Until Dawn/Jusqu’à l’aube

By | January 9, 2020
8 Comments

Here’s something that looks fun starting on Netflix tomorrow (Friday) – Until Dawn. Three French comics investigate paranormal locations at night, but whilst doing scary challenges the other comics try to make worse by pranking them.

Here’s a trailer in French, but the show will have English subs (as does the trailer on the Netflix site).

This is Very Much The Sort Of Thing We Like, like a more overtly comic version of MTV’s Fear which may well fill the Release the Hounds shaped hole we currently have, and so we very much look forward to watching it. It comes from a new French outfit, We Make, who also have an adventure game for Amazon Prime on the cards, and we’ve known producer Moe for ages when he was working his way up so I hope this is as good as hoped.

Show Discussion: The Masked Singer

By | January 4, 2020
24 Comments

Saturday, 7pm,
ITV

International singing sensation lands on ITV. Somewhere, someone at ITV is kicking themselves for not going far enough previously.

Celebrities make their way through an elimination singing competition all the while being dressed in spectacular and ridiculous costume. A panel of celebrity judges judge them whilst also trying to work out who they could be, leading to an unmasking at the end of each episode.

You spend the episode wondering “who are they?” hopefully you won’t still be wondering “who are they?” after they’ve been unmasked. In some ways this is the ingeniousness of the format, by the time you discover you’ve been watching D-List celebs, it’s too late, you’ve watched the show now.

Incredibly this was recorded months ago and I don’t think any of the names have been leaked which is quietly quite impressive (as I’m aware, the audience isn’t actually in the room when the celebs are unmasked, just host Joel Dommett and judges). Suspect this thread may die quickly or explode, not sure which. Anyway, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.

Show Discussion: First and Last

By | January 4, 2020
24 Comments

Saturday, 8:15pm,
BBC1

Here’s a format that’s been knocking around for absolute donkeys years, originally piloted with Justin Lee Collins about a decade ago for Channel 4 (IIRC), an unsuccessful run in Italy, another pilot with Lee Mack and finally, FINALLY the BBC have decided the time is right for First and Last with Jason Manford for primetime Saturday night viewing.

First and Last sees eleven players battling it out for a prize of up to £10,000 by playing a series of games, the golden rule is that you’re eliminated if you finish any game first or last.

Let’s hope the show is better than the mediocrity required of its contestants, I can’t help but feel the First and Last Series gag writes itself, but it’s got six episodes to prove its worthiness. Let us know what you think in the comments.

This sounds like great fun to be a part of.

By | January 3, 2020
1 Comment

Quoting TV’s David Bodycombe:

Hi, if anyone is free in London on the 10th or 17th of January, we’re running a few game playtests. Genius Game-style negotiation skills more important than knowledge (in fact, there are no quiz questions). If interested, please see here for more: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZgV6zeIcu0AHVCQzdao4Fyg5R4g-tlruM6Zbto2lWydBqcA/viewform

As someone who’s done a few runthroughs and as someone who takes part in local econopmics experiments, I would be very tempted to go myself as this sort of thing tends to be a lot of fun, but I’m not able to unfortunately.

In other news we have TWO Show Discussion posts scheduled to go up tomorrow, First and Last and The Masked Singer, both about 9am when I’m likely to still be in bed.

In other other news, the Poll of the Year 2019 is going swimmingly. Lines close next Friday night. Keeeeeep voting!