This starts on Saturday and I’m quite interested to see how they’ve formatted it – it’s eight episodes, and with 250 contestants to get through I expect we’re going to see the same Stage 1 course for several weeks and I’m not sure how that’s going to play out (if I recall correctly the original Sasuke only started with 100, the Japanese broadcast gets it all done in three hours, the US/UK edits on Challenge get it all done in two/three half hour episodes). It looks sounds like the UK show will be geared towards finding a winner, whereas it was perfectly possible for there to be no winner in the Japanese show.

It looks a bit weird indoors, although at least they’ve kept the Mount Midoriyama name (if only for the final stage, quite cleverly alluded to in the show’s logo).

I reckoned they should have named the set Manc Midoriyama, but there we are. Here is a promo, it’s good to see that unlike Wipeout, you don’t need a little man to fix it so people fall in the water, most people do that anyway, it’s OK to be impressed occasionally:

A Show Discussion post will go up for this and Play To The Whistle on Saturday.

We don’t normally do posts like this but we’re going to make an exception, we’re very sad to hear that Hull’s finest Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliot passed away today.

There are three people who basically got me into the game I’ve very much enjoyed playing for around fifteen years, and they were all the stars of Late Night Poker in the 90s – Jesse May and his evocative commentary, Barny Boatman as hilarious dry co-commentator, and The Devilfish, a proper character in a game that seems to have fewer and fewer these days. Our thoughts are with family and friends.

That’s right murder mystery fans, Korean show Crime Scene has returned for a second series with a mixture of old faces and new, and once again Bumdidlyumptious is subbing them for our entertainment. You can find a link to all the subbed Series 2 episodes here.

Crime Scene is the show where celebrities investigate a mocked up version of a fictionalised version of an  actual real crime by getting into the roles of potential suspects and cross-examining each other and investigating the crime scene for clues. The “murderer” must do everything they can to throw suspicion on to someone else. We discussed season one here, we’ll set up a new page for season two if there’s enough call for it.

Geeky internet repository thing Channel Awesome have done a quiz it has been bought to my attention, and it’s a surprisingly dull way to spend a half hour, but it is mainly people behind podiums answering questions so doubtless the Digital Spy forums would declare it the next big thing. It’s kind of a dystopian comedy anti-gameshow where the losers get shot, and whoever’s reactions are slowest has to answer questions dressed up as Optimus Prime. Also features challenges that don’t seem to have any bearing on what follows or anything. It feels like it goes on forever, although it does get through a fair amount of 80s and 90s pop culture questions within that half hour.

It also throws into sharp relief what 31 Questions did on a tiny budget.

They’re recording another 100+ episodes to randomly slot in amongst repeats from 11th May, through to 11th June (although the SRO blurb suggests July as well so presumably dates to be added).

However, who or what is missing from this blurb, and is there something we should know?

Comedian Alexander Armstrong hosts his SMASH HIT BBC QUIZ SHOW in which contestants try to score as few points as possible by plumbing the depths of their general knowledge to come up with the answers no-one else could think of!

The show records at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood and will record during May, June & July.