer from the modern Superstars problem that anyone currently relevant will probably stay away, which is a shame.

That episode is from 2008 so it will be interesting to see what can be done with seven year’s difference.

If you want to appear on Fifteen to One they are looking for contestants. And why shouldn’t you? It’s not as if anybody’s watching if you make an idiot of yourself. Send an e-mail off to 15to1apps@remedyproductions.tv by March 31st. You might win £40,000.

In other news, BBC 3’s very exciting I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse starts soon. It’s basically Dawn of the Dead: The Game Show as a group of contestants run round a shopping centre for a week doing tasks and making decisions but one touch from the zombie horde means you get eaten. I hope the real contestants aren’t quite so drama school:

Finally I’ve been asked when we’re “doing” Mario Kart 8 again. Next Saturday evening is the answer, details to come during the week. You will need the DLC, so you’ve got the next week to acquire it. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do Jackbox in a way that works for us, but don’t worry I haven’t forgotten.

So here’s fun, from next week it looks like Deal or No Deal is moving to 3pm where it meets Tipping Point and The Link. The winner gets to play whoever wins out of Cambridge United and Manchester United in the next round.

We don’t quite understand the logic here although I’m sure there is one – DOND is currently sitting at 700-800k in its 4pm slot against (the tanking, as we suspected might happen) Mel and Sue. Traditionally against Tipping Point in the slot DOND loses about 300k and they move straight over to Ben Shephard. TP is by no means a Bargain Hunt-esque monster, but it’s performing admirably well in a slot it doesn’t deserve and it’s being missed as a lead-in for The Chase. Meanwhile Antiques Road Trip is pushing 3m, and Pointless is regularly getting 4.2m (which is making The Chase‘s 3.3m-ish looking lacklustre even though by any other standard it’s a huge number to be getting regularly).

The replacement is the mildly entertaining Shipping Wars UK (where people bid against each other to make deliveries, it’s Postman Pat as competitive reality show) and Couples Come Dine With Me.

And then there’s The Link. It’s probably too early to suggest your second favourite new show (certainly not mine) is just the latest show to overperform in its first series and underperform subsequently, but for all the idea that the second series was going to iron out some of the issues of the first one I’m not seeing it. The first round still has too many situations where your reward for getting the link right is to literally directly benefit everyone else (hint to format designers! If your two options are not “do something to benefit me” or “screw someone else over” you don’t have any strategy or any decisions with any meaning, and getting the contestants to talk about their irrelevant decisions doesn’t suddenly make it in any way strategic.) Round two is still decided on basically what sort of mood the clue setters are in when they set the questions. The Superlink is a fine idea in theory but so rubbish in practice – the reason there aren’t many winners? Because sometimes they’ll give a list which requires a straight answer, and sometimes they’ll give a list where they want something more specific but don’t tell you this, so when the contestant gives a completely reasonable and technically correct response it’s judged wrong and they don’t get the time back, once or twice a game. It could really do with the “have another go” rule on Only Connect. It makes me SO MAD, BUT WHO AM I TO ARGUE WITH YOU, THE PUBLIC? It’d do a quarter-mill less without Mark Williams’ eccentric hosting.

Afternoons from next week, there.

OK, I know there are some You Don’t Know Jack fans here, in lieu of other news you might find this quite interesting – a couple of guys are trying to convert the really old 90s CD ones (the EU versions as you can buy the US ones freely on Steam) to Javascript and hence browser playable. Currently they have some of the French demo disc converted and playable, I gather they’d quite like the UK demo disc (if anyone still has it, and that’s as opposed to the full game). It’s in early stages right now, take a look if you want, and here’s their Twitter.

In other news Bear Grylls is going to host a celebrity endurance elimination show Mission Survive which basically sounds like 71 Degrees North in a jungle.