Sunday, 6pm,
ITV
Do yer remember Bullseye? Do yer? Do yer remember “stay out of the black and into the red, nothing in this game for two in a bed?” Do yer remember “iiiiiiinn one?” Do yer remember the speedboat? They were always giving away a speedboat weren’t they! Do yer remember that bit where they’d “check that with Bully?” Do yer? Do yer remember that? Do yer remember the Bendy Bully? Do yer remember getting yer BFH? Bus Fare Home? Do yer remember pounds for points? Do yer remember “the ones that are lit are the ones you can hit?” Do yer remember the “ooo-OHHH-eee-ooohhhh” sound when the board revolved? Do yer? Do yer?
Let us know what you thought about the Xmas Special in the comments below!
I’m just hoping they bring back the rule where the low scoring team is eliminated after Round 1. Not having it takes the drama out of the first round and makes the second round cluttered
If they want it to be an hour they’ve really got find a way to extend the game more naturally. Very very odd to have main game wrapped up by halfway mark and for so much of the second half to feel like fluff. Wouldn’t say it particularly dragged, but there’s only so many times you can cover the lack of content by shouting round names making Luke walk off and on (the poor boy, give him a chair or something). Game definitely needs rebalancing as well, far too much on offer in round one for there to be much chance of an upset in round two.
Freddie much better than I expected, suitably low-key in a pleasantly Jim Bowen way. The cheap applause cues detract a bit (come *on*, no one is that excited by the words ‘Pounds for Points”), but I’ll blame the producers for those.
Do yer remember “pounds for points”? Do yer?
Wasn’t sure on Freddie at first but actually he brings in a bit of Jim Bowen with his accent. Glad they kept the show pretty much identical to the original that has been a real let down on ITV with certain reboots as of recent (EG. Wheel Of Fortune, Jeopardy) The fact that they had all the classic rounds really stood out as a positive bringing the nostalgia back to our screens but keeping it fresh for newer viewers. Defo deserves a slot in the Saturday or Sunday night schedule as a full series from the reactions i’ve seen online so far it appears people enjoyed it. This and You Bet! which also also needs a full series run back to back would work a treat. Had a fun night chilling on the sofa with quality programs like these.
Brig absolutely nailed it with his preamble, given how pointedly heavy on nostalgia and references this was. In fact you could say… he scored a bullseye.
Not a bad effort at all – Flintoff fits the format perfectly. They overused Luke Littler and whenever they did it dragged, but always enjoy a game of Round the Clock and that’s more tense TV than just scoring 301.
Of course all ITV shows suffer from being 30 minutes dragged to 60 but this got away with it more than most. Do feel the Pounds for Points round could be fleshed out by having all scores count rather than just the highest so you have nine questions rather than three. Format wise though the Luke Littler throw at the end of it made the entire round redundant, although of course the beauty of the Bullseye format is that the second placed team can end up playing for the star prize.
I liked the shirts that the darts players were wearing, and a bit of thought had clearly gone in to turning a half-hour show into a full-hour one… and if it weren’t Christmas, I’d say what I thought of the rest of the hour.
Just going through my notes:
* Goodness me, those titles are low effort aren’t they.
* The contestant interviews are amusingly perfunctory. I don’t want life stories, but you could probably ask questions plural.
* Flintoff actually suits the show quite well, even if he’s not quite a natural host, his banter is quite funny and he feels authentic. His jokes with Richard a bit obvious but not much different from Bowen/Green double-handers.
* At first I wondered how they were going to stretch it to an hour, it turns out the answer is extended bits of applause.
* I’m always a bit worried with Bullseye in that the stakes haven’t really been raised since 1984. Here the category board has been raised *a bit* – £50/100/150/250 and questions worth £50/50/100, up from the old £30/50/100/200 and £30/50/100 questions. Fine. Except…
* …Pounds for Points, already usually a bit underwhelming, now a complete waste of time. Three rounds of darts and if you’re lucky a question worth about £12. Through luck or design the numbers just about worked in 1980s stakes, it was usually close enough that this could make a difference. Now the round is so low stakes it’s a complete waste of time. The Luke Littler Golden Snitch not even being enough for the last placed team to catch-up.
* Hate the buzz-in sound, unnecessarily strong. It’s a pity they spent to much on the constant Bully putting his thumbs up animations they couldn’t afford proper titles isn’t it.
* I quite liked the Fred and Luke Round the Clock challenge. Of course not having a clock on screen with a timed challenge is a pet hate.
* Alright, We’ve Got A Luke Littler And We’re Gonna Use It, his inclusion on Bully’s Prize Board is unnecessary.
* Keep the sad music going through the credits! Come on.
I think there’s a *serviceable* 45 minute show there, but you’ve had Luke Littler on, what are you going to do now? Do you think other professionals coming on and weaving themselves in many of the rounds is going to have the same appeal? Are you going to make Flintoff and whoever do Round the Clock every week? Now you’ve done your “do yer remember Pounds for Points? Do yer remember the speedboat?” schtick, now what? Evidently they’re fully expecting to go to series (although it’s a bit weird putting it on and there being no adverts other than promos during it, might as well have been a repeat of Celebrity Catchphrase), now how are you going to fill the inevitable 60 minutes?
Would switching Pound for Points and the category board make the format flow better?
I think PfP would be a too low-energy start.
2.9m, grew across the hour, which is pretty good! Although it turns out you *can* beat a bit of Bully if you’re the Antiques Roadshow.
I thought it was odd that the questions were based on 2024. Watching Bowen asking questions about the 1987 Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2024 is fine but watching Flintoff ask about the 2024 Britains Got Talent winner during Christmas 2025 on ITV2 wouldn’t have the same appeal. Do they not plan to repeat it after this month or have it on ITVX?
Disappointed, but not surprised the charity throw took basically as long it takes at the filming. In the Eighties they’d do it for real and just go “shall we give them the money anyway?” and that’s fun, or they’d cheat very blatantly and that’s fun. What’s not fun is cheating and hiding it in the edit.
Random thought I had watching it – I think the only realistic way to make Pounds for Points work with 2024 money levels is to have the question be worth the combined total of all 3 dart throwers, rather than just the winning score. Based off my calculations of last nights amounts, the questions would have been worth between £53 and £136 like this, which would probably be a bit closer to the amounts offered in round 1.
I would also have the final question with Luke’s throw be offered to all 3 contestants Final Jeopardy style, rather than on the buzzers, in order to avoid the Countdown Conundrum problem – depending on the scores, either the final round is meaningless, or the entire show up to that single question is meaningless.
I think the problem with combining the scores is that if you’re ahead it might be a good strategy to just miss the board, certainly to aim badly. Which would be a bit crap.
The obvious things are to play in multiples – 1x for Round 1, 2x for Round 2, 3x for Round 3, or to add 50, 100, 150 to the numbers, although I’d need to play it through a few times before deciding, I think. That’s even if I want rising stakes at all, you could make it a flat bonus.
I quite like the idea of Final Jeopardy-ing the Littler Bonus, although you’d need to write things down which isn’t very Bullseye really.
Maybe replace the final Littler throw with him throwing 3 darts at the start of each round, with the Pounds for Points being whatever he hits + the winning throwers score. That way it’ll be £100-180 bonus each time (assuming he’ll throw for the T20 every time and occasionally miss it by a bit).
Combine that with the updated round 1 board and 50-100-150 or 200 on the questions, and I think the values in each round will be roughly close enough to not have either of them be worthless, while still having enough money offered to be interesting/relevant in 2024.
Thought this was pretty good. I liked the darts atmosphere and thought they nailed the tone. As a format, it remains an entertaining and compelling watch – the difference between this and something like Pictionary is night and day.
Freddie was good, better than expected, and could see him settling in given a full series. I can see the show benefiting from more talk at the top.
I could nitpick – the format needs tweaking a bit, the horrendous graphics feel like placeholders, and you can’t bring back Luke Littler every 5 minutes in a series. But it feels like they have something something there.
The biggest problem with Bullseye as a format at this point is the tired self-parody that follows it that ends up bogging everything down. Less speedboats and mindless spouting of tired catchphrases and you’d end up with a better show
I can’t lie, I think it’s a bit sad that the future of ITV is Bullseye, but the numbers are in and they’re good – Thinkbox suggests it’s the top performing show with Adults 16-24 for the week, 2nd top show in A16-24, top in ABC1 (i.e. posh) men and 10th in ABC1 women. 3.6m in TV only total audience. Good total audience and lucrative demos, it’d be silly not to turn it into a series really. But. It’s got things it needs to think about.
Overall reception to this seems to be pretty good. By keeping all the elements that people remember and know about the show has helped, otherwise I think there would have been a lot more criticism. Compare it to Wheel of Fortune where everything fun about the original has gone and it hasn’t been received as well. Also, with it being Christmas, I think people have been prepared to ignore the flaws, the overblown Luke Littler idolatry and deliberately contrived maximum amount given to charity stuff. A series of this won’t go down well but ITV may want a 60 min show.