We’ve hit the motherlode, if you missed this last week this Youtube channel has uploaded loads of episodes of series two of Incredible Games. The one with Gary Parker as SAM, the lift.
The games are really pretty good (although really there needs to be more of them, or at least a better rotation), it’s surprising that there’s little explanation of how levels translate to the time penalty for the Penthouse in most of the episodes (it’s three minutes minus five seconds for every ten levels they’re short of 200).
I was always a big fan of the show’s aesthetic. Series two is much less silly without David Walliams at the helm, possibly to the show’s detriment, possibly not, this shows up in the types of games that survived the cut from series one – The Dark Knight and Alphabet Soup is in, Planet Susan (which I quite liked), that sound effects game and the quickie games played on the monitor are out.
Somewhat related- stumbled on an ep of Swap Team…
https://youtu.be/xBMr5NStJ6w
Great find – this remains excellently stylish, and is probably one of the best examples of people having to work as a team but then against each other at the end, even if the reasoning is complete nonsense.
Next job: someone find The Perfect Crime, the Norwegian show it’s based on (probably called something else in Norwegian).
Why was this only shown in one ITV reigion? It looks very expensive to make, way outside the budget you’d expect for that.
Bringing this up on Twitter suggests it was shown in Granada and Tyne Tees, although not Central and Anglia.
It was shown in Yorkshire too as this definitely rings a bell
It’s Der perfekte kup, and it’s Danish, not Norwegian by the looks of it. Hard to find, not least because there seem to be at least two other shows with the same name, one a documentary about the perfect crime, the other a film.
I don’t ever remember Swap Team, i’m guessing this was never shown in Scotland because I think I would’ve remembered seeing this when I was 12/13 otherwise.
Incredible Games is definitely an underrated show, though I never understood the points to time ratio, was that ever explained for the penthouse?
I’ve literally put it up there!
It’s explained in the third episode uploaded that it’s 3:00 minus a second for every two levels short. Seeing how levels are scored in tens, that’s five seconds knocked off for every ten levels short.
I preferred the Gary Parker era…
*cowers*
Not at all, I think there’s a lot to commend it, especially the bigness of the games. Not as funny, though.
Incredible Games used to scare the sh1t out of me as a kid when the teacher or Dark Knight appeared in the lift!
Not the only one.
Now THIS is the Incredible Games I remember! (I never watched the David Walliams version as a kid).
On balance this is the better season, but I do have a few issues:
1. Gary Parker. I get that he was more into his character than Walliams, but it just feels a bit more stilted (Walliams was more spontaneous with his commentary). Mind you I don’t see how the latter’s humour would fit with this season.
2. The scoring system. It’s a good system on paper (Much better than the S1 “Credits” system) but the problem is the time penalty in the penthouse is not explained very well in some episodes. It doesn’t help that we don’t get a clock graphic at the start of the penthouse game (or ANY of the games for that matter).
3. The Crystal Cave. IMO a poorly designed game that was too easy and open to abuse from the contestants (Why put each shape through its designated hole when you can just take it with you through the BIGGER HOLE IN THE MIDDLE!) and the producers (Notice that one of the shapes is missing in one episode). It also does not make sense as an “ALIS” game. How exactly do you get “Locked in” a CAVE? How do the contestants get to the basement anyway? There aren’t any trap doors that I can see so do they get teleported? or do they just jump off the ledge into the chasm that somehow leads to a… Laundry chute? At least making the dark knight an ALIS made more sense.
4. The Variety. Could they seriously not come up with more than 5/6 new games? (No, replacing the letters with numbers in the soup doesn’t count!)
Still a good show though. With a longer run (And a few tweaks) it could have become an all time classic.
Also, What is the Time Vortex from Doctor Who doing on this show?!
Some Big Brother news. E4 to celebrate the 20th Anniversary with a compilation show – https://www.channel4.com/press/news/big-brothers-best-ever-episodes-land-e4-celebrating-20-years-launch