Only Correction

By | November 15, 2016
11 Comments

I missed the first ten minutes of Only Connect last night, coming in just as round one was finishing up. Therefore I missed Victoria’s pre-show message about there being a mistake in the show with relation to the Gang of Four, only wondering what was going on when she popped up again during the credits.

Amusing that it went through several people and nobody spotted it at the time, intrigued to know who picked it up and when. Still, holding their hands up rather than attempting to style it out (which won’t fly with this particular audience) is admirable. Will the losing team get another go? Given the scores at the end and the location of the clue it probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome.

Show Discussion: Tenable

By | November 14, 2016
61 Comments
tenable

It’s the Sporting Triangles reboot we’ve all been waiting for.

Weekdays, 3pm.
ITV

New quiz with Warwick Davies about filling in general knowledge Top 10 lists. This was previously going by the working title Tower of 10, if you were wondering.

Filling in Top 10 lists is not a new concept, in recent memory Topranko and Dirty Rotten Cheater did it years ago and more recently 5 Minutes to a Fortune and The 21st Question, neither of which very successful, did them for their end games. This seems to sounds a little bit like Topranko with a bit of Eggheads and Decimate thrown in for good measure. From the press release:

Warwick Davis presents this intense new game show, brand new and exclusive to ITV.

Teams of five friends, family members or colleagues take it in turns to build up the prize pot solo by filling in the blanks of a ‘top ten’ list on any number of general knowledge subjects. If a player gives five or more correct answers, they add money to the team prize fund and secure their place in the final. The more answers they give after that, the more money they bank. If they get a perfect 10, they add £25,000, making the potential jackpot £125,000.

Players each get one ‘life’ allowing them to give an incorrect answer, but a second mistake will see them eliminated, their winnings wiped from the bank and themselves excluded from the final round. Across the game, the team have three ‘nominates’. If a player is stuck for an answer, they can nominate a team member to provide an answer for them. If a player gives an answer the team captain deems incorrect, they can overrule it and replace it with one of their own – but only once per round.

One by one, players are faced with this daunting task until they reach the final, at which stage the remaining team members come together to face one last board. However, unlike previous rounds, they must find all ten answers to go home with the prize money.

I think filling in Top 10s is easy to grasp (although I wonder what the long term limit is of “good” Top 10s is) but history suggests that filling out an entire list is really hard – not expecting many winners of the endgame from that description although there might yet be some nuance we’re not party to.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Il Più Forte

By | November 13, 2016
2 Comments

Thanks to CeleTheRef for alerting us to a show that I think is worthy of your time – Il Più Forte (The Strongest) which airs on the Italian version of Discovery’s DMAX.

In it rugby player Martin Castrogiovanni and MMA fighter Alessio Sakara tour Italy looking for everyday sorts of people who might be “the strongest”. The first ten minutes is them going round a city selecting eight people to compete and they’re whittled down to one in various tests of strength and endurance. Contestants earn 0.5kg balls in the tests with the lowest scorers giving their balls to other players, the finalist with the most balls gets specific training with one of the hosts for the final challenge.

The games are evidently a bit low budget (we do get “hanging from a tree” in this episode) and I’m not sure the scoring system is quite as clever as it looks on the surface. However the show is beautifully directed to really show off the locations and the hosts have got a terrific chemistry going on. There’s also a rather silly sense of humour streaking throughout the whole show (today a running visual gag with a watermelon, and the idea that challenges are derived by the rugby player ‘blindly choosing’ a tattooed finger of the MMA fighter, the contestants are referred to by wrestling-style nicknames). One of the great things about the Italians I’d suggest is that because they tend to be quite expressive it’s easier to derive meaning through body language and tone of voice so don’t be put off too much with the language barrier.

Also great news for fans of Italian men with beards.

 

Here’s a quick run down of the challenges in this first episode, to help you follow:

  • Qualification challenge – Hold up buckets of milk arms outstretched. First two to have arms drop are eliminated.
  • 1st challenge – the remaining six are paired up by putting their shirts in a bag and then getting drawn out. They race to completely push out a hay bale. Three balls for winning, two for running up, one for last place. Because there are two people in last place and one must be eliminated there is a tie break, the first to thread three needles, for reasons I have yet to discern, wins. The loser gives their ball to another player.
  • 2nd challenge – the contestants have two minutes to find as many balls as they can in what looks like muck that’s been cleared out of a cowshed. Two players will be eliminated here, ties broken by having one ball chucked into the muck and competing players racing for it.
  • 3rd challenge – The three contestants hang from a tree as long as possible but in a twist they will also have the sack with all the balls they’ve collected tied onto them, weighing them down further. The first to fall is eliminated giving their balls to the player of their choice. The person with the most balls at this point gets special training for the final.
  • 4th challenge – Pulling a tractor. Whoever wins this is the winner.

I don’t know if there’s actually a prize or some sort of grand final.

Wie is De Mol 2017

By | November 8, 2016
17 Comments

And so to The Netherlands where a new batch of celebs for the upcoming series of Wie Is De Mol? has been revealed.

widm2017

They are, and I’m sort of having to use guesswork and deduction to get this correct from left to right so these may not be in quite the correct order (there’s a fair chance I’ve got the blondes mixed up):

  • Flemish actor Thomas Cammaert
  • Presenter Jochem van Gelder
  • Actress and writer Sanne Wallis de Vries
  • Dancer Vincent Vianen
  • Science journalist Diederik Jekel
  • That’s the host Art Rooijakers
  • Vlogster (that’s a female vlogger, I’ve discovered) Yvonne Coldeweijer
  • Voiceover artiste and radio DJ Jeroen Kijk in de Vegte
  • Actress Sigrid ten Napel
  • Writer and journalist Roos Schlikker
  • Actress Imanuelle Grives

It’s starting off in Oregon in the USA and the first episode goes out January 7th on Avro. Fingers crossed for English subs!

The Next Great Magician

By | November 7, 2016
9 Comments

I chanced upon this last night and quite enjoyed it, and despite not expecting anyone to have watched it it didn’t actually completely collapse against Strictly (3.3m) and did fairly decent demos.

Stephen Mulhern and Rochelle Humes invite six magic acts to show off their skills. After performing, each act suggests what they’ll do if they make the final. The acts will decide between them which one will go through to the final where the winner stands to win a special worth £500,000.

Like Go For It it’s quite nice to see a show fit lots of segments throughout the hour – some of the magicians get lengthy filmed introductions, others tend to get to their performance quickly. Stephen (who is a proper magician let’s not forget) and Rochelle are only really there in compere form, there’s not much filler. We don’t get to hear the acts deliberate their judging which is a pity but there are understandable reasons why – professionals not wanting to give away their secrets.

It seemed a shame that most of the acts when asked what they’d do in the final suggested either flying or catching a projectile, hopefully the magicians that make the final will show a bit more variety than that.

Last night’s winner was uploaded to Youtube, I’ll hide it behind a page cut if you don’t want to know. Continue reading →