It’s American reality season, which is good news for us because that means easy entries:
- The Bother Series of Poker 2010 Event 1 (Tonight, 8pm GMT/1500 ET) – if you’re playing in this tonight then best of luck. If you intend on playing but haven’t deposited with Full Tilt yet, I advise against waiting until 7:45pm to do it, sometimes it can take a little while to go through. You should still be able to join in anytime up until 8:10 in theory, although how it will work out in practice I’m not sure. There’s no lobby chat, so I’ve put a new page up for discussion relating to the first event. When the game gets going, you can chat as a player or as an observer at will, in theory. Good luck!
- University Challenge (Monday, 8pm, BBC2) I don’t normally make a habit of billing (or indeed watching) this, usually tuning in about ten minutes befre the end waiting for Only Connect to come on, and even then mainly to judge the contestants’ attractiveness because yes, even I am sometimes that shallow. However, last week’s was exciting enough to warrant watching it for ‘proper’ reasons, so Uni C gets its first outing on the Board of Excitement.
- Only Connect (Monday, 8:30pm, BBC4) But Only Connect is all about the interesting questions, and this week the people I won’t be making value judgements on are Exeter Alumini vs Gourmands. It’s the Will Young vs Giles Coren battle THE WORLD HAS BEEN WAITING FOR.
- The Krypton Factor (Tuesday, 7:30, ITV1) – this series is just sort of pootling along without really capturing anyone’s imagination, and last week I actually forgot it had been on until the Wednesday. But thankfully I was saved by the V+ Box where I’ve got it on series link and I watched it and it remains still not as good as last year but y’know, entertaining enough. It’s such a shame.
- Survivor: Heroes vs Villains (Thursday, CBS) And probably a day later for naughty Brits. It’s the big two-oh for Survivor and The Probstmeister (as nobody calls him) is back for another season in Samoa with twenty previous players, some for a third time. I’m pulling for Cirie, Boston Rob or Russell to win, all of whom were brilliant players in previous seasons and none of whom won. Also if Boston Rob wins, the fans will go mental which will be funny. And it will be interesting to how much Coach will play up at ‘be’-ing Coach. Maybe one day we’ll get to find out what happened to Tontine. Also I was tipped-off that the third series of South African Survivor – with celebrities! has started, but that they “can’t seem to acquire it.” So there we are.
- Solitary v4.0 (Saturday, Fox Reality) Unfortunately because it’s on right at the end of the BoE week I’ve not normally had the chance to watch the previous episode before billing the following one. So this is Episode 3, it will probably be a bit like Episode 2 but with one fewer people in it, and that’s a Brig Bother GUARANTEE.
OK, something that’s been niggling at me since OC S2 and I’m finally getting round to asking it:
In the heart sequence picture round question… Doesn’t the four of hearts have six (or eight, depending on who manufactured it) hearts? The four hearts the card is named after, and the two (or four) in the icons on the corners. (I’m also half wondering how Mark Labbett was imagining a game bid in contract bridge to be pictured, though… When I was playing at a club there were the bidding cards, and then there’s the rubber scoring system where a game bid would be 100 below the line (actually 120 below the line, since for that answer to work it would need to be a game bid in the form of 4 hearts bid and made, so there are ways of doing that)
We were ready for that – we would have accepted “two of hearts”. We are generous with picture seqs; we will accept most reasonable answers as long as it’s clear you have the right principle.
I’ve watched episode two of Solitary now, it involes a rather good game involving guns (Solitary Roulette: the remaining Solitarians are given their first bit of sleep in 40 hours, precisely 71 minutes, and they’re asked to guess how much they think they had. The closer to the actual answer, the more guns they get (between 2 and 7). Nobody knows how many guns anyone else has got. Each gun is filled with water, except for one that is filled with fake blood. One person is selected to pick another pod, that person must shoot themselves with one of the guns – if it’s water then good, they get to pick someone else, if it’s blood they’re out and the original pickee gets to pick again. VAL doesn’t tell anyone who it was that selected them. Last two standing get five fresh guns and continue to pull triggers until one person is left standing who is the winner. Fun, and in just slightly bad taste) and a rather epic treatment involving hitting yourself with a spatula with enough force to register on an old-style clapometer. Kinky.
And I’ve been tipped-off to suggest S4 will appear on Hulu in March. So make of that what you will.
Beside The US Cube pilot for CBS, there’s a pilot for the British version of “Tout le monde veut prendre sa place” (Translate as “Hold on to your seat”) taping in Paris on February 16th. The description (in french) can be found here : http://www.acces-public.com/236,tout-le-monde-veut-prendre-sa-place—la-version-anglaise.htm
To translate the “important” info, it’s “presented by the British TV Star” (yes, literally). No clue on who’s going to host, and where the game could go here. That’s why “important” is between quotation marks…
Oh, Greg Scott’s going to Paris to do a pilot very shortly – wonder whether this is it?
Yes, he’s been advertising the fact he’s doing it for quite a while.
So now we know when it is…
Hope he gets the job for this one. He’s overdue and, if he restrains himself a bit, it could be the right kind of format for him.
Does anyone else have their favorites for S4 picked yet? I’m really puling for 6 and 9. 6, obviously, because of his previous run. I was pulling for him his first time around, but was disappointed when he lost at the last second. 9 just seems like she’s got some chutzpah, and I like her low-key emotions. I originally had 2 on my favorites list, but the more of him I’ve seen, the wussier he seems. I expect him to be gone pretty soon.
Honestly, I’m surprised that there aren’t any players that just outright annoy me like last time (5 and 9), although this season’s 5 does seem a bit too cocky for his own good.
Was ‘Ian’ on last night’s Only Connect the best looking contestant to date? Phwoar etc
AND he was an arts student, “sensitive” etc!
A very good chum of mine went to Exeter almost ten years ago, and he said at the time that in a poll, Exeter men were something like the 4th best looking in Britain. So there you go.
I expect this is broadly in line with every single town having the greatest number of pubs for the population, mind.
I’m starting to forget the Krypton Factor is on too!
Is the audience live or canned? Just there always seems to be the same groaning noise after every round of Mental Agility!
Interesting to note they’ve tagged the call and lose competition details to the end of the show now too!
Did it again last night, although it’s V+ed so I’ll watch it this evening.
I think audience for the heats is canned, but there is very definitely an audience for the semis and final this year (I was there for the final), and they’re likely to be in shot as well.
Didn’t we get told by people who attended the filming last year that the audience was liable to be in shot?
Yes I think someone mentioned that when I mentioned it on the e-mail.
The difference between then and now is that they’ve gone to town on lighting the audience up with different colours, and supporters are asked to do banners (and are referenced by Shepard). They could still edit them out but…