Escape

By | February 10, 2017
9 Comments

Aww, we’d been looking forward to this for a while and… you know that bit in Race to Escape when two teams couldn’t see a code written in big numbers on a wall for twenty minutes and the editors stuck with it and let it play out and it was actually quite brave and exhilarating and funny? I don’t think we’re getting that here.

 

I think the art direction is OK (although there’s really not much to see in this one – a janitor’s closet and some crates mainly, but other previews suggest set-ups that are a bit more interesting). I think the adventure game style inventory works well. I think the puzzles are too low key for television being very in the main simple insert obvious key into obvious lock or solving obvious cipher code. Shows like this thrive on mystery and there is progression of a sort but it’s not greatly interesting, no great revelations at any point. Does this make escape games look cool? I’m not sure.

It’s been edited similarly to Tabletop so you get ‘kooky’ confessionals throughout. The room escape is edited down to fifteen minutes, of a 22 minute show.

I’m not sure whether to congratulate Geek and Sundry for giving it a go or lightly slap them on the wrist for being a bit disappointing. You can watch further episodes on the Project Alpha site for a fee or it sounds like they’re getting released fortnightly on Youtube. I think I can wait.

Show Discussion: Release the Hounds: Famous and Freaked

By | February 8, 2017
22 Comments

Thursdays, 9pm,
ITV2

Or Celebrity Release the Hounds as normal people will call it. Anyway we gathered there was a third series happening and we were wondering where the contestant call-out for it was so when we heard that this third series is going to be exclusively (ITV sub-channel) celebrities playing for charity that rather explains it.

Anyway we like Release the Hounds, previous series have been very funny and featured entertaining scenarios (in the main) but there’s always been one or two production decisions that leave a nagging feeling, we’re keeping our fingers crossed this is the year that knocks it out of the park. And we do like a bit of Reggie Yates, the thinking man’s Stephen Mulhern.

Episode one features stars from TOWIE. If you like TOWIE it’s for you, and if you don’t like TOWIE you’ll get to see them in psychological hell so it’s win win.

Some Quizmania, for no discernable reason

By | February 7, 2017
21 Comments

For no discernable reason last night I found myself watching various clips of late night viewer participation show Quizmania, from back in the day when these channels were all the rage. Incredibly this is a decade old now, and I was surprised to discover QM actually only lasted 16 months.

I can’t condone the business model but my love of live television and low-rent puzzles meant I could watch things like this for hours at a time – crikey, the amount of hours I put into watching Quiz TV with Russ from Scooch, Caryl Varley et al. Quizmania was probably the only one to my knowledge that had a Big Breakfast-esque sense of freewheeling fun to the proceedings.

Anyway from Greggle’s Youtube Channel here’s a retrospective which also features some very rude words if you like that sort of thing.

The Jump

By | February 6, 2017
8 Comments

This returned last night which completely passed me by and after a disappointing third series it looks like it’s got its mojo back – none of the pre-recorded nonsense we got last year, with all of the jumping done earlier in the evening (and rubbish air jumping to boot), we got all live action throughout. Nobody got injured except in training, but we still got the drama of somebody taking a tumble on the parallel slalom and somebody pulling out of jumping. It also features a legitimately good line-up, even if it is sportsperson heavy.

It also managed to cram more innuendo into its first five minutes than ever before which for The Jump is quite something. Herr Edich the barman indeed.