- Physical: Asia (the pan-Asian (and Australia) version of Physical 100) began on Netflix on Friday and thus far it is great – massively multiplayer wrestling on top of sand dunes and a game that’s basically the Final Abyss from Scavengers, except on a shipwreck and involving trying to nick six tonnes of stuff in twenty minutes. Unexpectedly going into it, I think, is how much I’ve enjoyed the international element – each of the eight teams have come with their own character, none of them alike, and watching the interplay, the banter in broken English, has been delightful.
- Squid Game: The Challenge 2 begins on Netflix tomorrow. We didn’t want to like the original, but it was actually really quite well done. This time around new games inspired by the second and third seasons of the drama (although no giant skipping rope or Starry Night maze, for shame). Doesn’t feel like much buzz around it this time but it might develop across the three Tuesdays of drops.
- And Bullseye‘s back on Sunday (at 8pm, which feels quite late) after its successful Xmas special that’s been seen by approximately 22m viewers now, probably. And it’s got a new round, apparently! Format development after forty years, you love to see it. It will be interesting to see how well it can stand on its own two feet now it can’t play the nostalgia card quite so hard. Also I note on ITVX it’s “Little” Richard Ashdown now, “Little” Alex Horne should sue.
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No Squid Game Challenge 2 buzz whatsoever, Broadcast reporting that the launch night overnights are 81k, 49k, 29k, 9k, compared to the original opening to 795k.
I know we’re in a +28 era now so there’s nothing to panic about just yet, and I think expecting people to watch four episodes in one night is a bit unrealistic, but your launch episode only doing 10% of the previous series on the same metric probably stings a bit, especially for the money pumped in. It probably doesn’t help none of the games this time round use the giant doll as far as I’m aware, which won’t help marketing, this could be Difficult Second Album territory. I’ve quite enjoyed the two episodes I’ve watched (although I’m slightly aghast at how bad everyone is at basic House of Cards).