That Ultimate Big Brother line-up in full

By | August 24, 2010
16 Comments

Crikey, I think this is actually a bit of a great line-up. Which I wasn’t expecting:

  • Nasty Nick Bateman (Big Brother 1 – 2000): Very possibly the most important person in Big Brother history.
  • Brian Dowling (Winner, Big Brother 2 – 2001): Very possibly the funniest person in Big Brother history.
  • Nadia Almada (Winner, Big Brother 5 – 2004): Very possibly the most Portugese transexual person in Big Brother history.
  • John McCririck (Celebrity Big Brother 3 – 2005): Very possibly the most disgusting housemate in Big Brother history.
  • Makosi Musambasi (Big Brother 6 – 2005): Very possibly the most troublemaking person in Big Brother history.
  • Chantelle Houghton (Winner, Celebrity Big Brother 4 – 2006): Very possibly the most least celebrity celebrity in Big Brother history.
  • Preston (Celebrity Big Brother 4 – 2006): Very possibly the least interesting musically in Big Brother history.
  • Nikki Grahame (Big Brother 7 – 2006): Very possibly the whingiest person in Big Brother history.
  • Coolio (Celebrity Big Brother 6 – 2009): Very possibly the coolest person in Big Brother history.
  • Ulrika Jonsson (Winner, Celebrity Big Brother 6 – 2009): Very possibly the most Swedish person in Big Brother history.
  • Josie Gibson (Winner, Big Brother 11 – 2010): Very possibly the most heavily accented person in Big Brother history.

So there we are, that’s the line-up, with an eviction on Friday and two more coming in also on Friday (but not through the front door). Really looking forward to seeing how Nasty Nick and Brian Dowling cope (Brian looked a bit put out that there were so many big personalities in the house), Chantelle and Preston were married and divorced and Chantelle and Nikki have had a falling out in the media.

John McCririck has already been hit by the Tree of Temptation at the time of writing. John Mc wants out as soon as possible, I fully expect the Tree to give him a ticket to the final night.

Good old the Swedish

By | August 24, 2010
29 Comments

The Swedes were one of the first countries to try Fort Boyard as a two-team affair almost ten years ago (as Fortet) AND NOW IT’S BACK! With original hosts Gunde Svan and Agneta Sjödin. Digging the titles!

Tigers, there. And apparently Jimmy Carr is the new Fader Fouras. Hat tip to Craig for the link.

Big Brother Final + ULTIMATE

By | August 24, 2010
13 Comments

Now, you see, I went into this final series (on Channel 4, if the Five rumours are to be believed) with the best of intentions. I used to watch the show religiously, right up until the final fortnight of Big Brother 6 when I decided I couldn’t be bothered, which as I was running a Fantasy Big Brother competition at the time was a bit of a pain. I’ve always said that the show going one hour a day seven days a week for over three months of the year is too much of a commitment, that it felt like work, and it’s interesting that when I stopped watching coincided with when it went like that (although it should be pointed out that that still makes UK BB one of the shorter international series).

Still, it was the last one so for three whole weeks I watched it properly and even enjoyed it. Then I missed one for whatever reason and never looked back. This is a shame, as I’ve still been following it through the websites and Digital Spy (and I particularly enjoyed Phil Edgar-Jones’ contributions to the DS forum), and they’ve certainly had some brilliantly creative tasks this year. I also thought Emma Willis was teriffic on BBLB, although the proposed change in the spin-off show’s direction doesn’t appear to have materialised.

Tonight is the grand final where probably Josie will walk away with £100,000, then turn around and walk straight back in again for the final fortnight of Ultimate Big Brother, where the winner will be joined by housemates of the past to decide who is the best housemate of all time, or something. At the beginning of the Summer this sounded like quite an appealing prospect, and I know a lot of people (other lapsed fans) who suggested they might give the main series a miss, but might tune in for the Ultimate series. The thing is, now it’s about to arrive, I’m not sure how bothered I am about it, by the sounds of it all the really good housemates of the past don’t need to do it so who is that going to leave? Find out tonight.

So there we are: Big Brother: a victim of its own success or basically a victim of everyone being ten years older? You decide.

Shammy Dab

By | August 23, 2010
10 Comments

Thanks top Barry for the heads-up, fans of Scottish television will be delighted to know that STV seem to be in the process of putting up a load of STV stuff on Youtube. Currently up are Burn Your Bills from 2005, the really-quite-good kids show Get Wet, school quiz Red Amber Green, comedy quiz Shammy Dab and general knowledge quiz Snap!

Importantly, Win, Lose or Draw is promised.

If that’s not exciting enough, I forgot to mention that the new season of Deal or No Deal begins this afternoon at 4:15 on Channel 4.

Saturday Night’s Alright For Writing -21st August

By | August 21, 2010
22 Comments

Basically: The X Factor is on. Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t really weatch it veryu religiously at all. Despite that, Fantasy X Factor soon! And less than a month until the next Schlag den Raab! The last one feels like such a long time ago.

  • 6:10pm BBC1 – 101 Ways to Leave a Gameslow
  • 6:45pm ITV1 – Odd One In
  • 7:10pm BBC1 – Tonight’s The Night
  • 7:30pm ITV1 – The X Factor *makes the international arm symbol of the “X”*, The Xtra Factor with Konnie Huq (I predict she’ll be no Holly Willoughby) follows at 9pm on ITV2. Bad luck Magic Numbers.
  • 9pm ITV1 – Magic Numbers (guests apparently include Alexandra Burke, Pamela Anderson and some people off of Britain’s Got Talent. And what odds can I have that the Xs in the end game will be coloured like the X Factor X, cross promotion and all that?)

Show discussion: Fort Boyard 2010 Grand Final

By | August 21, 2010
17 Comments

Well, all good things must come to an end – after twenty years and twenty-one seasons, it’s very very likely that this will be the last we’ll see of Fort Boyard (on France 2) for the forseeable future. It remains to be seen if they will still make the show for other countries who want to make it in future years, and if they do how much will they bother with new stuff?

But let us not mourn, let us celebrate tonight’s grand final – three great teams (including a team of four made up of people who played the game twenty years ago) vieing for the €40,000 top prize. They’ve already proven themselves, so it’s basically going to come down to which team has the better treasure collecting technique I expect.

Under few circumstances would I suggest this season has been better than the twenty traditional seasons that have gone before it, but looking at the success the two-team format has had in recent years in the rest of Europe I can totally understand why they choose to go down this path with their last roll of the dice. And having been refining it for a good six-seven years now, they’ve finally found a two-team format that feels convincing. It’s not perfect, but it does give something to work with.

I think it would make a good 60-minute Saturday early evening format for the BBC. This is by no means perfect, but I think I would do it a little bit like this:

  • Ideally, eight-team knockout tournament.
  • 60 minutes without adverts means I reckon you could fit in four rounds, a round consisting of one duel and two timed challenges.
  • The teams would collect clues, but because of the extra round and to keep a bit of history, the first game they win would be for a key – effectively both teams begin on a -1 clue penalty.
  • The duels can be whatever, as they are now. The timed challenges for rounds 1-3 are in the traditional cells of the fort. The challenge for round four would be an “EXTREME challenge” i.e. what you used to call an adventure. This is for some much needed progression.
  • The winners of the duel get increasingly more power as the show progresses. There is no bonus in round one. In round two, the winning team is told what the next two games are and can select one for themselves. In round three, not only can they select but the losing team is obliged to win the key or become a prisoner. In round four (for the EXTREME challenge), the winning team gets to select the game AND forbid one player from the losing team from picking themselves to play, and both teams are obliged to win their challenge or lose a player. Hopefully this will go some way to alleviate the problem that the biggest strongest male plays most of the games.
  • The riddles should be kept in some capacity, either one up in the watchtower (in which case, you need to employ someone for the watchtower) as a duel, or the other thing I came up with was the host asking a riddle before duels three, four and the treasure room and if any team gets two of them they win a bonus clue.
  • Prisoners are kept in the dungeon using the current system – if a team takes more than one then the newest one replaces the oldest one. After the four rounds, the teams play the one table duel (inevitably the Holding the Weight game, because it’s probably the best one). The winning team gets their prisoner released, the losing team must have their prisoner Escape the Dungeon within the time limit or forfeit one of their clues. If neither team has a prisoner, then they can do the Crossbow Relay for a bonus.
  • The treasure room I’m keeping as is, with the proviso that the gold is converted directly into money again, which the winning team can take home provided they’ve got the codeword correct. If both teams are wrong, then both leave with nothing but whoever collected the most gold at least gets to come back and have another go in the next stage. The winners of the grand final win a divisible by four bonus.
  • Setting. This is difficult to get right, but the French show used to be quite good at being fantastical but without being embarrassing about it, and I certainly see no problem with trying to capture the imagination. In fact I think it’s needed. Turning the fort and its history into basically a jumped-up outward bound centre (regardless that that is what it actually is) as they have this year has hurt it, I think – sure, they’ve still got a 200 year-old man dispensing riddles and they still have people in tiger masks, but the roles this year have been basically lip service. A host playing it quite straight (as the French have proven, it doesn’t actually need someone Crystal Maze-esque eccentric, someone with a strong personality and a sense of authority would do nicely. “Welcome to me little holiday home!”) but with a production that hints at things happening beneath the surface would play quite well I reckon.
  • Music is very important, and I’m *totally* putting the adventure music back on games they were designed for. New or remixed versions depending on what they are. Games where the music doesn’t provide a clear identity will be dealt with on a whim. 
  • Obviously you would have to do the final at night, and double obviously there has to be a Champions vs Celebrities Christmas special. Obviously.

If I had to make a two team format, that is the way I would do it. I think.