Weekdays, 5pm,
ITV

Right, well, somebody decided this was worth a commission, so here we go. It’s also another show that’s marketed itself as being a bit like Deal Or No Deal, but still, over ten years on, misunderstands Deal or No Deal.

Rylan Clark-Neal invites couples to attempt to win up to £44,000 by answering questions and opening matryoshka babushka dolls. There are ten dolls, two of them are empty, the others have smaller dolls inside them worth cash, and some of those have smaller dolls inside them with more cash and so on up to £10,000. The couple MUST open eight of them and can’t leave the game until they’ve done so. Unfortunately to open a doll they have to answer a question. Get it wrong? Lose all your money. Open an empty doll? Lose all your money. Push your luck too far with a doll? Lose all your money. And there’s a double or nothing gamble at the end.

So what we have is a rollercoaster, except with just eight chances to make money but about 25 opportunities to lose it all it’s a rollercoaster made up of a load of speedbumps. If you do find yourselves towards the end with some money, the game encourages conservative (i.e. boring) play so you don’t lose it all. And then there’s a double or nothing gamble at the end which as we all know will only ever get used if they’ve ended up doing really badly.

Everything I’ve seen of it points to it being rubbish. But, y’know, I might be wrong. I think Rylan deserves a bit better anyway.

Tuesday nights, 9pm,
Dave

Hurrah! Taskmaster‘s back for an extended run with five brand new comics testing their problem solving, creativity and gamesmanship talents.

This series features old Bake Off host Mel Giedroyc, new Bake Off host Noel Fielding, Lolly Adefope, Hugh Dennis and Joe Lycett.

Note the new earlier start time (brave) which almost caught me out, although the first episode has been up on UKTV Play all week anyway. However I haven’t watched it yet because I tend to prefer communal broadcast.

This shouldn’t bother you however, if you delve into the comments you should be aware that there are likely to be spoilers.

Weekdays, 2:15pm,
BBC1

Susan Calman is in charge as a team of strangers led by a contestant referred to as ‘the boss’ build up a pot of cash in rounds of questions. Can The Boss stay in power and who will walk away with the cash?

It sounds a bit Weakest Link and a bit Greed. It’s got spinning podiums a bit like The Voice. It’s on for the next four weeks. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Sundays, 7pm,
ITV

Sunday nights are now “people in silly costumes doing physical tasks” nights with this at 7pm followed by the brilliant Wild Things at 8pm on Sky One.

Big Heads sees Jason Manford alongside Jenny Powell and Kriss Akabusi invite six eight people to don gigantic celebrity heads and battle each other over comedy physical games for prizes. Intriguingly it sounds as though the series has been set up as a tournament, with each episode’s winner going through to the final at the end of the series, in a way we’ve probably not seen since The Krypton Factor or something. It’s a fun idea anyway.

The question is does this have anything extra other than what it looks like on the surface? Wild Things has immense creativity with its games and feel and its comedy works on several levels. Total Wipeout brought proper physicality to the table. Meanwhile other recent physical shows have flopped rather – Can’t Touch This was a bit dull, Intervilles is not really a thing in France any more (there is a Chinese backed international version which I presume is The Biggest Gameshow In The World that’s watched by a few hundred thousand on Gulli) and is probably closest to what I suspect this is going to be. The people behind this are the same people behind Release the Hounds, which is a Bother’s Bar favourite, so we’ll see.