Probably about time. We watched the first episode of the Dutch one almost three years ago and thought that it was not rubbish, since then it’s been a bit of a monster in terms of sales, and it even seems to have worked in most of them. It’s an extremely malleable format, and even though I think the strategy element is overstated, fun to watch. I look forward to seeing how it does here.
We like Physical 100 – impressively scaled studio physical tests from Korea and a fine example of the “authoratitive voice commands a process” genre the Koreans have made their own and it seems to have become such a breakout hit that there are various regional spin-offs coming, starting with a pan-Asian one later this year and US and seemingly various European ones in the works for the next 18 months.
So this feels like a bit of an oddity, it looks like Physical 100: Japan, but it seemingly isn’t, but from the trailer it looks enough like it to seem like a bit of an odd thing for Netflix to agree to. People play large scale physical games in a studio, they’re whittled down to a winner who wins a large cash prize (30m Yen – about £150,000). The spin here is that the contestants are retired professional sportspeople, either through aging or injury taking them out of action, competing for one last chance at glory, so presumably the first half hour won’t be people admiring each other’s physiques so much as a load of sad stories about why they don’t compete any more.
Other points of difference we will look forward to finding out in due course, but if you liked Physical 100 and/or physical endurance contents this will probably be in your wheelhouse. Let us know what you thought in the comments.
The Fortune Hotel 2 – Wednesdays and Thursdays on ITV – The big summer reality clash. Looks like they’re making a bit more of the location this year, which is good because last year could have been filmed in a Travelodge in Croydon. It will be interesting to see if there’s growth, we’d expect Desty X to beat it initially but it might get much closer as both series progress. The Show Discussion thread for series one is here, you might as well keep it together.
Final Draft – August 12th on Netflix – it seems a bit odd for Netflix which does Physical 100 to do a show that looks similar to Physical 100 but for retired Japanese sportspeople but here we are. Luckily we like Physical 100, so we’ll give this a watch, and they’ll be a show discussion post set up for it in due course.
The Answer Run -August 18th on BBC One – Prepare to swipe both left and right. I hope they haven’t front-loaded all the winners this time. Original Show Discussion post.
007: Road To A Million – August 22nd on Amazon Prime – It wasn’t universally popular but actually I enjoyed the first series of this, or at least other than episode one spent spectacularly in a Scottish bog and the last episode which was a bit disappointing, overall it was quite entertaining – and spectacularly shot and edited. Series two is promising some format developments – doing worst in the challenge means having to answer a question to stay in the competition. First series discussed (lightly) here, may as well reuse it.
Don’t forget the Bother’s Bar Cinematic Universe is bigger than the website which is a bit of a loss-leader these days, more-up-to-the-second discussions can be found on the Discord and I’m still on X.
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Something came up yesterday, an advert for contestants for what is going to be The Floor – and probably about time as well – I’m 95% confident that it’s got ITV written all over it, but £50,000 feels like a crap prize for an arc-ed Saturday night show on the same channel and night as Limitless Win, The 1% Club and Millionaire (albeit on Sunday). Possibly it’s destined for 99 To Beat‘s slot but the show feels more premium than that. So I’m also pondering – could Sky be using it as something to lead into their planned domestic version of Saturday Night Live? Are we looking at Rob Beckett’s The Floor on Sky Max and NowTV? Or are ITV just being a bit cheap. We’ll find out in due course.
Edit: Gary Lineker revealed as the host of ITV’s upcoming import The Box which feels like… a choice. Not least because I was under the impression that it was mainly done in voiceover. Anyway I’ve seen a sizzle reel and it looks quite fun, celebrities are transported in striking yellow boxes, are released and have to figure out what the challenge is and then get on with it (could be the middle of an ice hockey match, could be 10m above the sea, that sort of thing), although they’re already suggesting it’s “like I’m a Celebrity meets SAS: Who Dares Wins” and anything that compares itself to I’m a Celeb has invariably just come across as a crap version of I’m a Celeb, so be careful. Lineker had already presented two series of Sitting On A Fortune for ITV.
Tonight’s ‘of interest’ is the 2,000th episode of Pointless (7:30pm, BBC1) and if you’re pondering yes 16 years feels like a long time to reach that figure for a daily show with weekend celebrity specials (although it took eight years to hit 1,000 episodes so actually it tracks), but it was apparently recorded over two years ago (as indeed first run episodes on Saturdays recently have been).
We remember the heady excitement of the first time getting to be in the Pointless 100 and hopefully helping people to win on questions on rugby league and opera, two things I know next to nothing about. We also remember how much fun going to see the show being filmed was – they’re all audienceless since COVID which is a pity. We also remember when it used to kerbstomp The Chase in the ratings, when everyone would playalong on Twitter, but whilst it’s has been in decline for a number of years it’s still doing well enough that “what do we replace it with?” is a problem without a good answer. We’ve enjoyed watching it go around the world but apparently be so British it’s succeeded pretty much nowhere else (although surely France must be due another go). One of its hosts left and it’s been fine.
It was, I think, the first show to eke out new episodes by frequently repeating old ones in between in a way that was quite clever but quite annoying and now that’s a feature of lots of daily quizzes (well, The Chase and Tipping Point). It was the first show to not just call its celebrity episodes Celebrity Pointless (the joke is, right,) and play with the form and now everybody does it, but everyone just ends up calling it Celebrity Tipping Point anyway.
I mean I think I’ve made my opinions on Destination X as a format perfectly clear by now (i.e. it’s OK but not worthy of the massive hype – and price – it’s been afforded), ultimately its fundamental mystery is not that interesting and it can’t really use its location as a player as that would give the game away so you’re kind of left with a lot of generic challenges of varying quality that could be done anywhere but different to the original is that evidently we’ve got Rob Brydon on location administering tasks rather than at a location and communicating via screen. Whether this is enough of a secret sauce to make its fortunes differ from its many international versions remains to be seen.
But hey! It’s not about what I think, let us know what you thought in the comments.
Tomorrow (Saturday) at 3pm on Radio 3 and Live from the Royal Albert Hall, Claudia Winkleman introduces music from The Traitors, classical pieces about deception and gothicy pop covers the show is famous for, meanwhile Katie Derham has a chat with the show’s composer Sam Watts and Linda the opera singer from last year.
Should be fun, here’s the BBC’s programme site. As far as I’m aware it’s being recorded for a TV broadcast later in the year but tomorrow it’s audio only unless you’re there.
