Board of Excitement 17th October – 23rd October 2010

By | October 17, 2010
13 Comments

Just help yourself…

  • The Cube (7pm, Sunday, ITV1): will never be the same again since Harry Hill revealed THE TRUTH about The Body.
  • The X Factor (8pm, Sunday, ITV1, also 7:45pm, Saturday, ITV1): I think the competition is actually much wider open this year than it has been for a while, with four or five people who stand a chance. But those 2.5hr Saturday nights feel properly lengthy, so thank goodness with just twelve acts left next week it’s only going to be on for two-and-a-quarter hours.
  • Only Connect (8:30pm, Monday, BBC4): Mountain Men vs In-laws. Only one more first round match to go after this one.
  • The Apprentice (9pm, Wednesday, BBC1): What struck me most about the Book-eeze is that it would become very irritating very quickly to have to keep taking the book out and turning the pages over. I’m backing either Jamie or Stella to win at this early stage.
  • The Challenge: Cutthroat (Wednesday, MTV US): Genuine tragedy this week as host TJ Lavin, also a pro BMX-rider, had an accident this week putting him into a coma. When I first watched him, I thought he was a bit of a charisma vacuum but actually I think this is unfair, he’s quite entertainingly dry and I like the way he sticks up for contestants who don’t deserve their fate. Last week featured a tough challenge involving having the team suspended upside down by their legs and having to transfer colour coded beer steins, which most teams did entertainingly badly at.
  • Schlag den Raab (7:15pm UK/8:15 Germany, Saturday, ProSieben/The Internet): This has come round very quickly. Having come up with two jokey ideas for the last two which seemed to have then turned up in one form or another, I’m looking forward to seeing if it happens for a third time.

Anything else?

Amazing

By | October 16, 2010
7 Comments

Only Connect (and more specifically, the video game and Cole Porter special) gets two mentions in the back page of November’s edition of top modern-day-old-skool mag NGamer (issue 55). Probably not in the shops for a few days. It is described as “excellent (if smug)”. So there we are.

Also, amused about THE TRUTH behind The Cube on Harry Hill’s TV Burp this evening.

And why not?

By | October 14, 2010
20 Comments

Thanks to a tip from a forum, here is a very interesting BBC documentary from 1984 called Come on Down fronted by film critic Barry Norman on the American gameshow:

The other parts aren’t linked very well, so here’s part two, part three, part four and part five.

Back when SKY was a fledgling service, it used to show US gameshows quite a lot. The two things you’d notice was a) how excited the contestants get and b) how big the prizes were. These days, we seem to be able to outdo the Americans in the prizes stakes, but our contestants remain slightly more, er, reserved. Unless they’re shouting at each other of course. In that sense, I find the contestant co-ordinator interviews here quite interesting.

Also, reports from recent recordings suggest that Deal or No Deal is getting a third ad break. It seems pretty easy to infer that that means it’s becoming an hour show, therefore (although we must stress we have no absolute proof of that, other than you’re not allowed more than three ad breaks in an hour unless your show is longer than an hour).

Last Call

By | October 14, 2010
2 Comments

Hello Punters, if you have not entered this year’s Fantasy X Factor and intend on doing so, please remember to get your team in by 7:30pm on Saturday, no new teams will be admitted after that.

However! It is Thursday, so now I’m going to watch my current fave reality competition The Challenge: Cutthroat (you can find it on mtv.com but you’ll need to be hiding behind some sort of proxy shield), if you’ll excuse me…

Walking in a Winter Wipeout Land

By | October 13, 2010
25 Comments

Thanks to Alex Buzzerblog for the heads up, eight episodes of Winter Wipeout coming.

This would have excited me last year, but this year I did something I wasn’t expecting – get bored of Wipeout. Yes, the commentary has more pep than other versions, but the obstacles have all become basically sweeper arms and/or a bit cheap (not as in not costing money, as in rather lazily thought out).

I know I’m in the minority when I say there’s only so many ways people falling off things is going to be funny, but this season forcing it to happen with impossible obstacles just didn’t feel right at all. I want to be dazzled by people’s skill as well. It’s all become a bit one-note.

Welcome to Watchdog

By | October 12, 2010
6 Comments

I have “done” some “consumer advice” by reviewing some more iApps:

If there is something relevant you’d like me to review, please leave a message on the iPod page.

Meanwhile, tickets for 2010’s most averagely competent new show, The Million Pound Drop, returns to our screens on the 25th October despite @the1mpounddrop trying to suggest the new start date is all secretive and things. You can get audience tickets from Applause Store, where interestingly it looks like there’s some sort of dress rehearsal happening on Thursday 21st. Also the doors are opening at eight, so is it going to be on earlier (9pm, say?) or is it not going to be as live as it looks, or as it’s Endemol is going to be an outrageously tedious recording experience?

If you go, do let us know.