Tom Allen’s Quizness begins Friday May 14th, 8pm. I did some of the early runthroughs, if you like your quizzing with a mental agility aspect and some silliness you may want to look out for it, although without seeing a finished product I can’t tell you if it works on telly or not, obviously.

Unbeatable (which I like to think will have the same theme tune as Impossible but with the lyrics changed) starts 2:15pm on May 10th on BBC1 with The Answer Trap starting very soon afterwards at 3pm on Channel 4. And you know what that means? A week full of content! Incredible.

Also don’t forget that Bother’s Bar’s Game Night 22: The Tenuous Council Elections Special is this coming Sunday at 8pm. You won’t want to miss the Arbitrary Final.

Edit: And it’s Schlag den Star Saturday May 8th (thanks David).

I’ve been reaquainting myself with MTV’s The Challenge of late, having not really watched it for about ten years. For the uninitiated, it’s a reality game that’s been running since 1998 as a spin-off of two existing MTV reality (fly-on-the-wall docs they’d have probably been called back then) shows, Road Rules (starting 1995) and Real World (starting 1992, and they’ve only recently stopped making it) and as such actually pre-dates a lot of reality behemoths that we know today (although it is probably fair to suggest that the form we know now probably owes quite a lot to those behemoths).

The specific rules of the game change from season to season, but on a basic level each episode features a Daily Challenge and an Elimination Round and to make any money you have to survive to the season’s Final. Daily Challenges are big scale and usually visually interesting, something testing endurance/dexterity/puzzle solving, if nothing you’ve really not seen before. The head-to-head Elimination Rounds are either involve a variant on wrestling and/or some sort of action game with a puzzle element. In between we get action from the house usually involving politicking for the various votes, nights at a local bar, fighting and fucking. At heart, it’s sort of Survivor Legacy, contestants get re-invited back season after season, some have been going at it for the best part of twenty years with all the rivalry and baggage that that entails (Johnny Bananas recently completed his 20th season and is now 46 and still pot-stirring at every opportunity).

For a channel that’s so obsessed with 18-34s, the age of its participants might prove a problem. However a few years ago they’ve started inviting people from other international reality shows on, including a big UK contingent from things like Geordie Shore, Love Island, Ex On The Beach and so on. Generally speaking these people have provided good value in terms of comic lines in confessionals. I’ve also quite enjoyed host ex-BMXer TJ Lavin’s complete lack of sympathy for quitters and openly laughing when someone belly flops after a bodged height challenge.

“So Brig,” you might be asking, “this sounds like quite fun. How can I watch it myself?” Well reader, I’d like to say you can (legally) watch it for free, but I can’t. I’d like to say it’s all one streaming service, but I can’t. I’d like to say you can (legally) watch from the very beginning, but I can’t. But I CAN give you this handy table of what’s currently available:

It is a little bit ridiculous isn’t it? On the plus side, you can get thirty day trials of HayU and MTV Play as Amazon video channels so you can sort of watch most in one place, just remember to cancel the sub before you get charged. Who even knew MTV Play was A Thing? Anyway, SORT IT OUT distributors.

I know you’re all going to say “The Crystal Dome”, but you’re wrong, it’s Bid A Note.

Genuinely don’t know.

Edit: Looks like the winner is George Alexander Trebek. Congratulations to him!

Right, keep your diary free, the next Bother’s Bar Game Night 22: The Council Elections Special is set for Sunday May 2nd (we do Sundays now, to avoid clashing with more popular Game Nights) from 8pm until around 10:30pm, and I’m now looking for panellists. So if you’d like to be considered for the panel, hit me up in a private message either here or on Discord so it’s easier for me to keep a record. We’re always after new blood, so please apply if you’ve been interested but not done it before.

I’d quite like to try having an Audience Captain if that’s more appealing to you – somebody on all stream to play Voice of the Audience games (including the Arbitrary Final game), but letting the actual audience play the other games. If I’m oversubbed, I might give that role to a potential first reserve.

IN THE MEANTIME, even if you just want to watch and playalong as part of the audience, there is something you can do for me – the Arbitrary Final will feature a call and response catchphrase, and ideally YOU will provide the response. Here’s what I need you to record:

Try and keep roughly to the same intonation and timing, it will probably sound hilarious/rubbish/both when everything’s layered on top of each other. Please record as a .wav or .mp3.

THEN I need you to upload it somewhere. Probably easiest, I’ve set up a new channel in the Bother’s Bar Discord, just click on the Plus sign in the new message box and add it. Alternatively, you can upload it to a cloud account and send me a private message with the details.

Thanks in advance!