The Poll of the Year 2013 Afterparty

By | January 20, 2014

Just read the results? Then join Lewis Murphy, David Bodycombe and myself for the UKGameshows.com/Bother’s Bar Poll of 2013 results discussion Fifty50 Special!

The percentage stats will appear under the cut.

Numbers are percentage share of the vote, you could vote for each show up to twice so 40% realistic maximum, but blank votes aren’t counted for percentage purposes.

Hall of Fame 2013

Five Minutes to a Fortune 19.2
Catchphrase 7.9
Fifteen to One 7.3
Pressure Pad 7.0
Britain’s Brightest 5.9
That Puppet Game Show 5.9
Release the Hounds 5.4
The Common Denominator 5.1
Break the Safe 4.2
Show Me The Telly 3.1

Hall of Shame 2013

Take on the Twisters 13.6
Face the Clock 12.7
Splash! 12.2
I Love My Country 9.3
Break the Safe 6.8
Through the Keyhole 4.5
Beat the Pack 4.0
Your Face Sounds Familiar 4.0
That Puppet Game Show 3.7
The Common Denominator 3.7

Golden Five 2013

Pointless 18.2
Only Connect 16.2
The Chase 9.5
Five Minutes to a Fortune 4.5
Countdown 4.2
Deal or No Deal 3.5
Great British Bake Off 3.5
University Challenge 3.5
The Cube 2.7
Fifteen to One 2.5

And that’s it! If you want to know how an unlisted show did, enquire in the comments and I’ll find out for you. Thanks for voting everyone!

19 thoughts on “The Poll of the Year 2013 Afterparty

  1. Daniel Peake

    Great podcast guys, some things I agree with, some things you’re wrong on. Well, you can’t be perfect 😉

    Great to hear the voting lists, and I look forward to your write-up, Brig!

    Reply
      1. Daniel Peake

        [SPOILER!]

        I think mainly I agree with Take On The Twisters being in the Number 1 Hall of Shame spot. I love what they did with the Twisters, but it was just so plain dull in between that I couldn’t watch it, and I think that’s what did it in.

        I’m sure there were a couple of other snipes, but that was the main one.
        [/SPOILER!]

        Reply
        1. David B

          At least it was competently hosted and *most* of the rules made sense. That couldn’t be said for the #1 show.

          Reply
          1. JC

            *Most* of the rules? Really?

            A play or pass mechanic where passing is fairly pointless? A reward for every sixth correct question, which often ended up being an inverse Bit Of A Wasted Journey pointer? A bail-out offer that did not scale with the prize pot, and was therefore very rarely tempting?

            Agree with “competently hosted” though :).

  2. Chris M. Dickson

    *salutes* Good work all around, though – as ever – an illustration of the difference between the results of a popularity contest and a jury’s verdict. (Not that I think there should have been much difference between the two on this occasion.)

    Reply
  3. Chris M. Dickson

    I’m going to slightly obnoxiously toot my own horn and link to a blog post I wrote last night as a sort of “state of the UK game show fandom”. If you’re reading this, you’ll know the all manner of good things that are going on at the moment, what with (in no order) Fifty50, the poll, the Genius translations and Schlag den Briiiig, but hopefully I might get the news out to some of my friends who are fannish and game-ish in general but not in our particular fandom. People are putting in lots of work and it’s a great time to be a UK game show fan, maybe the best time yet. All this at a time when we’ve just come off a pretty crap year for yer actual UK game shows and we’re making our own entertainment!

    Reply
  4. Stuart

    Chris, do you create or produce game shows?
    It’s extremely hard to create a format, get a pilot commissioned… then make it to series. Hats off to every new game show this year.

    Reply
    1. Chris M. Dickson

      I’m hoping that that’s Stuart Shawcross, who I think has posted here in the past, so I can fawn a little and say that I was very happy to vote as positively as I could for Five Minutes To A Fortune.

      Even as someone who likes the best game shows more than the best of pretty much every other sort of entertainment, I absolutely cannot agree with “hats off to every new game show this year”, though. Praise where it’s due, but uncritical praise is meaningless.

      Reply
    2. David B

      I really don’t think 2013 has been a good year for our genre. NONE of the top five of 2012 were recommissioned, and (possibly Pressure Pad aside, TBC) the 2013 list is full of one-series wonders and fair-to-middling remakes.

      Game shows are like films in that critics can take just as much pleasure taking apart the bad programmes as they can the good ones. But, when our genre seems to be going backwards, I think it’s fair when we express a concern. Face the Clock is an example of a programme lacking in any competence and it’s a great shame that such a poor programme made it to air. Equally, it was a small, unambitious show which is not what modern-day entertainment telly should be about.

      Reply
  5. Daniel H

    It was only a matter of time and today was the first +£10,000 win from a blue purchase of Box 23 on DoND – £5 made into £10,005 in an instant. Was more exciting than predicted, actually, and a very nice win for the person playing – let me take nothing away from that – but still felt pretty silly when there was virtually no risk to win £10,000.

    Elsewhere in daytime: I know it was cheap but on today’s second Whittle on Challenge they said that all of the Four To Follow had been eliminated in the first half then one of them popped up in the final 10 after the break! How did that happen?!

    Reply
  6. Mark Labbett

    Would agree that 2013 was not a vintage year for new quiz/game shows. I must confess my vote for 15 to 1 was akin to Barack Obama receiving the noble prize after two weeks in office… it was a vote with the heart rather than being based on any evidence

    Reply
  7. Nico W.

    I had trouble finding any formats for my vote, because there were only few formats really stuck in my head (e.g. Five Minutes to a Fortune). I was actually looking in the “new in 2013” list on ukgameshows. I think all the shows were okay (I really enjoyed Take on the Twisters because of the endgame, the rest was really bad, but the endgame was great), but nothing really was extraordinary in my opinion…

    Reply
  8. Weaver

    Other than my vote, was there any love for “My Little Princess”?

    Pleased to hear that “Release the Hounds” is being picked up for more episodes. That makes at least four of the top ten coming back for more next year.

    For my money, we’ve had a good start to 2014. “Reflex” is one voiceover away from being a sleeper hit. “The Taste” is the first cookery show this century that I’m watching throughout. On first viewing, “Ludus” is “Y Lifft” with an actual backstory. CBBC’s “The Dog Ate My Homework” makes jokes about Hugh Grant, and offers a nod to the adults who get this joke. “The Great Interior Design Challenge” does nothing for me, but I can see that it has merit.

    Twenty-two days in, and already I’m able to fill out a Hall o’Fame ballot. Happy new year, everyone.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      My Little Princess picked up 1.7% in the Hall of Fame making it joint 16th with I Love My Country, Prize Island, Take on the Twisters and Your Face Sounds Familiar, and got 2% in the Hall of Shame making it 14th on its own.

      Reply
    2. Nico W.

      I liked My Little Princess but not enough to vote for it. For one episode it was great, but then it was a bit boring, in my opinion.

      Reply
    3. Alex

      I gave one vote to it. I initially pencilled it in for two and then remembered that 5 Mins was a thing.

      Reply
  9. Chris M. Dickson

    Thing I meant to nominate for an honorary magic moment but forgot: the not-big not-clever very-funny Countdown spoof sketch on Anna and Katy, not least for the Lee Mack cameo. The rest of the series largely disappointed, but that one two-part sketch was magic. Sadly Channel 4 have fallen out with YouTube so the skit is blocked from the UK but you VPN types might be able to find it from the not-UK by searching for “Kuntworts”.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Chris M. Dickson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.