It being the buzz surrounding the final of Britain’s Brightest this evening.
The answer is ‘of course not’.
This was meant to be a big Saturday night gamble for the BBC – could you take a successful German show (we will DEFINITELY do a feature on this next weekend. I’m writing this here to force the issue), make it demonstrably worse, then still have it be successful? Not really seems to be the answer.
Poor editing and pacing. Repeated use of games which weren’t that interesting in the first place partly because of poor direction (Did you really need to swap people in and out of Kinect Spelling five times?). Bad question writing (rebuses). A baffling and arcane scoring system. An elimination format apparently devised because that’s how things are done rather than because that’s what makes a show entertaining. Not putting answers up for the endgame, and indeed an endgame which initially looks clever and fun but turns out not to really be clever or fun (you could kill two birds with one stone if you just didn’t let people return to a used question, as it is it gives too much of an advantage to the second player). A general sense of worthiness when it needed more of a general sense of fun.
And yet we mainly get angry because we wanted to like it and it feels like a massive missed opportunity. It got a pretty consistant low 4m rating which is not brilliant but not quite a disaster, I almost want it to come back so it can have a chance to prove itself.
IN OTHER NEWS, We’re playing poker tomorrow at 8pm, a game of Razz as part of Mix It Up Real Good. Come and join us!
Well, I’m buzzing. *BLAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRP*
The Germans have a word to describe RDF Media’s decisions: Verschlimmbesserung (improvements for the worse).
‘Der klügste Deutsche’ is typically stripped across two Saturdays and one Thursday in a November week and takes a mammoth three hours, but at least I&U Media dished out a wider range of distinct mini games, paving the way for a ratings success (in fact: the show is commissioned for a third series).
Ha ha, LOVE that!
Now they’ve not broken up the players into groups and gotten rid of BLOODY Kinect Spelling, the final is not bad.
Out of all the rounds, I though the ’emotional intelligence’ round was the most unfairly handled. Since Zoe went third, it gave her the unfair advantage of seeing 2 pairs of symbols being revealed, making it a test of memory rather than intuition, what the whole round was about. What I think they should have done was have all 3 contestants stand with their backs to the 22 people and have them turn around, pick their people, then turn back around again to make it fairer. What does the Bar think?
I agree. It’s the same flaw as when they played the game before and I still think the final tends to a format where it tends not to be close. Perhaps if they had given both contestants 2 minutes to get the most answers right.
The reason it’s rarely close is because it’s massively flawed. Going second and the extra time – well OK, justified advantage. Letting them answer missed questions? Really ridiculous, you’re getting to think on your opponent’s time for no cost, and they’ll rarely get to do that themselves. It’s an element of strategy, but it completely breaks the game in terms of entertainment.
The couples game was just ridiculous, just a memory test really. It would have been better if they’d channelled Ideniny with Donny Osmond.
I watched it round my mums, she quite enjoyed Steve Mould’s bit and the multitasking game. And actually round one seemed quite good fun.
Not sure how you get Edinburgh from Head in bra, mind, but compared to the Rebuses, I’ll take it.
Much the same as with the Fight for Survival/The Title, I think it was intentional that it was as much a memory test as intuition, but it certainly would have been fairer with two players rather than three.
Hilariously Digital Spy seems to think that Bill Bailey (whose purpose I didn’t fully appreciate) WON the whole thing – poor Andy!
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a457708/claire-balding-gameshow-britains-brightest-rockets-to-51m-for-final.html
(They also can’t spell Clare’s name right)
Also, although good for equality reasons and all that, I thought that having homosexual couples in the Emotional Intelligence round was a bit of a risk as you could (and did) end up with a situation where you have someone effectively calling a straight person gay or vice versa.
A celebrity audience member, asked to play along with one of the games. They had an Olympian do the trampolining, I think, mental arithmetic game alongside the questions.
So “Pointless outside of a bit of Saturday Night fun,” then.
the Sanremo Music Festival contest (the SuperBowl of Italy) begins this Tuesday!
lots of info on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanremo_Music_Festival_2013
some more information:
this year’s gimmick, “two songs for each artist” is a throwback to the 70s, when it was common for artists to enter with multiple songs.
the 4th night will include a “Sanremo Story” segment where each Big Artist sings a classic song from past contests.
during the show, the city of Sanremo will dedicate a monument to Mike Bongiorno (who, between gameshows, found the time to host the thing 11 times)
according to the bookmakers, the top 3 will be Chiara Galiazzo (4 for 1), Malika Ayane (5 for 1) and the Modà (6 for 1). for those who feel like gambling, the Marta Sui Tubi are at 40 for one.
many veterans were cut from the competition and many entrants are quite young. No more Albano and Anna Oxa jockeying for last place.
my favourite entry is the comedy rock band Elio E Le Storie Tese, which in 1996 took second place dressed like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMrZh3sIVYI
there were suspects that they actually won the contest, but the host Pippo Baudo altered the results to make them lose.
of course all the cheating is what makes the Festival more popular.
not that the EELST didn’t push the rules: when artists were given 60 seconds to sing some of their song, they went for THE WHOLE SONG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hf0eyV9isY
in 2008 Pippo was the host again, and he made peace with the band by having them host the highly followed post-night show and with this special performance in which Elio got away with shouting “figa” (cunt) on national TV.
that segment scored a 52.91% share.
and finally, the promos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LykaDRspwmE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrE_DWKjgL8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wyQS-IbL-4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqLIkR0yLsI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-5yuQ0cY_o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncW1vm_GR74
this one deserves a transcript:
Fabio: who is this year’s woman at Sanremo?
Luciana: it’s me
F: no, I mean, the other
L: it’s me!
F: and “him”?
L: “him” is you
F: then I’m not watching it
L: me neither. and this?
F: *gasp* cute
L: I’ll use it. I’ll put it on to go voting.
the last line is to joke that everyone is too distracted by the upcoming elections and won’t watch the Festival.
I forgot to include the 2008 performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1J6SzKowXs
I’ve long felt the BBC have a habit of screwing up hit international formats. They tend to water them down to appeal to the middle-England Saturday night BBC viewer, and in doing so wipeout (pun intended!) everything that made the format work in the first place.
Found on t’Internet: an Australian version of Ruck Zuck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w__VTY631s
There’s been copies of other episodes before on YT, but the quality’s been so poor you can hardly hear it. I think it’s worth a watch because this version had one of the catchiest music packages I’ve seen on a show of this sort.
What a game, what a show – and four more episodes of it linked in the sidebar as well! *thumbs firmly up*
There was mention of a possible UK version of this when Channel 5 started and there was a strong Grundy connection. I cross my fingers for a UK version some day because it’s one of the very few shows for which I would actually audition.
It’s also the sort of show we’ve not seen since, ooh, Get Set Go? Maybe there’s a reason for that, but it’d be a nice change from all the general knowledge quizzes.
I should add that I saw Hot Streak first at CMD’s house circa 1996 in what probably counted as the second-ever UK game show convention (population: 2), a written account of which is probably no longer online but may very well lurk in Mr D’s well-archived email accounts.
P.S. The fifth show of that run linked in the sidebar is incredible.
I’m saving these and watching only one per day, but it’s also cute to see that the sidebar links to an episode of Komunikata, which seems to be Indonesian Hot Streak as far as I can tell and, crucially, features the same sound package – it may be even more of a party than the Australian version, which seems most unlikely. Indonesian Wikipedia suggests that there were over 1,300 episodes made of this, which is pretty triumphant! Is there a local Indonesian tube site which might have an episode that doesn’t have the sound losing sync from the video part-way through?
OK, I’ve seen all five episodes and they’ve left me wanting more; thankfully there is this playlist, even if many of the episodes on it are poor quality video, or German, or a fan tribute (which I’m not opposed to in theory, but doesn’t work so well in practice). For me, this is a definite 9/10 show and up there with The Mole as the best Australian game show I’ve yet seen.
The game is challenging and fun and has play-along-at-home in spades, it plays quickly and gives the show a real sense of pace – it’s a game, rather than a game structure around a quiz. The set is daringly bright but just about remains in good taste, the music package is sensational at generating a fast-paced atmosphere, the host is authoritative in what cannot be an easy game to host well, though some of his jokes are rather bad, and there’s just a pervasive sense of fun running through the show and the way it treats its players that gives it a party atmosphere. Stretching for a criticism, the game material can be somewhat uneven; I don’t think it’s a spoiler to compare “Greenpeace” with “rainbow colours”.
Many thanks for finding and sharing!
The tragedy is that it *seems* to have only got one series, nor does the host (a mix of Pat Sajak’s charm and Bill Dod’s game handling) seem to have had much before or since…?
Interesting, Wikipedia suggests there was a triple-value round 4 stuck into the running order later in the series. I don’t think the show dragged at all, but more killer less filler is fine my me.
I remember reading that convention report, and I’m pretty sure I remember someone mentioning that a jet of steam blasted when someone messed up, and none of the episodes of Aussie Hot Streak I’ve seen seem to have it so I feel short changed. 2/10.
Hah, funny you should remember that. That was actually one of my ideas. I just thought there should be something that shocks the contestants a bit more of they mess up.
Don’t Lose Face Or Lose Your Face is going to be THE hit format of 2014.
I think it’s reasonable to draw comparisons with Copycats from CBBC in the past year or two, though I don’t think there can be anything closer than two independent similar reinventions of the same basic concept.
Fixes I think are needed if this gets a second series, in no particular order of importance:
Learn to write Rebuses (Other poor questions exist, but the Rebuses stick out like a [sword][hum] – Yes, that one’s deliberately terrible)
If we must have head to heads at all, do them with interesting games rather than stuff like Kinnect Spelling. If we must have stuff like Kinnect Spelling, at least do them all at once from each contestant to reduce the faffing about entering/exiting the studio, Kinnect Maths felt a lot faster.
If we must have head to heads at all, allow ties in the individual subrounds (1-1) rather than rollover.
Lose arbitrary elimination points, almost all the games they have can be played by any number of contestants without adding significant time, only stuff used in the Head 2 Heads only, Counting Boggle and the Chance For Survival can’t be increased in player count, so why eliminate after every round?
Make the scoring less arbitrary feeling, this is mostly solvable by the above step (ala Krypton Factor), but changing the way they do stuff like the buzzer place names in the final would also be needed to make the scoring less opaque (To be more like the buzzer observation rounds)
If the Fight For Survival survives, remove the ability to answer your opponant’s missed questions, at the moment the first player is disadvantaged in multiple ways (Equal performances result in first player losing, extra time is given for points in later contest stages, and second player can use the opponant’s time as thinking time in case of passes and incorrect answers) Only the third of those is an actual problem.
If the Fight For Survival survives, remove the need to press the stop watch to pass time to the next player; it’s unneccessarially clumsy.
If the Fight For Survival survives, even if Clare Balding doesn’t give the answers, visually reveal them rather than just throw them up onto the website
Something a bit more open ended scoring wise, even if it’s calibrated to give about the same amount of points as regular games, for a finale to make the finale less likely to feel (or even be) pointless (c.f. Krypton Factor and Only Connect)
Lose the general knowledge aspect, it feels out of place here (e.g. in Fight for Survival and Volcanoes)
I concur with pretty much all of Gizensha’s fixes.
An alternative suggestion – make it a daytime show for the Perfection slot.
Four contestants per show, a wider range of games (perhaps including some broader general knowledge).
For a 30 minute slot, perhaps three or four “all play” games followed by some variation of Stop The Clock. (Maybe even a straight Grand Slam-style quiz version – it’s not as if Face The Clock’s going to be around to complain.) For 45 minutes, add a couple more rounds.
Most of the non-set-piece games will be able to return – age/weight/couple guessing would probably have to be smaller scale, the musical memory should certainly come back (even with recorded soundbites), and the observation type tests can be done via video. Kinect spelling to be used very sparingly for the sake of the blood pressure of the commenters here.
Winner takes £1,000, comes back on Friday to compete for a bigger prize. Series final at the end of it all with winners and highest scoring losers.
I think the nature of the challenges would work better in daytime/early evening, it would mean you could introduce smaller scale, more Krypton Factor like challenges, and the shorter slot would help the pacing immensely.
It’s also a bit frustrating for me that the best game of the lot was played exactly once, but coming up with and setting enough puzzles for the Puzzle Rooms, even with the sort-of-cheat of puzzles on video monitors rather than within the room, might be a bit of an ask, though The Crystal Maze got away with the same puzzles in the same room played multiple times in a series a couple of times (The murder mystery room that iirc was in different zones with different puzzles in two separate series)
Yes, I thought the puzzle room was the best game and I’m disappointed it was only played once. But even Counting Boggle (a great name) which was a lot of fun at the start, started to pall towards the end because people started getting used to it.
I don’t know why, given there are only about two or three questions that don’t get answered anyway, in the final round, they don’t just run through them at the end. And given “every second counts”, as Clare says, it shouldn’t take two seconds for the questions to be revealed and asked, meaning if the clock was on you at three seconds you knew full well you weren’t going to do anything.
As mentioned the matching pairs stuff was entirely based on luck and guesswork, you would have got the same results just picking numbers. And you would have thought in the dancing numbers round, they would avoid numbers that can be read differently upside down (wonder how many people assumed there was a 61 in there, rather than an upside down 19).
What it reminds me of a lot is Friends Like These, in terms of the type of games and the fact it’s all studio-based (and the syrupy ILR tones of Mitch Johnson). In fact that series of course had the round where they would be holed up with an expert to learn about wine tasting or memory tips, which to my mind would work better in this format than some of the rounds we’ve had.
It just hasn’t been as spectacular as it should have been, or as Clare suggested it was. In fact, here’s a round for series two – count how many times Clare says “sensational” during the show. It’s impossible!
I think having Escape the Room as the Fight for Survival might be a fun route to go down.
Despite all the flaws, I still loved it like a meek little lamb, even if I didn’t like it nearly as much by the end.
Anyway, some Deal or No Deal links because they go down well among these parts: an interview with a UK contestant on Reddit (no real surprises, but interesting nevertheless), and suggestion that the prizes on the US version were at least partially underwritten/insured. This interests me to think about it, as almost a second level of Deal gameplay – but who’s the player and who’s the banker in that situation? Similarly, any clue whether the UK version has/had similar underwriting?
Without Splash this broke five mill on Saturday. It will be interesting to see what if anything will happen.