Show Discussion: The Games

By | May 9, 2022

Monday to Friday, 9pm,
ITV

Well it’s been delayed several times, it’s gone through several name changes (I’m told this was going under The Real Olympics at one point when it was due to up against the actual Olympics, which is certainly a choice, then The Real Games which is terrible) before seemingly landing on what it always was, what looks like Initial, an Endemol company, accidentally rebooting The Games (one of its own franchises) on another channel.

But we loved The Games! So this is alright by us. Really old-school readers will remember that one of our first stories eighteen-years ago was enquiring whether Harvey from So Solid Crew was the fastest man in pop. Unfortunately the timing couldn’t be worse for us this week, a combination of late-night working in my real-life job (The Real Job) keeping places open for students to revise for finals and Eurovision semi-finals means I don’t know how and when I’ll be able to actually watch the damn thing, happily it’s not 90 minutes every night, and in an improvement on the original looks like everybody will be doing two sports an evening (mainly because some of the sporting action was pre-recorded the week just gone).

I like a lot of what they’ve with the promo pictures and branding, I’m hoping they’ve kept the old theme tune and background music which was incredible. Let us know what you think in the comments.

13 thoughts on “Show Discussion: The Games

  1. Joey Clarke

    The nerve of ITV putting this out on the same week as the Eurovision.
    It would’ve been best to do the revival back on Channel 4 as they might have decided to do it in June instead to avoid competition.

    Reply
    1. Brandon

      The Eurovision semi finals aren’t particularly popular in the UK, so that’s unlikely to make a difference.

      Reply
      1. Joey Clarke

        At least we vote in one of them. (We vote on the second Qualifier on Thursday)

        Reply
  2. Whoknows

    I’ve been told it was called temporarily called “The Real Games” because the IOC initially objected to “The Games” even though the show already existed. But quite possible I was told the story incorrectly and the above is true!

    I’ve got to say this was easily the poorest celebrity line up for a major celeb show I’ve seen in some time. The original had Mel C when she was still fairly unbookable!

    Reply
  3. Henry R

    No reason for this to be live. Two events spaced over an hour apart incut with two VT sports that were not exciting in the slightest.

    No atmosphere in the stadium or the studio, and not even Tyson’s charisma could inject anything.

    Reply
  4. Brig Bother Post author

    Just going to repeat my Twitter posts on here because it’s late and I’m lazy:

    Alright #thegames after night one – it does a few things better than the original – much better having more than one event for each gender every night. But it doesn’t have the original’s sense of drama or occasion – it really misses Dobs Vye’s thumping event build-up.

    The best bits were the live events which felt more like A Moment than the pre-records. I like the logo but the graphics are pretty bad on the whole – gold on red not hugely clear and that non-fixed width running clock all over the place. Two years work, really?

    Studio stuff felt looser but somehow not as much fun – Yung Filly as regular panellist can match Steve Bunce’s loudness but not his analysis. Holly could have quite easily hosted on her own.

    Kamara and Scott feel a bit surplus to requirements which is odd as you’ve put them front and centre. It’s not a complete car crash by any means – Denise Lewis at least relevant – but it’s quite sad that an Endemol company who used to be able to do this sort of thing…

    … to a certain standard in their sleep can’t seem to quite do it in 2022.

    Reply
  5. Brig Bother Post author

    2.1m for ep 1, not sure I can see it growing, might hang around that sort of figure rest of the week if it’s lucky.

    Reply
  6. Mark A

    Well… That Women’s Keirin was a bit of a shambles wasn’t it?

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      I wanted to be able to catch up with this all at the weekend, now wondering whether it’s really worth the effort.

      Reply
      1. Brig Bother Post author

        I’ve just seen the cycling on Youtube. I will say that comedy sports action aside, I’m pleased that they have at least sorted out many of their graphical issues since Monday which was the last time I was able to see it – big up the non-epilepsy inducing clock, and it felt like more gold on blue rather than on red which is much more readable. So that’s good at least.

        I don’t know. It’s not rated well at all. I still think there’s *something* in it though, I wouldn’t rule out a second go as a possibility even if it does go against my usual instincts.

        Reply
        1. Whoknows

          I do agree with this. I think the show *should* work if done well but it definitely suffered from a complete lack of hype, certainly not helped by the very poor line up, and I think doing it live really made it suffer as well. It could have been a really tight show if it had been prerecorded as live. This is the one show I’ve seen people actively say on twitter that it must be incredibly boring to watch as a spectator (and as someone who went to the diving last week, I can confirm it was) which kind of tells you a lot about the content really.

          I think The Jump and the original Games proved there’s an audience interest but they’ve failed to tap into it because of their own production flaws.

          Reply
          1. Brig Bother Post author

            They don’t even need to be big names, just interesting enough that the possibility of them doing The Games sounds like a fun proposition. They need to get a Chaser.

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