… that I don’t know what I think.
I wasn’t expecting people to want to chat about this daily, so feel free to use this post to discuss Friday and Saturday’s show.
There are plenty of reasons to criticise the show – poor set design choices (although the set generally is quite good), fairly boring questions, Davina pointing out how live it is every few minutes, largely thick contestants combined with a production that wants to give some money away but not too much and being a bit obvious about it. SO MUCH FAFFING.
On Wednesday night, right up until Will and Gemma blew the eighth question, I was bored.
And yet. And yet and yet and yet. I quite enjoyed last night: I really liked Dom and Ian and hoped they’d do well, and then saw two contestants lose it all on early questions, and the show seemed entertaining again.
If it didn’t get recomissioned I wouldn’t cry for it, but I wouldn’t jump for joy either. What an odd show.
In the meantime, why not go and watch a French pilot of it?
If they used real people instead of actors from agencies, it would help.
We all know some of these gameshows emply actors/extras for the first few episodes to ensure the show is a success.
The contestants aren’t actors. They are just young, gobby people that fancy being on telly winning some money.
UK production companies certainly don’t knowingly cast people that are acting. There would be a scandal.
Yes game shows cast certain types of person when looking for contestantants. But these are nevertheless ‘real people’.
Are you just scared to admit you actually like it?
For something which actually isn’t the most original idea in the world it feels far fresher than most “new” gameshows which have launched in recent years, and it’s not trying too hard to be something it isn’t.
The questions have definately got more difficult since Will and Gemma nearly won something the other night, but on the whole I like that the style of questions seems to be different to other quizzes too – it’s more about making educated guesses than having academic knowledge, yet isn’t completely dumbed down either.
P.S. Wonder if Davina might do the French pilot too!
I basically like it depending on what day it is.
However, I’m fascinated by your description of “difficult”.
Million Pound drop is located in a secret location so secret they put the address up in the audience call out
3 MILLS STUDIOS, LONDON E3 3DU
/sigh
I have a feeling something will be won tonight rather than tomorrow. I know most of us (including KP/David) is sure nothing will be won until Saturday night but Friday is the night Channel 4 does try with the late primetime schedule since they don’t bother with weekends and no doubt the final show will get about 1.5 million viewers.
Against ESC on Saturday, it’d be unlikely to get more than 2m for the finale – ESC used to get about 10m I think. Presumably the last show will have to carry on until the contestants have finished, so the pacing will be interesting.
ESC won’t get anywhere near 10m this time – it’s also against BGT, which could work in Million Pound Drops favour as it’s scheduled to begin after.
Le drop de Million euro avec Londres..
I thought that may happen. Endemol Uk flog the format to the other Endemol teams abroad, and given how much the set design and construction took at 3 Mills, try and recoup some of the cost by renting out the set to make local versions.
I mentioned this in TM£D thread back on Tuesday, but it may have got lost in the tidal wave of postings. In the post BB era, I can see this coming back next year with Davina hosting a week of programmes every 4 weeks during the summer months, with the studio being used to make international versions during the UK ‘downtime’ to make the production for Johnny Overseas more cost effective.
As a Frenchie, I’m really interested about this pilot 😛
Well, I can always hope there will be some kind of report on it popping up somewhere. I’d love to see it this summer, really. Just one thing : they HAVE to keep that “million” thing and to make it as “accessible” as it is here. I’m really scared about us butchering the show by dividing the top prize/making impossible-to-answer questions/casting really dumb contestants.
Anyway, really happy for this news!