I’ve almost caught up with my Backlog Of Stuff to watch over the weekend, and I’ve finally got around to watching Holey Moley, the new show that pitches itself as Wipeout-meets-crazy golf.

And it’s weird. It’s not nearly as much Wipeout as the adverts would have suggested (other than the first hole with the windmills there’s actually very little pratfalling, although the threat is there in some holes) and has a surprisingly large golf and pressure-putt element.

Twelve contestants are paired off, each pair “does” a hole after learning of their inspirational backstory, fewest shots proceeds to round two, where the six winners are re-paired off to compete on holes, with the three winners going forward to Mount Holey Moley where the winner receives $25,000, a golden putter and a plaid jacket.

Holes range from the visually arresting and quite interesting (the windmill one, the log roll) to a bit dull, and it’s probably telling that many of the holes are given over to highlight treatment (there’s one hole in the opener where they show minutes the contestants trying to climb a slippery hill, come back from a break with five seconds of “oh, X won.”). As a show it’s going to live or die by its ideas and variants, I suspect we’ve seen most of what it’s got to offer already. I suspect some holes may have been better as timed events rather than stroke play.

I quite enjoy the tone the show has taken with its presentation, commentary and hosting is provided by actual ABC sportscaster Joe Tessitore and comedian Rob Riggle, it’s produced and has regular cameos from NBA star Stephen Curry and has on course reports from Jennie Mai. It acts like a serious sports broadcast but with a very silly undercurrent.

I enjoyed it, it’s definitely worth one watch, whether it can sustain a series I don’t know.

In other news I’ve also watched the new Joel McHale Card Sharks. Despite the lavish and rather nice set, didn’t really get on with it. Dislike the race round (rather than best of three five-cards, it’s one race with ten cards and five questions, going to sudden death pretty much every time). As a game, the actual calling of cards has always pretty much played itself but consider Brucey (for example) building up energy and momentum with the turn of each card – this is completely missing, it’s way too slow, potential energy has just been replaced with general shouting and in no way carries the same excitement. Without the showmanship to sell it it doesn’t really work. Pity, really.

Toujours plus loin, toujours plus haut, toujours plus fooooooooooort! Yes, it’s time for another Bother’s Bar Plays Badly and this time we’re playing badly the recent digital release of Fort Boyard on XBox One (Steam, PS4 and Switch versions also available).

How will I fare against Briggy Fouras?

You won’t need to watch over two hours to find out, you can see pretty much everything the game has to throw at you in the next thirty minutes.

I hope to bring you a video on Saturday (mainly because I’ve got no time to play it until Saturday). Meanwhile, here’s your price comparison guide:

• Steam – £20.69 (that’s a 10% off price)
• XBox One – £24.99
• Switch – £27.99
• PS4 – £44.99

One of these prices is not like the others.

We’re not expecting it to be more than a 5/10, but you never know. It’s also getting a physical release in a few days and will find the sales figures for that absolutely fascinating.

Incidentally I’ve recently pivoted from PS4 to XB1, so if you want to add me for hi-score hi-jinks, I’m Brig Bother.

Our thanks to @gordygeorge88 on Twitter for alerting us that the Youtube channel Countdowngoofs has uploaded the pilots for Calendar Countdown, and on their Dailymotion site five full episodes of the original Yorkshire TV production.

It’s interesting that it plays by the original French Le Mot Le Plus Long rules in that the opponent of the person whose go it is to select the letters has to beat the length set by the player otherwise they don’t score anything – a tie isn’t good enough. This also applies to the numbers rounds, which is quite interesting.

Anyway, if you’ve never seen LMLPL before it became Des Chiffres et Des Lettres, here’s a clip. Instead of numbers rounds, it features riddles if you score an odd number of points in order to keep them.

Missed our Schlag den Star English watchalong last week? Don’t worry, here’s some of the more formatty things we got up to hastily edited together. Thanks to Daniel Peake for coming up and hosting these.

First: Buried Treasure. Answer questions to dig in the sand for money but make sure you’re not the last one to get home.

And next: Brain of Schlag. Which is Brian of Britain, but with the SdS commentators.