We’ve gone done a new feature on US show The Game of Life which garnered a few votes in the Poll of 2011. We’ll have features on other Hub formats in due course.
This week we are mainly looking forward to the anglicised Wie Is De Mol? finale probably tomorrow.
Finally don’t forget it’s Round five of the Bother Series of Poker tonight at 8pm. £5.50 to enter, register now!
The mysterious @jmc116 tweets regarding last week’s Jacpot! revival on S4C: “It’s part of Pen8ros about 5 minutes in. Not as good as in the 90s though…” Video is UK only.
It’s a pity this episode of Jacpot! Is populated by Wales’ least knowledgable contestants, by the looks of things.
The show is in two parts, if you want to know where it ends.
Wow, to say it drags a bit is an understatement. I can get the questions right… in Welsh!
Funnily enough, I think Jackpot! as a format would probably work quite well today, especially with the fairly modern production idea of having a steady pool of contestants throughout the week. The US original could get through around 40 riddles an episode, with contestants with a bit of personality/longer questions you could probably get an daily hour out of it.
But not the way they’ve done it there.
Riddles? What is the capital of Bulgaria? Which Vitamin prevents scurvy? These are hardly worthy of Lewis Carroll.
No no no, in the US original, they used to show it on satellite and there’s loads on
Youtube.
It’s amazing that the Jacpot set manages to look cheaper than Numberwang’s, and duller than The Quiz Broadcast’s.
Apparently Fort Boyard: Ultimate Challenge series 2 begins this Saturday on CITV.
Series Two of Four Rooms begins 21st March at 8pm, C4.
El Cubo reaches its 15th episode today, and we get to see the second jackpot game of the series. Also: Updated on-screen graphics.
http://www.mitele.es/programas-tv/el-cubo/temporada-1/programa-15
Based only on episodes 7 and 15, I really like this. Of course, that’s far from a fair sample to take…
The host is talented, enthusiastic, friendly and beautiful. While Spain’s economic circumstances are quite different to the UK’s, the top-heavy money tree means that it will be +EV for most (almost all?) people to go forward at almost every turn, despite the games apparently being played at reasonably high levels of difficulty. While your utility function may vary, the loss of three, five or ten thousand euros is unlikely to be as badly felt as the counterpart loss of ten, twenty or fifty thousand pounds.
Arguably this makes for a less dramatic show and certainly the host doesn’t emphasise the suspense as much as Pip. Perhaps Spanish viewers just don’t want to see people putting significant sums at risk and don’t enjoy seeing people lose significant already-earnt sums of money, as opposed to seeing people lose significant not-yet-earnt sums. (Those more familiar with counterpart bijections between British and Spanish versions of the same formats may be better placed to speak on this.) The extra graphics work well. I like the slight differences in direction and increased degree of playfulness with the bullet time.
The obvious point of reference here would be risk attitudes in “Alla Tu”, the Spanish DoND. But the main thing I remember about that is the use of a typically-Spanish 1-3-6 pattern of prize values as opposed to the 1-2-5 we’re used to seeing in English-speaking countries. I don’t know if there’s anything particularly unusual about their attitudes to risk, and of course the version taped in Bristol has arguably diverged quite significantly from British societal attitudes to financial risk at various points in its seven-and-counting years.