Board of Excitement 1st-7th July 2012

By | July 1, 2012
9 Comments

I can’t remember the last time there was a Board of Excitement, precumably because there’s been very little excitement over the previous weeks. Here we are though:

  • Tipping Point (Weekdays, 5pm, ITV1) – Ben Shephard hosts a quiz based around those coin pushers you see in the arcades. Top prize is £10,000 apparently, there’s a Show Discussion post about this set up for 2pm tomorrow.
  • Amazing Race Australia (Monday, Australia) – this continues to be very good, although last week’s episode was slightly weaker than the others.
  • And then not very much until SUPER SATURDAY.
  • Who Wants to Be A Millionaire (Saturday) – This is for a recording where they try out some new game elements (presumably as a test for the civilian live shows the following week). I was hoping to go to this myself, but a friend’s birthday dinner is falling on the same day so I’ve had to cancel. If you go then of course we are interested in your thoughts. There do not appear to be any tickets left for it.
  • Fort Boyard 2011 (Saturday, 5:26pm, TV5Monde Europe) – Last year’s batch…
  • 17 Meter (Saturday 7:15pm UK time, Pro 7) – The Whole 19 Yards lives on in Germany. Sounds like there’s some sort of interhost team rivalry being set up this time round.
  • Fort Boyard 2012 (Saturday, 7:35pm UK time, France 2) – This year’s batch. So exciting!

Lucky Sexy Winners

By | June 29, 2012
16 Comments

Lucky Sexy Winners, Vic and Bob’s remimagining of Shooting Stars for Channel 4 films August 2nd at Television Centre.

Meanwhile the Reflex pilot filming at Mediacity on July 13th is being hosted by Jake Humphreys. I thought he was alright hosting the Break the Safe pilot, so, you know. We have someone going to that, excitingly, so look out for some sort of write-up.

Also something in a recent WordPress update seems to have borked the comment links on the left – clicking on them sometimes seems to take you to the post rather than the comment itself. I am aware, hopefully this will resolve itself soon.

Tim Vine

By | June 27, 2012
12 Comments

Well there’s my ‘in’, Tim Vine’s hosting Don’t Blow the Inheritance. It’s filming 7 episodes total at Television Centre Friday 20th- Sunday 22nd July. Tickets via Lost in TV.

Here is this week’s Top Tweet:

Good selective use of capitalisation there, Phil.

MASSIVE CONSPIRACY

By | June 26, 2012
5 Comments

Once again, a TV filming I would have liked to have seen falls on a date I can’t make because of other commitments, so if you want to go and see The Bodyguard on July 18th (it’s a Wednesday) and write about it then let me know and I’ll give it the front page.

If pilot producers could check with me before deciding dates in future please thanks.

The Great Escape

By | June 25, 2012
15 Comments

THUMP THUMP THUMP

Just watched last night’s premiere of The Great Escape (from the US TNT network), it’s almost very good but there are a number of things that count against it.

First of all: how it works (I’ll hide specifics and criticism under a spoiler at the end):

  • Three teams of two go to a place and are locked up. The first team to escape by finding four bits of the Great Escape Key win $100,000. For the first episode they’re escaping Alcatraz.
  • The teams begin in “the detainment zone” where they are locked into cells. They need to find the Great Escape Map which will show them the escape route and they need to find a key to escape the cell. They can move on to the first stage.
  • There are four stages located at various points around the location. For each stage there is a task. Completion of the task earns a quarter of the circular Great Escape Key (to unlock the treasure) and an object to help them escape.
  • Between locations guards are patrolling. If a guard spots them, they must drop all clues and go back to the Detainment Zone where another key has been hidden. STEALTH ACTION!
  • All four bits of key found, when put together it spells out the location of host Rich Eiser and the treasure chest. They must race to the Transportation Zone to meet up with ‘an accomplice’ and pick up transport and get there. The first team to arrive wins the money.
  • Whilst this is all going on, team progress is relayed to the other teams via a cold woman’s voice on a tannoy.

Spoilers under the cut.

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Very Much The Sort Of Thing We Like

By | June 24, 2012
13 Comments

OK, there’s a new show called The Great Escape beginning on US network TNT this evening.

This looks terrific, no?

In other news, very pleased that Amazing Race Australia did something I thought would have been a good idea years ago to get round one of the show’s more stupid elements – namely the kicking of teams when they’re down (who wants an exciting finish anyway?) – rather than penalize a team behind you at the time, teams secretly vote for who they wanted to do a U-turn on the leg before catching a plane to the next destination, the results of the U-turn not found out until after the detour so not limiting it to people behind you but any team in the race. A chance to peg back a strong team rather than have a foregone conclusion, doubly helped by having enough of a leg after to have a chance of fighting back. Good work Australia, and good work Israel who apparently did it first. Now bloody watch it if you’re in Australia – it’s been moved to Monday nights now and is not rating brilliantly.