Friday 30th October, 7pm,
Netflix
This is a bit sad really in that The Future Of Sportertainment feels like it’s already been murdered in plain sight by The Celebrity Traitors – the date for this was set months ago and they presumably weren’t to know the BBC were going to change their scheduling strategy from Wednesday/Thursday to Thursday/Friday this year, and as such it’s up against what might be one of the biggest TV episodes of the decade.
That is out of its control. More contentious is that is was billed, basically, as “can you, Johnny Normal, beat Bullseye star Luke Littler over one leg of 501 for £501,000?” which is quite a fun premise but somewhere turned into “can you, Johnny Normal, or a ringer, or a semi-professional, or other Bullseye stars, beat Luke Littler over one leg of 501 for £501,000?” which is a different arguably less fun proposition and I’ve quite enjoyed seeing production tie themselves in knots explaining it away and why it is good it is like this actually aaaaah.
I think the premise is well understood by now – 24 players, up to 20 will get to play, face Luke Littler and if they can best him in one leg of 501 they win £501,000 and the show ends. There is apparently a fun contingency if the show is won early with a separate prize, so no Littler can’t just throw it at 7:55pm and Gary Lineker, Richard Osman and the however many out of 10,000 Manchester Central seats that are filled can’t just stick the Traitors final up on a big screen.
It’s a bit of a reductive blurb here, and I’m not even sure when I’m going to have the time to watch it (I’m off seeing Duran Duran the following night at the O2), but I’m sure it will be decently professional and fun and I will try and catch-up in due course and hope not to be put off/spoiled by the runtime. When you eventually get round to having a look, let us know what you think in the comments.