Only Connect (and more specifically, the video game and Cole Porter special) gets two mentions in the back page of November’s edition of top modern-day-old-skool mag NGamer (issue 55). Probably not in the shops for a few days. It is described as “excellent (if smug)”. So there we are.

Also, amused about THE TRUTH behind The Cube on Harry Hill’s TV Burp this evening.

Thanks to a tip from a forum, here is a very interesting BBC documentary from 1984 called Come on Down fronted by film critic Barry Norman on the American gameshow:

The other parts aren’t linked very well, so here’s part two, part three, part four and part five.

Back when SKY was a fledgling service, it used to show US gameshows quite a lot. The two things you’d notice was a) how excited the contestants get and b) how big the prizes were. These days, we seem to be able to outdo the Americans in the prizes stakes, but our contestants remain slightly more, er, reserved. Unless they’re shouting at each other of course. In that sense, I find the contestant co-ordinator interviews here quite interesting.

Also, reports from recent recordings suggest that Deal or No Deal is getting a third ad break. It seems pretty easy to infer that that means it’s becoming an hour show, therefore (although we must stress we have no absolute proof of that, other than you’re not allowed more than three ad breaks in an hour unless your show is longer than an hour).

Hello Punters, if you have not entered this year’s Fantasy X Factor and intend on doing so, please remember to get your team in by 7:30pm on Saturday, no new teams will be admitted after that.

However! It is Thursday, so now I’m going to watch my current fave reality competition The Challenge: Cutthroat (you can find it on mtv.com but you’ll need to be hiding behind some sort of proxy shield), if you’ll excuse me…

Thanks to Alex Buzzerblog for the heads up, eight episodes of Winter Wipeout coming.

This would have excited me last year, but this year I did something I wasn’t expecting – get bored of Wipeout. Yes, the commentary has more pep than other versions, but the obstacles have all become basically sweeper arms and/or a bit cheap (not as in not costing money, as in rather lazily thought out).

I know I’m in the minority when I say there’s only so many ways people falling off things is going to be funny, but this season forcing it to happen with impossible obstacles just didn’t feel right at all. I want to be dazzled by people’s skill as well. It’s all become a bit one-note.