I’ve recently started playing Assassin’s Creed Origins, the recent Egyptian themed instalment of the start-each-mission-with-the-best-of-stealthy-intentions-then-just-kill-everyone-in-a-sword-fight series.

There was a period about ten years ago, after The Da Vinci Code came out, where shows about ancient codes hidden by old civilisations were all the rage. In the US there was the disappointing Treasure Hunters (which appears to be on Youtube). In the UK we had Codex and The Search with Jamie Theakston which remains one of TV’s most underappreciated reality shows.

Unfortunately The Search isn’t on Youtube, I wanted to illustrate this post with at least a clip of the episode where they went to Egypt.

So instead here’s ten minutes of an episode of Games Republic with Trevor and Simon. And Charlie Brooker!

Tonight’s revelation on Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway is that the popular Stephen Mulhern game segment In For A Penny is going to series.

This is very interesting. As we’ve pointed out time and again, vox pop shows just don’t get audiences, they look too light and cheap to be worth bothering with. IFAP is sparkier than most and Mulhern is good with the public, the question is can you sustain a four-minute segment -which may or not be being carried by the show surrounding it – across half an hour or whatever it’s going to be? Is an audience going to cope with 30 minutes of fast cutting? Or will they slow it down a bit and will it stop feeling like In For A Penny?

Answers in due course. There’s only really been one successful version of the idea, no it’s not Ready or Not, but Billy On The Street in the US, but really that’s half an hour of quite smart comedy masquerading as a quiz show. It’s telling that IFAP tends to play up comedy interactions rather than the game itself.

Sundays at 8pm from April 15th.

This feels like a much more appropriate slot for it than the Friday one to be honest, which never felt correct, but if it can’t make it here then God knows what they’re going to do with the second series 12 episodes.

Although it’s a pity everyone’s going to complain they have the same games as the previous 13 episodes.

On France 3 from April 25th. Sounds like they’re returning to the original classic format as well, but now with Cyril Feraud as the host in a helicopter.

Official press shots and interview here (in French).

We wrote about the old show here.

There are worse ways to spend two hours.

Edit: The Button, Alex Horne’s Taskmaster with families format, starts Friday April 20th on BBC1 at 8:30pm. Format sounds intriguing, seems to have rollover contestants.

Sorry, loads of shows have slipped my mind this weekend what with it being Easter and everything, so here’s a sign post to shows that have been on/will be coming that I probably haven’t watched yet at time of writing but for which your discussion is invited:

• GAME Presents Rob Beckett’s Playing for Time
• Ready or Not
• Revolution
• Mel and Sue’s Generation Game