Board of Excitement 7th-13th August 2011

By | August 7, 2011
15 Comments

There’s nothing on.

Well maybe that’s a bit unfair, the new series of Shooting Stars begins tomorrow at 10pm on BBC2. Take the Money and Run has extreme accents this week (Tuesday, ABC). Er, that’s it, there’s no Fort Boyard next Saturday because of the rugby.

Looks like another quiet week on the bar. We’ve not done any iThing reviews for a while, is there anything relevant I’ve missed?

Press your buttons… NOW!

By | August 5, 2011
46 Comments

Surely SURELY one of the greatest set pieces in the history of television: Spaghetti Junction on New Faces. Keith Strachan and Ed Welch did the music:

I have no idea how pushing a button translated into lights, mind.

Show Discussion: Take the Money and Run

By | August 2, 2011
37 Comments

If you’re in the UK you’ll have to resort to naughty means to watch it, destroying the entire television industry in the process but TONIGHT! marks the first episode of Take the Money and Run on ABC (official site here), a show where if two people can keep secret the location of a briefcase of money they’ve hidden for 48 hours whilst being interrogated by Actual Real police types playing for themselves then they get to keep it. It’s of interest for us because it’s in our favourite genre, the action-adventure, and also because it’s co-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Wild Rover, our favourite Irish production company (we don’t know many more) who came up with Secret Fortune. And it’s nice to see this sort of thing can still get comissioned.

Be aware that comments for this post may well end up containing spoilers (especially as it’s unlikely UK people will be watching it until Wednesday sometime).

If you have any misc comments, stick them in the post beneath this one. Ta.

Slow

By | August 1, 2011
37 Comments

Sorry, the server is being a bit slow today by the looks of things. Normal service will resume soon, hopefully.

Ooh! It’s later and we have NEWS:

  • From Twitter: “FYI, 1st episode of Money Drop aired in France today on TF1. US-based, and everything else you’d expect from that. Slow, etc.” – will be interested to see the ratings. Looking forward to seeing Endemol Joe spin them as he is uniquely qualified to do.
  • Only Connect begins on August 15th, which we had sort of suspected for a while anyway.

Board of Excitement 31st July – 6th August 2011

By | July 31, 2011
22 Comments

Again not much happening this week really but at least one new show to tickle our collective tastebuds, and it’s Very Much The Sort Of Thing We’re Interested In:

  • Dragons’ Den – I’ve not actually watched this for ages but there’s not much else British on the board, and there’s a new Dragon, Hilary Devey, so. (9pm, Sunday, BBC2)
  • The Amazing Race Australia – The final (we think, unless it’s a secret two parter). I’ve really enjoyed this race, it’s made a load of good decisions such as keeping the kick-them-when-they’re-down elements to a minimum and making it much more than a series of point to point hauls by giving them some sort of task at pretty much every location. Although perhaps the greatest things TARA has given us is really good contestants and producers treating the viewers with some semblance of intelligence. Not for Australians heavily signposted things like subtitles of mistakes and rasping sounds, oh no. (Monday, Seven Network)
  • Pointless – it is fair to say that this has been on fire during the previous week, Rickrolling the nation and having a team pull off an amazing bluff in the head to head amongst other things. The French version, Personne n’y Avait Pensé! (No-one Thought according to Google Translate) began last week and has lost a bit of the fun in translation. There’s no French Richard Osman! Tragedy. Anyway, Lee put a link up to it here where there’s also some discussion. (5:15pm, Weekdays, BBC1)
  • Take the Money and Run – This week’s new show that we are interested in, co-produced by Wild Rover of Secret Fortune fame. Two people are given a suitcase with $100k and are given one hour to hide it. Then actual real law enforcement people get 48 hours to find it. It sounds a bit like a high budget version of The Interrogators, a show few will remember. It’s nice to see this sort of thing can still get comissioned, I hope it’s great. (Tuesday, ABC)
  • Fort Boyard 2011 – Episode six of seven of what’s been a highly enjoyable series and it’s a team made up with lots of swimmers. It’s a shame that whilst they’ve sorted out the key game music, they’ve messed up the adventure music quite badly – where are the tunes? SORT IT OUT. Discussion and links to watch it: here. (Saturday, France 2)

And as of right NOW nobody has won Word Up! yet. Who will claim the cash? It could be YOU!