Again not much happening this week really but at least one new show to tickle our collective tastebuds, and it’s Very Much The Sort Of Thing We’re Interested In:
- Dragons’ Den – I’ve not actually watched this for ages but there’s not much else British on the board, and there’s a new Dragon, Hilary Devey, so. (9pm, Sunday, BBC2)
- The Amazing Race Australia – The final (we think, unless it’s a secret two parter). I’ve really enjoyed this race, it’s made a load of good decisions such as keeping the kick-them-when-they’re-down elements to a minimum and making it much more than a series of point to point hauls by giving them some sort of task at pretty much every location. Although perhaps the greatest things TARA has given us is really good contestants and producers treating the viewers with some semblance of intelligence. Not for Australians heavily signposted things like subtitles of mistakes and rasping sounds, oh no. (Monday, Seven Network)
- Pointless – it is fair to say that this has been on fire during the previous week, Rickrolling the nation and having a team pull off an amazing bluff in the head to head amongst other things. The French version, Personne n’y Avait Pensé! (No-one Thought according to Google Translate) began last week and has lost a bit of the fun in translation. There’s no French Richard Osman! Tragedy. Anyway, Lee put a link up to it here where there’s also some discussion. (5:15pm, Weekdays, BBC1)
- Take the Money and Run – This week’s new show that we are interested in, co-produced by Wild Rover of Secret Fortune fame. Two people are given a suitcase with $100k and are given one hour to hide it. Then actual real law enforcement people get 48 hours to find it. It sounds a bit like a high budget version of The Interrogators, a show few will remember. It’s nice to see this sort of thing can still get comissioned, I hope it’s great. (Tuesday, ABC)
- Fort Boyard 2011 – Episode six of seven of what’s been a highly enjoyable series and it’s a team made up with lots of swimmers. It’s a shame that whilst they’ve sorted out the key game music, they’ve messed up the adventure music quite badly – where are the tunes? SORT IT OUT. Discussion and links to watch it: here. (Saturday, France 2)
And as of right NOW nobody has won Word Up! yet. Who will claim the cash? It could be YOU!
On The Amazing Race Australia, you make a good point about the way they give them the intermediate tasks. They also do this a lot on The Amazing Race Asia, which is produced by the same company. And you can really tell it is. Tasks and even whole legs have sometimes been lifted wholesale from the Asian series. Not that it matters, they’re (mostly) good tasks 🙂
Oh, and while they don’t heavily signpost mistakes and stuff, they do really do the whole ‘it could be all over for this team’ thing over and over again, both in previews and before ad breaks, for things that are then completely fine almost immediately. They do this a lot particularly for Nathan and Tyler – nearly every preview has involved them probably being doomed and out of the race. So I’m assuming they win 🙂
True enough for both of those things – I’ve read an interview with the producer who says that because TAR Asia isn’t shown in Australia he’s happy to re-use the tasks that worked well. Which I think is fair enough really.
I think I want the girls to win, although it’s a unique situation where I can be pretty happy with whoever out of the three win it.
Yeah, I want the girls to win too. Don’t really want the father/son team to win, but that’s mainly because they’re just so bland, and they annoy me with their whole ‘I’m so so proud of my son/dad’ thing the entire time.
If my pidgin GCSE French is anything to go by, I think the Pointless title should translate as ‘nobody thought of it’ – that letter y is crucial!
Mmm! Thanks very much. I thought I read somewhere it was “Nobody Thought of It!” but I couldn’t be bothered to find a reference. Ergo: Google Translate.
I predict Take The Money and Run will do worse than It’s Worth What, the latter of which has been extremely enjoyable thus far.
1.4/5 last Tuesday, second in its timeslot (against re-runs) but does lead-in to America’s Got Talent.
It will be interesting to see.
Ooh, The Chase is on today. Is it a repeat, though?
Yes, except for viewers in Scotland.
Another Oxbridge battle on tonight’s UC: Homerton Cambridge v Balliol Oxford.
It’s not often that an Oxbridge college makes two consecutive appearances in the Paxman Era, but Balliol are doing just that, this being their fifth PE appearance in all. They reached the semi-finals in 2004/5, when they lost a high-scoring “grudge match” against Corpus Christi – though, of course, they were overwhelming favourites to win the 2000/1 series with Ian Bayley on board, only for Hull to pull off one of the biggest PE shocks in the quarter-finals.
Homerton, meanwhile, are making their third PE appearance, having fallen at the first hurdle in 2002/3 and 2007/8.
Only one match of the four so far in this series has been exciting – will that statistic change for the better after tonight? 😕
Only Connect series 5 begins Aug. 15, Victoria Coren sez today:
http://www.victoriacoren.com/main/blog/archive/only_connect_returns
Ta, this had been suggested for a while but I guess it’s now official.
I also confirmed this two days ago on my Twitter feed, but I’m not famous so what’s a man to do?
Sorry, I must have missed it.
I mean, *you could have said it on here*…
I refer Brig to https://www.bothersbar.co.uk/?p=4071&cpage=1#comment-18494 . 😀
Shh.
Although this does leave me sort of wondering whatever happened to the supposed Night of the Connecting Wall Over and Over Again special. Still to come?
Wall Night will be just before Christmas. We have 16 regular shows and CiN to fit in first.
http://videos.tf1.fr/money-drop/l-emission-du-lundi-1er-aout-2011-6610108.html
Money Drop (France), ep.1 (Highely likely to be geo-blocked and therefore you’ll need a proxy to watch it)
Some rules changed vs the other international versions :
Betting all your money on one single answer (and getting it right) automatically skips next question (you can’t skip Q8) . I kinda like it, as it rewards smart people taking risks, and should help creating some big wins during the run.
There’s always four choices available from Q1 to Q7 but Q8 is still an all-or nothing choice. From Q1 to Q4 , thinking time is 45sec , from Q5 to Q7, it goes down (!) to 30 sec but reverts to unlimited thinking time for Q8.
One lifeline – gives 10 sec of extra thinking time, another one is given (I think) while reaching Q5.
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Laurence does a grat job hosting – there’s quite a Maillon Faibble (Weakest Link) feeling in the air, but it’s surprisingly working well with the dark americanised set and the music used. (Yep, the APOAL-trademarked tragical music is here, (over)used at every money drop)
However , these efforts are ruined by an atrociously slow pace (six questions in 37 minutes of play time), fake reveals, etc – seems Endemol can’t learn.
I like the idea of skipping a question if you risk it all, gives a bit more incentive to take bigger risks and improves the odds of getting to the final question. I’d quite like to see that rule on the UK version if it returns, I was pretty bored of it during the last series sadly.
TAR:A-ra Boom-de-ay! LSKfulleps has beaten amazingraceglobal to posting the finale on this occasion, which is a good 60+ minutes long after commercials. Haven’t watched it myself yet (I’m just buffering it… looks pretty high-quality to me) but start here &seq.
After a largely great series, a bit disappointed the final had two needle in haystack challenges, although the big wheel might have been more fun if there was some logic to the capsules the good clues were in.
Still a highly entertaining season though.