Apropos of nothing, here’s an episode of Crisis Command: Could You Run The Country? that ran for three episodes on BBC2, kind of a high-concept choose your own adventure crisis simulation. One of the scenarios involved a pandemic which everyone is an expert on. This isn’t that episode though.

Here’s a fun thing that turned up on Youtube the other day, an entire episode of C4 quiz championship Grand Slam from 2003.

It’s still really nice from a production perspective – looks striking, decent Paul Farrer soundtrack. I still dislike the kick-a-contestant-when-they’re-down round starting rules, and Switch-Switch-Passing (which doesn’t happen here). Clearly some of the questions in the words and numbers rounds are much easier than others. I think the final gets to the heart of why I don’t think chess clock quizzes really work – you can’t claw back a victory from them, you can only hope your opponent messes up (it’s ‘not losing’ rather than ‘winning’). It takes seven minutes for the quiz to actually start.

I still enjoyed it at the time and still think it’s a basically entertaining watch though.

With the triumphant return of Race Across The World last night, our thoughts once again turn to the show it reminds me most of, which is 2001 Channel 4 reality show Lost. Especially so after being linked to this Guardian article about the behind the scenes stuff on RATW, which reminded me of the excellent Lost tie-in book which was full of this sort of stuff.

Lost paired up teams of two with a cameraman, dropped them in a mystery location somewhere in the world with minimal money and three days supplies and challenged them to race back to London for £5,000 and the opportunity to do it again. There were three episodes a week, each week being one race.

I haven’t actually watched it in about twenty years (there’s something to think about) but thrilled to discover it’s on Youtube. And do you know what? It holds up really well – it manages to be both raw and slick, and I really like Daniel Pemberton’s soundtracking for it.

A few things happening today:

• It’s the start of Race Across The World 2! 8pm, BBC2.
• Belgian Mole starts tonight! It will take a few days for the English subs to come through, but we will discuss it here.

We were sad to hear about the death of Tremendous Knowledge Dave Rainford from Eggheads yesterday. Here he was as a contestant on Bother’s Bar favourite Remote Control in 1991.

Saturday, 9pm (GMT),
Here and on Youtube.

Join in! Play along on jackbox.tv

We’re back for the 18th Game Night! And this episode’s loose theme is “games we’ve not played for a while + Trivia Murder Party 2“, whether through the unluckiness of the board pick or not fitting the narrative we’ve basically made up to justify playing.

As ever SEVEN panellists are vying for domination whilst YOU, Team Audience, will be doing your best to stop them, so get your phone out and play along with the room codes on screen, and chat along in the Youtube chat.

I’ve also got what in my head might be the best Arbitrary Final yet. If you can’t make it earlier, join us around 11:15pm for that.

And to counteract the Swedish Eurovision National Final we’ll be clashing with, we’ve gone ALL OUT with A REALLY SEXY (and quite expensive) SET OF FONTS.

You will not want to miss it!