Show Discussion: Tempting Fortune

By | March 25, 2023

Sundays and Mondays at 9pm,
Channel 4

Paddy McGuinness challenges 12 people to yomp across South Africa in an arduous journey to win a shared £300,000 – that’s £25,000 each! But there are temptations in store along the way, expensive ones designed to make life easier in the moment, that will knock money off. And if someone leaves £25k gets knocked off automatically. Will there be anything left to split at the finish line?

It’s not quite a new idea, Stranded With A Million Dollars and Money Game have explored the “big prize but £1,000 for a cup of tea” idea internationally and this is coming on the scene amongst a bit of a terrestrial reality gameshow glut and may well get a bit lost. Perhaps of interest, perhaps not, it’s a co-production with Roku and will show on The Roku Channel in the US at some point in the future.

But is it any good? Let us know in the comments!

Gambit Game starts Sunday

By | March 25, 2023

Gambit Game, the online Youtube homemade version of The Genius starring all your favourite internet nerds starts tomorrow night from 8pm UK on Youtube. We’re told, from TV’s Ben Justice who is a contestant, that it’s really good. We’ll be discussing it in #geniuschat in the BB Discord (linked in the sidebar).

The Youtube page is here.

Fuuun! Takeshi’s Castle!

By | March 24, 2023

It had completely slipped my mind that this was happening, but it is and it launches on Amazon Prime from April 21st. It’s the all new Fuuuun! Takeshi’s Castle! (which is what my browser’s autotranslate has called it) and when we say all new, it seems to use lots of the ideas from the original, still has Beat Takeshi, looks like the original General is there as well but with a new assistant, and loads of characters that didn’t make the original Challenge TV edit.

The trailer still made me laugh though, so that’s a good sign. Hopefully there are a lot of new ideas as well.

Show Discussion: Rise and Fall

By | March 18, 2023

Sunday to Friday, 9 and 10pm starting 19th March
Channel 4

Greg James fronts new POWERFULLY MESSAGED returnable social reality experiment (i.e. gameshow) that happily for us basically just looks a bit like US Big Brother but without the elimination.

A group of people are split into Rulers and Grafters, the Rulers live in luxury in the penthouse, the Grafters live in penury in the basement. The Grafters will do challenges to earn money for the prize pot (which we have heard is £100,000 max), the amount of money for each one and the difficulty will be determined by the Rulers. There will be ways and means for Rulers and Grafters to swap places in some sort of power struggle and in the end there’s a winner who wins the money in three weeks. My money’s on the Grafters having a vote on their favourite Ruler. Or perhaps the Rulers will vote on their favourite Grafter. Who knows?

This might actually be quite fun, the people behind The Traitors UK are behind this and the treatment and choices they made with that compared with the original were intelligent. Is it going to be so good I’m not going to mind a three-week hour a night commitment? Don’t know. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Show Discussion: Challenge Anneka

By | March 18, 2023
Sorry about the space on the right, we literally just nicked this off the Channel 5 site in a hurry

Saturdays, 8:50pm,
Five

Anneka’s back with her logistics-em-up show The Challenge Programme Feat. Anneka Rice!

Last seen in a set of specials on ITV in 2006, two things remain to be seen, namely if doing it on Five has the same sort of appeal from companies offering their labour and parts as it did getting a plug on the BBC and whether, well, is there a need for Challenge Anneka in a TV landscape that’s ripped it off loads in the last thirty years. We hope it’s more building stuff than human interest at any rate.

It’s not a good sign that this completely slipped my mind it was on until an hour into the first 90 minute show and I’ve backtimed this post. Nonetheless we hope it’s good and will catch up in due course. If you watched it, what did you think?

It’s Non-Survivor Survivor Week on Netflix

By | March 15, 2023

First! Outlast, a show where teams of people have to survive in a jungle for a million dollar prize, and sounds like it very quickly turns into Lord of the Flies.

https://youtu.be/mQ4a-H5wvPM

Next! Law of the Jungle which drops today and intriguingly is actually in Spanish with English subs. Contestants must choose to work for their tribe or to sabotage to earn money for themselves.

Finally and not jungle related at all but likely of interest, Ariyoshi Assists. Hiroiki Ariyoshi, who normally hosts Japanese variety shows, now plays assistant in all kinds of formats which normally involve Japanese comics causing themselves mild discomfort for laughs. The first one is sets of comics vying to become the next generation of a popular boyband, episode two is based around a cooking show and looking ahead there’s wrestling and rap battles and all sorts.