Monday 9pm,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 8pm,
ITV

Probably the most intriguing of all the MEGA MONDAY shows, popular ITV1 personality Giles Coren (Vicky’s brother and outspoken restaurant critic) fronts the much anticipated UK version of so-so popular throw-everything-at-a-wall-and-hope-it-sticks US quiz 500 Questions.

500 Questions charges contestants with answering 500 questions correctly without ever getting three wrong in a row. There is a light strategic element in category picking, and an opponent hopes to throw a few spanners in the works to take their place and try and win money for themselves. One of the big criticisms of the US show is that this opponent feels very much like a fifth wheel, there were murmurings that Wall to Wall were going to try and adapt the format to suit the savvier UK audience but we’ll have to see what, if anything, they’ve done. Contestants get to take home cash if they get through at least one round of fifty questions.

Here’s some brief discussion on series one and series two of the US show for background.

If it’s at the same speed as the US show you can probably expect it to get through around 200-230 questions in its four episode run so expect lots of complaints about that. We’re intrigued that the advert paints Coren as quite an abrasive host which would be quite different to how it’s played out in the US. Whilst it’s only really been successful as filler in the US it sounds like in Germany it’s been quite successful. Our episodes have actually been filmed on the German set.

Obviously we’re now looking forward to Giles Coren turning up on Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and Celebrity Juice in the near future. If Judge Rinder will do them…

Weekdays, 6pm,
BBC2

It’s fair to say that this Mega Monday has four new shows but there are two shows that are of most interest to us. This is one of them.

Debatable tasks contestants with finding the correct answers to questions for big money but helping or hindering them are a panel of three celebrities who will debate the answers between them. It sounds a bit like a comedy panel version of Think Tank really.

This is the first we’ve seen of Patrick Kielty for a while.

Weekdays, 6:30pm,
BBC2

And so Eggheads takes its regular Summer break (does it? I don’t know) to be replaced temporarily by Make Me An Egghead, a tournament where quizzers compete to become one of two new Eggheads to replace CJ and Daphne.

To all intents and purposes it appears to be exactly the same as Are You An Egghead? from 2009 but with slightly different Eggheads in the line-up. The two players battle it out in a series of quiz rounds on the traditional Egghead categories, winning a round earns the right to pick an Egghead to help you in the final round.

We ponder if “don’t put all your Eggheads in one basket” will make a reappearance.

#hostholdingaquestioncard

Weekdays, 3:25pm,
BBC1

Bill Turnbull’s back with a second run of Think Tank, now in a later slot.

Think Tank invites contestants to answer questions with the help (or not) of a resident rotating team of guests known as the Think Tank who have answered most of the questions before the show. In the end the winning contestant gets to answer a “question impossible”, a question none of the Think Tank got correct for a £1,000 bonus.

The first series was alright if polite and unexciting, as we say it’s a knack 12 Yard has of making this sort of thing successfully.

Saturday, 7:15pm,
ITV

Well here’s an interesting one and no mistake, a “one-off summer special” (i.e. broadcast pilot) involving mess going out probably an hour later than it probably ought to against the final night of the Olympics. If you were to ask me if I thought ITV were expecting big things from this then reading between the lines I’d have to concede no, no they probably aren’t.

But we’ll keep an open mind because Possessed are behind it and they’re usually interesting at least. In Spotless. couples are charged with completing tasks in white rooms whilst wearing white clothes and avoiding paint based traps threatening to cover them and losing them money. The “iconic” Spotless Scanner will determine how they’ve fared after each task.

There is no host. They’re being cagey when I asked if there was a voiceover. Will anyone watch it and will it be any good? Let us know what you think in the comments.