Show Discussion: The Circle

By | September 18, 2018

Tuesdays 9:15pm,
All other days (except Saturday) 10pm
Channel 4

For next three weeks Channel 4 explores how people try and attain popularity on social media with The Circle. Maya Jama and Alice Levine host as a group of people live in separate apartments in block, communicating with each other only through a bespoke social media app called… The Circle. The least popular members will be blocked and eliminated, the most popular person in the block will win £50,000.

The show wants to explore how much we are ourselves and how much we change our image to be popular online and players are encouraged to do whatever it takes to get those likes.

It will be interesting to see how they manage to make a reality show where nobody physically interacts with each other except through text, although I suppose Solitary did it years ago (and Celebs in Solitary is doing it right now). Mainly I’m annoyed C4 have scheduled this against the last Big Brother, which I’ve actually been quite enjoying. Will this take off or will it put the final nails into Big Brother‘s coffin?

I don’t know how much discussion the show will provoke on here (I expect it won’t be “gamey” enough) but if you do end up watching it do let us know your thoughts.

Show Discussion: Chase the Case

By | September 17, 2018

Weekdays, 2:15pm
BBC1

New daily afternoon quiz fronted by BBC Breakfast and sports host Dan Walker.

Five contestants and five cases, each with different amounts of cash. However nobody knows what’s in their own case, but by answering questions they can earn the right to find out what’s in somebody else’s. At the end of the show there’s a big quickfire case swapping finale. Who, if anyone, will leave with the jackpot case?

Watched it? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Weekend Warriors

By | September 15, 2018

Lots to tell you about. Or at least there was if I hadn’t forgotten most of it.

On Friday Fingers on Buzzers, the quiz-chat podcast starring Jenny Ryan off of The Chase and comic Lucy Porter began but already there’s an exciting upstart rival (that was actually planned ages ago so the timing is coincidental), Hey, I Was On That! is meant to start on Monday where Friends of the Bar and Game Night vetrans Alex McMillan and Laura Conlon have a chat to contestants about their experiences. The first one features Stephanie Merritt who featured on University Challenge recently.

Follow their Twitter @heyIwasonthat for more details.

Ah, that was something! Our friends at RTV Warriors were meant to be doing their own Game Night, based heavily on the pioneering Game Night format tonight but it’s been pushed back a week for “good reason” apparently so you might want to put that in your diaries. I’m about a month behind with podcasts generally but I’ve been enjoying their interviewing reality stars season (and if you haven’t listened to their interview with Gilles de Costa off of Belgian Mole, you should) so go and have a listen. Bother’s Bar’s Game Night will return on the 29th September.

Also next Saturday it’s Schlag den Henssler! But this episode is going to be different for us, because basically most of the commentary team is going to be running around London solving puzzles for a thing called DASH. However it sounds like Scott is willing to commentate with or without special guests so we’ll see what happens.

In other news, since between them seven or eight different people have made comments, a) Chase the Case starts on BBC1 on Monday afternoon – we’ll have a Show Discussion post, b) Millionaire is being renewed for a ten episode run (21st anniversary specials, presumably) and you can apply.

Edit: Now on iTunes.

Bye Bye BB

By | September 14, 2018

And so TV’s biggest will they/won’t they story comes to a close – no, not the latest Love Island shenanigans ha ha! But the relationship between Controller of Channel 5 Ben Frow and Big Brother. It’s over.

Tonight’s civilian launch will be the last one on the channel and it will be interesting to see how and indeed if it goes out with a bang. On the one hand they’ve been very clear to use the words “the original social experiment” (TV’s most meaningless two words) in all the promo. On the other hand, this final series is meant to be “the most competitive ever” with “mind games” aplenty.

On the one hand I’m sad – I have several friends who have worked on the show variously and they’ll be looking for work, and as a show it pretty much defined my twenties. On the other hand as I get older I find having to give over an hour plus a night to something more like work than entertainment – I still follow the show but the actual amount of times I watch it past launch night is pretty low, at one point Bit On The Side was proving more of a must-watch than the show it was talking about.

What next for it? The council have extended the permission to keep the house up for a further three years, almost certainly speculative on Endemol’s part. It’s jumped channel once before, could it do so again? The problem is I can’t see BBC, ITV or Channel 4 picking it up and presumably it has no chance on another Viacom network. I don’t think ITV2 would touch it, not at the likely rate Channel 5 were paying which to all intents and purposes was pretty low in the first place, and would probably seem old hat in comparison to Love Island, although if LI has proved anything it’s that there is a possible audience for this kind of thing.

There’s an idea floating round that they could do it US strategy-style for Netflix. I never really thought the strategy-style would work over here, I can’t see the average Brit getting excited by “WHO WANTS TO SEE MY HOH ROOOOMM!!” and tediously identiscripted “ceremonies” to point where the average viewer would just tell everybody to get over themselves. I fear being an international streaming service they will try and make it more palatable for Americans and will be edited and put together as such, but with quaint British accents.

So there we are, I find it difficult to see where Big Brother could potentially go in the future. Still, they’ve got three years on the lease, what are the odds on The Big Brother Live Experience at some point? Nominate Your Friends! Do A Task! Have a Cold Shower! Talk To Big Brother in the Diary Room! Argue over shopping! Evict Your Friends! Get booed! 60 minutes for £50 a head.

Smart minds required for runthrough

By | September 11, 2018

I’ve got a letter here from TV’s David Bodycombe:

EDIT: David thanks you for your interest, places have been filled.

Go to it, punters.

In other news it also looks like Cash Trapped might be looking for contestants although this doesn’t as yet appear on the ITV Be On TV page, so make of that what you will.

Edit: A lot of people seem surprised by this, but the reality is CT was doing almost 2m an episode as a Summer Chase replacement across four weeks. I don’t think its return was ever really in doubt, the issue was finding time in Brad’s hectic schedule (between the seven-eight months Doctor Who takes and the three plus months The Chase takes) to make more I suspect.