Outside of The Chase, why is ITV so *wet* at 5pm?

By | August 7, 2014
11 Comments

I mean it doesn’t feel like The Chase formula – be pacey and have a bit of personality and chutzpah should be *that* difficult to recreate and is obviously something that the ITV 5pm crowd like. So why the Summer replacements never do anything like it is beyond me. What is the point of trying to out Pointless Pointless? There’s already a perfectly good Pointless and it gets stronger every time the counter programming is rubbish.

And so we come to Gift Wrapped (don’t click on that link before August 12th by the way or you’ll go to prison) with Ruth and Eamonn starting after the 21st Question‘s run for a fortnight which sounds like classic 12 Yard, with all the connotations that implies.

Why not try something aggressively entertaining?

Meanwhile Idiotest starts on GSN in the US next Tuesday. It’s either going to be great or get very tiresome very quickly, and I’m not sure which it is.

 

I hope they’ve gone with Radiohead’s Idioteque as the theme.

Meanwhile Two Tribes with Richard Osman begins Monday August 18th at 6pm (pushing Eggheads to 6:30) on BBC2. We wrote up a recording session here.

Show Discussion: The 21st Question

By | August 4, 2014
50 Comments

21ST_QUESTIONWeekdays, 5pm,
ITV

The lovely Gethin Jones challenges 11 people to enter quiz duels with each other, but the only person who gets the chance to win money is the person to answer… the 21st question (duh-duh-DUH).

This is on for a two week run, and by the sounds of it most viewers are going to need the full two weeks to work out what’s going on. Or at least that’s my interpretation from the rules sheet I’ve seen, it might have edited quite well. Contestants have told me it was fun to play, but is it fun to watch? Let’s find out.

Show Discussion: Win It Cook It

By | August 4, 2014
8 Comments

winitcookitWeekdays, 4:30pm,
Channel 4

TV chef Simon Rimmer challenges two teams of two to answer general knowledge questions to win ingredients and then cook things with those ingredients. The best dish as determined by Rimmer and judge wins a prize. It’s Ready Steady Quiz!

Who will make a meal of it and who will make a meal of it?

Unbelievably that’s not the tagline. It’s no wonder I basically hate everyone in television.

Would you like to showrun ukgameshows.com?

By | August 3, 2014
4 Comments

David Bodycombe’s stepping down from running UKGameshows.com after what must be the best part of twenty years. Do YOU want to run it?

After more years that I’m willing to admit, I’m looking to step down from editorship of UKGameshows.com.

This is mainly for the good of the site because our viewership growth is largely flat, and we should look to refresh our brand in the way that Buzzerblog and new rival sites like Gameshow Central have. However, I think I’ve taken the site as far as my skills and time permit.

In the immediate term, the new editor would not particularly need to do much other than overseeing the site occasionally. Longer term, there are a number of areas where I think we could improve:

0) Most importantly, due to the growth in the number of formats these days, we probably need more new blood to keep the site going. We haven’t done enough to encourage new joiners.

1) There is no real system for tracking new formats, and ensuring that they get a write-up, have publicity pictures added etc. A lot of current formats just have placeholders.

2) A number of well-known shows currently have rather scant content that could be improved.

3) The overall site could do with a design refresh – certainly the front page.

4) Our procedures such as backups needs looking at again.

5) There is the longer-term question of what role the site should play in the age of Wikipedia, since that site often contains MORE information about programmes than we have ourselves.

Fees from adverts (just about) pay for the running of the server, and so I would suggest keeping the status quo of that arrangement unless the new editor particularly wishes to find an alternative provider.

If anyone wishes to apply, please could you let me know via davidbod@hotmail.com with a short paragraph of your intentions.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank:

– Jeremy Rogers, whose original list of shows made the initial site possible

– Chris M. Dickson, for allowing me to basically hijack his original page

– Nick Gates, for many of the early reviews

– Jenny Turner and Iain Weaver, for many years of contributing

– Will Jones and Tom Scott, for vital technical help

– And finally, all the many volunteers who have added to the sum of knowledge since the site became a wiki.

Thanks and best wishes,

David J. Bodycombe

End of an era. Ideally there should be several people show an interest who should be eliminated through various Apprentice style challenges etc.

No I’m not going for it, as you’ve doubtless gathered I’m very much function over form with this sort of thing and it’s hard enough sourcing content here a lot of the time. However the end of year polls will still continue, hopefully still as a collaboration, so don’t worry about that. If you think you’ve got what it takes, go for it!

Show Discussion: The Singer Takes It All

By | July 31, 2014
52 Comments

TheSingerTakesItAllMediumFridays, 9pm,
Channel 4

The show is live and appalongable, so you might want to download the app in advance. It comes in Android AND iDevice flavour and before the live show works to a pretty high standard.

Yes yes OK, as we’ve pointed out it’s perpendicular Rising Star, several months before RS launches on ITV. However Rising Star has not been the worldwide success your media sources may have suggested to you, and this to me feels a little bit like Endemol have had a look at it, seen what works and what doesn’t and then tried to improve on where it doesn’t. And then Channel 4 used it as a spoiler.

And actually I think it’s quite an interesting prospect. The singer stands on stage and then you use the app at home to determine whether they move forward towards the Gold Zone and the money, or backwards and off the stage. And Alan Carr on board suggests they’re doing it in a way which means this isn’t intended to be a serious show at all, heavy emphasis on entertainment and laughs compared to RS‘s more po-faced approach. Top prize £15,000.

There are many, many question marks. We’ve noted in the past that even really good apps for playalong can still feel like work and not actually engage the audience – Million Pound Drop is actually played by what, about 1% of its audience these days? Can The Singer Takes It All‘s simple interface (literally press “hit” or “miss” up to four times in each performance) finally crack it? MPD still works as a show even if you have no intention of playing along with the app, how will TSTIA fare?

And finally and most importantly will the technology hold up? In reality it’s a load of snapshot opinion polls which shouldn’t be too difficult, but will it cope with six figures at once? Will the digital broadcast delay be a factor? What if the treadmill malfunctions? What if the contestants just start walking up and down it? And if the British public just grief everyone, will that end up being funny?

Well I can’t wait to find out. Unfortunately for the first episode I’m out and going to have to watch on catch-up, but I look forward to reading YOUR live opinions of the show and app integration in the meantime.