Postcode Loterij Win Win

By | March 26, 2025

This was show piloted recently as The Winner Takes It All and we were wondering who the “top comedians” fronting it were. Well I don’t know if they did the pilot, although it makes sense, but it’s Mel and Sue which feels like a bit of a choice for a big Saturday night entertainment show but we’ll see, I suppose it’s been years since their version of The Generation Game.

A cohort of 40 in studio players every week answer survey based questions to win high-value prizes, ending with one lucky winner going home with £1m by the end of the series. However, the show is promising to be HIGHLY INTERACTIVE and you’ll be able to play along at home for a chance to win the prizes yourself, including that £1m grand finale prize. Whether these prizes will break the curse of the interactive app, where you get all excited in week one only to not bother because it’s effort for episode two onwards remains to be seen – and as there are prizes involved, it also remains to be seen how robust it is againist possible cheating and system gaming.

It’s being produced by Hello Dolly of Limitless Win fame, but it’s being co-financed by ITV and the People’s Postcode Lottery. Not the first advertiser-financed show (although I suppose they all are), The Krypton Factor reboot about 15 years ago and Cooking With The Stars were made with Sage and M&S money, and the Postcode Lottery has sponsored loads of Dutch shows (Miljoenenjacht being the most famous one) so it will be interesting to see how fruitful this ends up being and how much more of a thing it might be going forward.

Show Discussion: Million Dollar Secret

By | March 25, 2025

Three eps on Wednesdays for three weeks from March 26,
Netflix

12 people rock up at Peter Serafinowicz’s mansion and each shown to a room, and inside each room a box, and inside one of the boxes one MILLION dollars. That’s for that player to take away provided none of the other contestants suspect them of having it and eliminating them. To help the contestants work out who is the secret millionaire, tasks are set, the winning of which earns clues to the millionaire’s identity. It sounds like there’s a Round Table and at the end of each episode someone gets accused and eliminated, the money being reassigned if the millionaire gets caught presumably.

It’s Fortune Hotel…meets The Traitors!!! Although there’s no obvious signs of case swapping or murders. What the trailer does suggest is lots of overemoting Americans being undercut by Serofinowicz who seems to be having a great time administering it all. Probably there’s little here we haven’t seen before, but it still looks like fun.

We’re always a bit worried about shows where producers give out clues to players – where does the difficulty balance lie? How hard done by should you feel as a contestant by a perceived gimme? Is it just an easy way to get a favourable result? We’ll find out how fair it all feels by the end.

When you’ve watched it, let us know what you thought in the comments.

Show Discussion: 99 to Beat

By | March 22, 2025
#hostsholdinganumbercard

Saturdays, 6pm,
ITV

100 people in a warehouse play silly games guided by Adam and Ryan Thomas. You don’t have to be any good at any of them, but importantly you must not come last in any of them or be eliminated, the last one standing wins at the end of the series wins a whopping £25,000.

This has been around Europe for a number of years, beginning as a daily segment on a Flemish show, really taking off in the Netherlands as De Alleskunner (The All Rounder), this became a surprise German Summer hit, and it looks like it’s the German show this has taken the visual inspiration from – whereas the Dutch feels like its set in a light and bright community centre, this is a large dark warehouse with a big lighting gantry. As such I think the 6pm slot feels too early for the show’s look (also it’s up against Gladiators which feels like a hiding to nothing), although it’s a big bunch of silly so they can’t put it too late either.

FOTB Tom F (and contestant on the show) is writing a series of blog pieces explaining the show’s appeal (here’s a direct link to the latest one) which is well worth a read, and a few series of the Dutch show are up on Youtube if you want something to compare it to (and it’s a pretty easy to follow watch even without subs). Watched it? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Show Discussion: Last One Laughing UK

By | March 20, 2025

Amazon Video from 20th March

Jimmy Carr invites a fairly stacked line-up of UK comedians into a room and challenges them to make each other laugh whilst not laughing themselves or risk elimination. The last one left is the winner.

The Documental format has been a worldwide streaming success across the last decade, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for the UK to get a version – there’s even previously been an Irish version with Graham Norton. But does it work here? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Life’s Game

By | March 18, 2025

Whilst we wait with bated breath for Genius Game to land, it transpires there’s a corporate knock-off currently being uploaded to Youtube and it’s… pretty good? Life’s Game is LG Electronics’ very own take on the The Genius brain-survival genre, in it, 12 LG employees compete in games of strategy and intelligences social and logical set by a man with a key for an eye for some reason. Ultimate winner takes home 10m Won (just over £5,000). They’ve set it in various offices around one of their main buildings, so it doesn’t have the glamour of its inspo, but it hits a lot of the other beats – perhaps the rules explanations need to be tighter and really 2×45 minute eps for a cycle is a bit lengthier than you’d like, but they’re good games in the main and it’s got decently fun reveals. Because the winner of each game gets more power over who to send home, ahem, there’s a bit more emphasis on kingmaking and not being on the wrong side of a divide and we’ll have to see how that develops going forward.

First four episodes are up, we’re probably due the next in a few days – it seems to be on a twice a week cycle. Would recommend watching on a computer or a TV over a tablet or phone as it uses Youtube’s captionings for English subs, and there’s a risk they’ll go over the explanation graphics on smaller screens. We are casually following it in #geniuschat on the Discord at the moment (well I am anyway).

Here are some things to get excited about – or not! In the next week or so.

By | March 16, 2025

Mainly a list for me as I’ve been out of action for the last four days or so (without going into details it has so far involved an overnight Hospital visit and now my electronic scales don’t recognise me and will involve a camera in the next few days) but Likely Of Interest to you as well:

  • De Mol in Thailand officially starts next week on Sunday 23rd on Flanders’ Play4, but I believe the contestants are getting revealed on a special Club De Mol tonight. For all De Mol chat I direct you to #molchat in the Discord, which is where any English subs will likely turn up.
  • Jeopardy! UK series 2 starts tomorrow (Monday) at the new time of 3pm. The first series was very dull. A clip going around suggests the new series might be a bit more… kinetic? They’ve got a buzzer sound anyway. Also a seventh category for each board and Paul Farrer music beds. It’s more stuff, but is it more stodge? Discussion post is here, you might as well use it.
  • Last One Laughing UK starts on Amazon Prime on Thursday. Jimmy Carr challenges a fairly stacked cast of comics to stay in a room and not laugh. Amazed it’s taken this long for the Documental format to happen here given previous international success really. A Show Discussion post will go up in due course.
  • 99 to Beat starts Saturday at 6pm on ITV1, ten minutes into the first Gladiators semi-final which feels like absolutely nonsense scheduling. We’ll see how that works out for everybody, they’ll be a Show Discussion post in due course. FOTB Tom F (who is also a contestant) is writing some brilliant pieces about the Dutch show that’s been running for ages, and the Flemish original, on his blog.
  • Joko and Klaas’ Ein sehr gutes Quiz (mit hoher Gewinnsumme) (A Very Good Quiz (With A Very High Prize)) starts a four episode run next Saturday night as well on Pro7 and we’ll probably watch the first one in the Discord but I’m not committing to more than that as there are too many lengthy German quizzes flying about and I like to do other things occasionally. This was successfully piloted as part of J and K’s Pro7 24-hour takeover day and it looks like it’s going to keep lots of the same things – it’s live, it will travel the country, they won’t reveal the location until the morning of the show, people can turn up and audition that afternoon. Premise: three people work as a team answering multiple choice questions, but one person must buzz and be responsible for the answer. If they’re right, the team carries on. If they’re wrong, they’ve eliminated themselves and get replaced by the next person in the queue. Nobody buzzes in after 90 seconds? All three are replaced. Whoever buzzes in with the correct answer for Q25 wins €100,000. LIVE.
  • Stretching the definition of “in the next week or so” Million Dollar Secret with Peter Serafinowicz starts on Netflix Wednesday 26th, looks like an amalgam of lots of different shows but despite that also looks like it might be quite fun.