Show Discussion: Don’t Unleash The Beast

By | November 1, 2020

Mondays to Thursdays, 5:00pm,
Repeated the following morning at 11:30am,
CITV

Proving that there’s still more exciting stuff in kids TV than in TV being made for grown-ups, our main interest in Don’t Unleash The Beast is that from the adverts it looks like Jungle Run, but if they had to make it slightly different to avoid breaching copyright.

The good news is Jungle Run was great (eventually). They also stopped making it in 2006 so somebody born when JR finished would be really pushing this show’s target demographic, let alone me as a 39 year-old.

Anyway, a group of kids advised from afar by the comic and magician Pete Firman complete physical and mental challenges in the underground kingdom of Halian to find its mysterious treasure but they must have a care not to unleash the foul and ferocious beast as that would be bad, it says in the press release.

Will it fill that Jungle Run/Crystal Maze hole currently in the schedules, or is it going to be a different beast entirely? Let us know what you think in the comments.

22 thoughts on “Show Discussion: Don’t Unleash The Beast

  1. Brekkie

    This looks very much like a Jungle Run reboot so will be interesting to see.

    P.S. Beat the Chasers Australia now up on Youtibe if people want a look. A decent watch if you can get past the awful host. The Chasers are very good though.

    Reply
  2. NinjaBoi

    “They also stopped making it in 2006 so somebody born when JR finished would be really pushing this show’s target demographic.”
    To be fair, they did repeat jungle run on CITV until 2015 iirc..

    Reply
    1. Danny

      They are also apparently repeating jungle run in a few weeks according to some unofficial sources from the very start so Dominic woods series will be aired for the first time in 20 years. We know that the tapes exist as an episode was placed on britbox.

      Reply
      1. steve

        where is repeating jungle run in a few weeks from the very start coming from exactly

        Reply
  3. Danny

    Well one thing that does ring out is that this was clearly filmed under covid conditions as all the players are evenly spaced out. But also it does have strong vibes of a jungle run clone. just fruits instead of statues.

    Reply
  4. Brekkie

    This is so Jungle Run I’m expecting a naked version on C5 to be announced very soon.

    Reply
  5. Clive Of Legend

    Crap endgame was my only real takeaway from that. By far the biggest set they had and they completely wasted it.

    Reply
    1. RandomZombie

      Yea… If they get a series 2, they need to think of a better endgame, as this one was bad. The games leading up to it were good though, I would say.

      Reply
  6. RandomZombie

    It’s defo very Jungle run/Tasks in time limit in its format. The theming, challenges and Pete’s performance do sell the show for me. Along with some nice prop work. (Because 2 of the treasure seekers in today’s show didn’t.)

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Yeah I think this is where I am I think, if I was ten I’d probably love it, as a 39 year old the flaws stick out – I thought the first two challenges were fine (the first one is pretty successful, the second one fine even if it asks for a bit of disbelief in the set-up), the third one, The Jumping On Pete Firman’s Bed Challenge, was frankly crap. The endgame, searching for specific treasures in a pile of stuff, has some sort of potential but doesn’t work all that well in its current form, and the Rancid Ramp isn’t really exciting offering the last second escapes I think they want to build up if its as difficult as it comes across today.

      I get annoyed at time limits that look arbitrary, we know they edit to hell on Fort Boyard but at least we know each game is governed by a clepsydre, here the Beast Tracker kicks in when there’s 30 seconds left but it feels like they can just activate it at any time. Whatsmore, I suspect it’s a completely jeopardy-less mechanic in that I don’t think anyone will ever get caught during the show itself. I’m happy to believe one fruit = five seconds during the end game (or something) as that’s the only bit that seems to have a proper cause/effect mechanic.

      I think they’ve done a good job with the cave walls and the props, the “toxic swamps” are a bit crap, I think Pete Firman’s good as The Professor and enjoy that he’s clearly being played as a sociopath more interested in the treasure then the lives of the kids he sends down to get it.

      Reply
  7. Will Stephen

    The social distancing element definitely disjoints the endgame (plus most of the other games in truth). If they could help each other on the ramp I think it would be passable for the last bit, they just need something more to get to it, a small cargo net don’t cut it. Timing feels heavily edited but it is only one episode.

    I hope they get to do another series that isn’t social distancing in the future as it isn’t bad in its current incarnation.

    Reply
  8. Daniel Williams

    After the great modern citv shows like spy school and project z, I was expecting something good.

    This was average at best. The “beast” didn’t even have that much jeopardy other than basically being a timer for the games.

    Were the rules of the fruit and what they did ever explained? I assume they’re like the crystals in crystal maze. But I don’t understand how much time each fruit got and if I don’t how could they expect a kid to.

    This was obviously an attempt to try and revive the scary fantasy gameshow for kids genre but they missed what made the shows like raven and trapped great.

    In those shows, it felt like there was an actual sense of danger, you see the kids vanish on raven, you see the kids trapped in the tower on trapped.
    In this, all you see is a door getting closed.

    Taking their toxic ramp as inspiration for a better sense of danger, perhaps losing teams can sit in a vat of gunge and pretend it’s the beast intestines as losing teams get “eaten by the beast” according to the lore of this show.

    It has potential and if it gets a second series it can improve.

    Reply
  9. Oliver

    In the US, ABC have announced their new primetime version of The Chase will have the ‘big three’ Jeopardy winners (James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter) as Chasers

    Which I think is a brilliant idea. I doubt they will be able to play the pantomine villain in the same way but they bring in a huge amount of built-in name recognition and audience than unknowns.

    I always felt they surprised they didn’t get Ken Jennings as the Chaser on the GSN version.

    Reply
    1. Oliver

      Whoops, pressed enter while I was editing my last sentence. It should have read:

      I always felt they should have got Ken Jennings as a Chaser on the GSN version.

      Reply
    2. Chris M. Dickson

      Buzzerblog suggested that Rutter auditioned for the post back in 2012.

      I do hope they let Mark Labbett play, if they’re not going to let him Chase. That would be very satisfying!

      Reply
  10. Chris M. Dickson

    The cause-and-effect wasn’t clear and there are a few parts which require so much suspension of disbelief that they look a bit more Amateur Adventure Hour than actual broadcast TV, but I do like the atmosphere, I was tickled how precocious and unabashed by being on TV the kids were, everyone seems to be having great fun, and I really enjoy Pete Firman – though I may be biased as we’re both from the ‘Boro, so I love the twang in his voice. I think I liked the “bouncing to collect fruit from a tree” game more than most, as it’s very televisual and very easy to bounce along in your seat to; it’s single-player Swingshot, after all!

    6/10, maybe?

    Reply
  11. Brig Bother Post author

    Episode two – different games,apart from the Pete Firman Jump On The Bed Challenge and the Cave of Treasures (I couldn’t work out what they were doing in the first one, but the other two were OK).

    And they won! And what they won was a necklace with a tooth on it, a jacket, and a trip to Go Ape.

    Reply
  12. John R

    In other news The Sun are reporting ITV have got the Sinnerman signed up for his own ‘Telly Addicts meets Celebrity Juice’ show, whatever that is supposed to mean…

    Reply
  13. Greg

    Speaking of The Crystal Maze they are finally burning the remaining episodes on E4 on Sundays from the 15th

    Reply
  14. Liam

    Okay. I’ve finally got around to seeing an episode of this show.

    Episode 4 from the series that was placed up onto Youtube.

    I must say, the theming feels like it would fit in as a jungle run spin off to say the least, Peter as the professor like character is actually a nice fit for the character. The games i saw they weren’t too bad though i do think there would have been a bit more thought put into them.

    The fruits should have been given an explanation on how they work against the beast at the start and the professor giving his spiel about how long the beast can be knocked out for.. Say for example “Now these are what you need to look for, the Halian fruits, perfectly fine for humans to eat, however the beast has an effect on them, eating one of them allows the beast to become docile for at least 5 seconds. So collecting as many of these is vital along the way through the cave challenges”

    For the challenges themselves, I think a timer should have also been added onto the timed games to make the challenges feel better so rather than having the beast radar we have like a hourglass shown on the bottom right with a 30 second clock counting down with the sounds of the beast getting closer and closer until about 10 seconds where the beast closes in onto the room allowing the team to have a close encounter with said beast. Also some challenges do seem pretty strict on the challenge, especially with the rock roll vents. For Rock Roll i would change the rule that for each volcanic shaft closed off, a fruit would be released.. so with 10 volcanic shafts 10 fruit would be played for.
    Maye adding in a set of challenges where you have certain amount attempts to complete otherwise the beast would be able to get to the room faster.

    With the treasure chamber part, it just seems a bit.. boring to be honest for the team needing to look for the artefacts in the chamber rather than having everything be a bit more frantic and exciting.

    If a second season comes around, I would to see them do this, rather than having to clamber and climb through things to look for artefacts, the chamber would be dotted with closed and locked chests, the team would be given the time from the fruit plus that they collected and added 15 seconds to rummage through the chamber and open the chests looking for treasures, including gold doubloons, rubies, diamonds and the special artefacts the professor wants and keys to open the locked chests to collect and place into the treasure basket. Before the team can enter, the team would load up a hopper that would be connected to the beast’s lair, with a fruit being 5 seconds each, depending on how many they get they fill up the hopper. Once the hopper is loaded, the team leader would then pull a lever that would release the entrance to the treasure chamber and then releasing the fruits, thus starting the clock for the team to rummage around to find keys to open the locked chests or opening the closed chests for the general valuables.
    Escaping the room would be done in three ways, climbing a wall, taking a pulley lift or up the waterfall. However as the time draws closer to the beast becoming aware of the teams presence a 30 second sand timer would appear, at 15 seconds the beast would make a loud roaring signalling the teams last few seconds before the beast would get to them, if the team don’t escape, we see the doors swing open while the exit closes behind the team and the teams fate is sealed.

    If the team can escape in time, the weight of the treasures collected would be scaled up, the more collected the bigger the prize the team will get, however any players left behind they would be unable to collect their reward and any escapees get rewarded.

    That’s what i generally think.

    Reply

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