Do you remember ITV1 non-hit Grudge Match on ITV1? In it, two people with a grudge battle it out over three arena-style games to determine who is right. It was hosted by Nick Weir, Lisa Rogers and Barry McGuigian.
Well I was sent an episode from the original US version from the early nineties this week. It’s very, uh, different. Each match is three rounds in a wrestling ring, with weapons determined by the players from trhe “gallery of weapons”, the audience decide the victor after round three. It’s hosted by wrestler and politician Jesse “The Body” Ventura and Steve Alpert.
And here’s the UK version, for comparison:
OK, maybe it’s clearly not The Crystal Maze, but as game design goes, it’s rather more diverting and developed than I remember the show being. Perhaps they tried to close the series on a high note…
The US show is, well, just bizarre – it’s difficult to imagine getting less comedy from the elements they included.
Steve Alpert also did Battle Dome, by the way.
I’ll cover Saturday’s ratings later but first, here are the ratings comparisons between Don’t Scare the Hare and Epic Win.
Epic Win
20th August: 2.14m (14.5%)
27th August: 1.8m (11.6%)
3rd September: 1.9m (14.1%)
10th September: 2.4m (16.1%)
17th September: 1.7m (11.3%)
Average so far = 1.98m (13.52%)
Don’t Scare the Hare
23nd April: 1.9m (15.0%)
30th April: 1.4m (10.3%)
7th May: 2.3m (14.9%)
14th May: 0.9m (5.9%) – Moved from 5.30pm to 4.40pm
21st May: 1.5m (12.8%)
28th May: 1.0m (7.6%)
Average = 1.5m (11.08%)
Compared to budgets, Don’t Scare the Hare was more expensive to produce. Also (I think) they gave away the £15,000 prize from 5 out of the 6 shows. Question is whether it’s worth recomissioning Epic Win or not.
It’s not worth recomissioning. A third repeat of Total Wipeout would’ve rated better.
Talking about Total Wipeout, when will the actual fifth series begin airing? At this rate it we will have that series and Winter Wipeout airing together.
5th series is coming towards the end of this year/early next year. A couple of episodes might be shown in 2011.
I don’t get why they filmed it if they weren’t going to screen it this year. Presumably Winter Wipeout will air in the Winter, not be left till the summer or something stupid.
BTW Joe, do you know if Argentina will have updated the Wipeout Zone before filming of Winter Wipeout. It’s ridiculous the “new” course has to use the old zone!
Having seen bits and pieces of other countries versions though this latest course was clearly done on the cheap compared to the US version – which is a shame as the previous versions were pretty much exact replicas. At least though other versions run things at full speed and don’t take out key things like the unstable table in Double Cross or slow down turntables so much they might as well just be called the tables!
Last night’s ratings.
Epic Win: 1.7m (11.3%)
Celebrity MasterChef: 2.7m (15.3%)
Secret Fortune: 3.6m (14.8%)
All Star Family Fortunes: 5.3m (24.6%)
The X Factor: 10.8m (44.5%) , +1: 300k
The Million Pound Drop Live: 1.7m (8.1%)
Big Brother: 0.9m (5.3%)
Notes
Celebrity Masterchef does not deserve to be on Saturday night primetime. Especially as it’s a highlights show. It’s simply getting similar figures to SYTYCD earlier this year.
Although it’s overnight figures, Family Fortunes beat Doctor Who.
Big Brother has now slipped under 1 million. As we know, nobody watches the Saturday edition since it’s basically highlights from Friday’s eviction show. There is a reason why Channel 4 tried to do a live Saturday task at one point and even dropped the Saturday show.
I’ll have to give Secret Fortune credit for achieving consistant ratings every week. It’s getting around 3.5-3.6m against The NeXt Generation.
The questions on Holding Out For A Hero seem to be a little more challenging this week so far…
I love the music on Holding Out for A Hero just before it’s revealed whether the answer is correct or wrong. It’s fantastic.
For some reason I am playing tne entrance music for the contestants on Epic Win in my head when they walk out onto the Hero set.
Why does Gethin have to slightly crouch like he wants to go the toilet when the amout is revealed?
All Star Family Fortunes Watch:
The question in the second round of Double Money last night was “Name an emotion you might feel while appearing on a TV game show.”
Two of the four answers were found – of the missing two, one was… ‘sickness’?!
I thought ‘disappointment’, suggested by Trevor Nelson’s family but neither offered nor on the board, was a better answer… 😕
So much for asking Corrie extras. 🙄
And the total for the five top answers in Big Money? 196. 🙄
If the producers do indeed cherry-pick questions, then doing so so that the five top answers almost always total between 190 and 199 points really does feel wrong IMHO… what’s so bad about them totalling only around 170-180?! 😕
Maybe it’s to ensure that the rounds are all evenly balanced so that there’s not a loose round with a lower value than the others – but it doesn’t seem worth the hassle to me…
Christ.