Round Up

By | February 12, 2015

Here’s some stuff from recent comments you might have missed:

  • Benchmark – Paddy McGuinness is to host a new quiz for C4 daytime called Benchmark, in it a player is helped by a crowd of ten people in answering numerical questions for big cash prizes, and the crowd are simultaneously competing to come back as the contestant in the next show a bit like Judgemental. I assumed this was going to be “guess whether the actual answer is above or below the average” but David B points out it might be a bit like Wits and Wagers, which might be interesting. Anyway it doesn’t sound like the sort of thing likely to set the world alight, but it is a show by Bother’s Bar Recommended Victory Television and Stuart Shawcross (Five Minutes to a Fortune, Win Your Wish List) so WE’LL SEE.
  • Keep it in the Family returns for a second series, which might come as a bit of a surprise given it seemed like a pretty expensive show for the numbers it was getting. Still though, I did think there was a spark of something there even if it didn’t really come through in the first series (even if it was mainly confidence), hopefully the Nanas will be given something a bit less tedious to do (it went on forever watching live and only felt slightly better on screen) and the whole thing will feel a bit less flat in the edit next time round. If you’d like to be a contestant:

  • I’m a Celebrity – Now YOU can experience life as a camping celeb in the brand new I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Maze at Thorpe Park! Relive the sensations of having lots of things crawl on you without having lots of things crawl on you or eating things, and without Ant and Dec laughing at you.

  • And finally, it looks like BBC4’s replacement for Only Connect is Codex The Quizeum where Griff Rhys Jones guides some teams of experts through quizzes and treasure hunts in the UK’s most exciting museums. “Thought to be a television first,” apparently.

Two Tribes is back Monday

By | February 10, 2015

Solid 7/10 evening quiz and 2014 Hall of Fame CHAMPION Two Tribes is back for another series starting Monday (BBC2, 6pm), which comes a bit of a surprise. This time round the winner faces the rolling jackpot endgame (contestant must split seven people or things into two groups based on a category). I’ve heard how large it can get, it’s a shame they’ve not hilariously forcing them to take it in either book tokens or DIY vouchers.

In stunt news, Australia will officially be competing in the Eurovision Song Contest this year despite NOT EVEN BEING in Europe. If Australia win SBS will host it in conjunction with the broadcaster of the nation they decide to do it in, to pre-empt your question. It sounds like the idea of guest nations might become a regular thing.

Single Trouble

By | February 9, 2015

So someone at Channel 4 is getting sacked or it’s an intriguing way to try and wrestle some viewers from Tipping Point, but it sounds like someone’s put the wrong tape in and what was meant to be start of the much hyped Double Trouble week on Deal or No Deal, for Valentine’s, has been apparently replaced by a normal episode.

Amazing scenes.

tpointMEANWHILE! Hat Tip to David in the comments, this Christmas we’ve got the Tipping Point board game to look forward to! Just look at it!

And finally tonight, here’s a show you probably weren’t watching because you were probably watching Gladiators or something.

CRANK UP YOUR GRANNY! It’s Happy Families!

Eternal Glory

By | February 5, 2015

OK so here’s fun, you might have seen the story recently that ITV were looking into a few shows that skew male (because traditionally we’re difficult to reach, and hence advertisers will pay a large premium if they know young men are watching). The terribly titled but might be OK upcoming Mission Survive with Bear Grylls has this in mind, and it looks like they’ve asked TwoFour (currently making waves with the ABC1s on The Jump) to do a version of Belgian format Eternal Glory, broadcast locally as Eeuwige Roem.

In it, sportspeople (both men and women) compete in tests to see who is the ultimate sportsperson across disciplines like perserverance, stress, team building, power, that sort of thing. There are three tests each week, and the people at the bottom of the weekly leaderboard have to do a difficult Night Test to stay in the game. So far so Celebrity Born to Win with Dermot O’ Leary.

However there are a couple of things that make it a little bit more interesting, namely it’s a format from The New Belgian Primitives who sound like a 90s indie act but in fact are the guys behind Bother’s Bar favourites The Mole and De Slimste Mens ter Wereld amongst other things.

And look! Happily here’s the very first episode from the very first series on Vimeo with English subtitles so you can have a look for yourselves:

Eternal Glory Engl. Subt.- Perseverance from TV4Mats by HH107 on Vimeo.

The challenges are quite fun (albeit, and you’ll notice this, hugely cheap) but there would certainly need to be some presentational changes if it wants to work in the UK, fewer empty shots, more focus on the challenges which will likely need to feel a bit bigger in scale if not be a bit bigger in scale. We’d probably drop the panel of sportspeople talking about things bit. I like the idea of the elimination challenge not necessarily ending with an elimination (Although I gather that in later series this isn’t the case, it becomes a duel).

The show had three series in Belgium and one in the Netherlands and sounds like it’s gone down well in Scandinavia (where being hardy is the regional sport). Could it work over here? It’ll likely depend on the names being lined up for it I suspect, it’ll likely suffer from the modern Superstars problem that anyone currently relevant will probably stay away, which is a shame.

That episode is from 2008 so it will be interesting to see what can be done with seven year’s difference.

Engage… BOTHER’S BAR BATTLE MODE – Mario Kart 8 (racing) – Sat 7th Feb

By | February 3, 2015

bbbattlemodeVroom vroom! Got a Wii U? Got Mario Kart 8? Free Saturday evening? Then come and race with us in the latest edition of BB’sBM!

It’s open to everyone who meets that criteria.

Game: Mario Kart 8 on Wii U.
Time and Date: Saturday 7th Feb, 2030-2200 GMT.

Name: BB Battle Mode Feb

Search by entry code (which you will need): 0296-9564-7823

You will require the DLC, make sure you’ve bought and downloaded it before playing. And to be clear, Battle Mode is the name of the umbrella strand, we will indeed be racing.

Great stuff, this was great fun last time and we had about 14 people across the time. You can come in and drop out as you see fit. I hope we can beat that number this time round.

I have put group switching on, so every fourth race you’ll be reassigned a race group – not ideal but last time we played we had a few people stuck out on their own which isn’t much fun and at least this way you shouldn’t be playing in a small group for long. If you don’t like your race group assignment you’re free to quit out and join again in the hope to get in sync with most other people. We’re playing from 8:30pm GMT, you will need to work out what time that is locally if you’re playing from abroad.

There’s no prize (except GLORY), but it’ll be fun. So join us!