The Poll of the Year 2020 is now OPEN

By | January 2, 2021
3 Comments

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! TV Production has faced many, many difficult challenges this year making things under a pandemic, and now it’s time to ruthlessly decide who coped with it best in the annual Poll of the Year.

You can go straight to the Google Form if you know what you’re doing.

Edit: Beat the Chasers begins its second run tonight from 9pm and continues daily, I’m not going to bother with a second Show Discussion post, it’s likely changes are minimal. Here’s the original.

Show Discussion: Lingo

By | December 31, 2020
24 Comments

Starts Friday, New Year’s Day at 4:35pm on ITV,
Continues weekdaily 3pm ITV

Over thirty years since it was last on UK screens, and not long after lots of long-running European versions have ended, Ben Shephard’s production company have tapped up Good Morning Britain host and comic Adil Ray to front a revival, seemingly based on the recent two-series-and-done Dutch version.

What does that mean? More emphasis on Word Mastermind and greatly downplayed bingo element, although ball drawing still happens (Edit: Nope). Whatsmore we’re looking at three teams being whittled down to one within the hour who will get to chance to win their bank, double it or lose it all in the final game.

We always quite liked Lingo, cheery fun. Whether I like 60 minutes of Lingo remains to be seen.

Watched it? Let us know what you think in the comments.

My new Bezost Friend

By | December 30, 2020
12 Comments

Happy New Year, we will have a Show Discussion post for Lingo on Friday 1st Jan and the Poll of the Year 2020 will open Saturday 2nd.

In the meantime we pointed out a little while ago that Amazon Prime Video UK have added Aussie Survivor season 3, soon after joined by seasons 4 and 5, but they’ve basically added loads of US reality games from that period where big fun stuff was coming out and took a bit of effort to watch, stuff like Wipeout, Beauty and the Geek (plus Aussie versions!), Fear Factor et al, fingers crossed for Solitary at some point and DOUBLE fingers crossed they’ll get the rights to all of US Survivor in the future as well.

Show Discussion: Blankety Blank

By | December 23, 2020
11 Comments

Friday (Xmas Day),
BBC1, 7pm

It’s another Christmas special, (as David Walliams put it, “we’ve called it a special and not a pilot in case it doesn’t do very well,” or words to that effect) this time with the nation’s sweetheart Bradley Walsh in charge of Emilia Fox, Jimmy Carr, Amir Khan, Danny Jones, Anita Rani and Sue Perkins helping (or not) members of the public to win prizes by filling in blanks.

This probably wouldn’t have happened without the successful Match Game revival in the US – note the Match Gamed-up logo and set. For me there’s a question mark as to whether Bradley Walsh is going to be the correct person for it – not a sleight against him, more a requirement of the format, but we hope we’re proved wrong.

Let us know what you think in the comments!

Show Discussion: Miranda’s Games With Showbiz Names

By | December 23, 2020
4 Comments

Thursday (Christmas Eve),
BBC1, 9:45pm

This is quite interesting, or at least more interesting than it might look, it’s actually a version of Celebrity Game Face, a show developed for NBC’s online operation, where Kevin Hart challenged celebs to play silly games remotely.

Now Miranda Hart’s doing it with Shirley Ballas and partner Danny Taylor, Jermaine Jenas and his wife Ellie and Robbie Williams and his drummer Karl Brazil.

Together they play a host of games – from stuffing sprouts in their mouths, and nailing viral dance moves, to dashing round their houses on a hunt for mystery items.

The competitive spirit abounds, not least because the winning team get to proudly lay their hands on Miranda’s hefty bust – a glimmering and enviable trophy sculpted in her image.

Monkey’s press release

The Main Event lives! Might be mildly good fun, and only half an hour to boot. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Happy Christmas

By | December 23, 2020
8 Comments

Don’t worry about the new Tier restrictions, this bar will stay open for the forseeable. This post is going to be pinned to the top – a signpost of sorts, so you can jump to relevant things that will be going up over the next week or so. You should use this post for general comments for the period. And don’t forget we have a Discord!

  • Celebrity The Celebrity Wall Versus Celebrities Thursday 6:55 BBC1 – Probably not worth its own post, but there’s the link to the original Show Discussion post.
  • Epic Gameshow: The Price is Right Christmas Special – Thursday at 8:15 on ITV. No point starting a separate post for this, use the linked Epic Gameshow Show Discussion one.
  • One Night In Hamleys – Thursday C4 9pm. Likely to be of interest even if not specifically a competitive format.
  • Miranda’s Game With Showbiz Names – Thursday, BBC1, 9:45pm. Kevin Hart’s Celebrity Game Face comes to the UK, and now it has Miranda.
  • Boyard Land – France 2 have basically given up on this, burning three eps this week in the afternoons on Xmas Day, Boxing Day and the 27th, and further episodes next weekend. Pity, quality of life improvements abound for series two but it’s just not taken off.
  • The Celebrity Wheel With Celebrities – Friday (Xmas Day) 6pm, BBC1 Not sure how different this will feel with celebs in the middle as well! Show Discussion post linked.
  • Blankety Blank – Friday, 7pm, BBC1 – Filling a space in the Christmas Day schedule.
  • The Story of SM:tv Live – Saturday, ITV, 9:25am – Note the am here! Likely to be of interest. Hopefully lots of Dec shouting at kids. Note this is repeated the following day at 8PM for those who can’t be bothered to set their alarms!
  • The Masked Singer S2 – Saturday, ITV, 7pm – Not sure this is going to be worth a Show Discussion post – we know what the format is and it’s unlikely to be greatly different, it’s more fun playing along on Twitter or whatever anyway. Here’s the link to the original Show Discussion.
  • Big Fat Quiz Of The Year – Saturday, 9:05pm, C4 – usually an entertaining enough watch.

What else is likely of interest across the next week? We’ll open up the Wie Is De Mol? 2021 page in due course, and The Poll of The Year will open January 2nd.

Edit: WIDM page is open!