Christ, I could have made a killing if Youtube was around in the 1990s. It’s Down From the Attic, a channel that looks into (mainly) old board games. Thanks to @undeniablyalex for the heads-up.
And now… Swedish Wanted
From 1997. På Rymmen evidently opts for the light-entertainment approach closer to our second series, interestingly only opts for two teams to follow and an extended slot.
And here’s a playlist for three series! Incredible.
Grass Sverige
Tons of cool stuff in the previous comment box that I don’t want to get lost so here they are in a post.
First of all, rather brilliantly, it’s Valvet, the Swedish version of Swap Team. Based on the original Norwegian version (we think) it’s played with adults and features EXPLOSIONS, and it’s fair to suggest there’s a slightly more grown-up theme to some of the games, it’s unlikely kids were ever going to get to use a blowtorch I expect. Almost four minutes of anagrams is a bit much (although there’s 1,000,000 Kr up for grabs, which is about £85,000). Their endgame was a bit more eliminatory and interesting than ours, and their ending labyrinth actually had a memory element not obviously present in ours. Most fun – the theme tune, which is the same as ours except with different lyrics. And still in English! Also: a viewer competition.
Also turning up yesterday Jakten på ökenguldet, (The Hunt For Desert Gold) the Swedish version of The Desert Forges. It follows the original French format pretty closely (with some differences – fewer games in the Desert, the route to the Forges).
In other news Netflix have put up two series of The Challenge, series 31 (Vendettas) and 33 (War of the Worlds) although confusingly they’ve labelled them S5 and S6.
And finally, Prime have re-added S5 of Aussie Survivor (Champions vs Contenders) to go alongside S3, no idea why they haven’t re-added S4 yet. Check your watchlists though, it appears to be a different listing to the first time they put it up.
The March Against Time
It’s the 1st of March, so here’s an episode of daytime quiz Timekeepers.
WONGA
Thanks to the Bother’s Bar Discord for bringing this up, the very first game of Wonga on The Big Breakfast, the end of the live millennium nine-hour special.
When they bought it back as a semi-regular thing, they added a seven minute chess-clock.
Show Discussion: Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance
Various weeknights over the next three weeks, 9pm,
BBC1
Extremely unusual scheduling for a shiny floor show on the BBC this which suggests either a) confidence and a willingness to ape Millionaire or b) desperation over a lack of shows in the bank. Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance sees contestants attempt to win up to £100,000 by answering questions and balancing gold bars atop an increasingly unstable table – wrong answers mean adding penalty bars, and if a stack falls down it’s game over.
Because of the way they’ve recorded audience reaction, we’ve already got some idea as to the quality of the largely edited shows. Clearly quite a lot of interest is going to lie in how well Gordon Ramsay fits in as host – it’s got a post-watershed slot so it will be interesting to see how his natural prickliness combines with the high tension the show wants to have. Not too dissimilar to Jeremy Clarkson on Millionaire, which has been a success by and large.
Does the end result work? Let us know what you think in the comments.