I went and saw Edgar Wright’s new adaptation of The Running Man earlier – I absolutely love the original (older viewers will remember we used to give away copies on DVD as competition prizes), we enjoyed this in a different way – pleased to see it has retained its dystopian TV show gags (including a running joke built around an unexpected reference to Holly Johnson’s 1989 hit Americanos) and it hits a lot of familiar beats in a remixed way, although it’s certainly feels much closer to the Richard Bachman book where it’s more of a long-form open-world reality show. There’s an element of having its cake and eating it with the ending, which without spoiling too much, looks like it might end the same way as the book but then… doesn’t. Some fun world building and direction (and an unusual bit where it basically turns into Home Alone), and fans of Glen Powell not wearing clothes are catered for.

For me I think I will always prefer the 80s futurism of the original, Arnie, the Faltermeyer soundtrack, Richard Dawson, Mick Fleetwood, but it’s pleasing that another version that has been made that’s both very similar yet completely different and is well worth a watch.

• Physical: Asia (the pan-Asian (and Australia) version of Physical 100) began on Netflix on Friday and thus far it is great – massively multiplayer wrestling on top of sand dunes and a game that’s basically the Final Abyss from Scavengers, except on a shipwreck and involving trying to nick six tonnes of stuff in twenty minutes. Unexpectedly going into it, I think, is how much I’ve enjoyed the international element – each of the eight teams have come with their own character, none of them alike, and watching the interplay, the banter in broken English, has been delightful.
• Squid Game: The Challenge 2 begins on Netflix tomorrow. We didn’t want to like the original, but it was actually really quite well done. This time around new games inspired by the second and third seasons of the drama (although no giant skipping rope or Starry Night maze, for shame). Doesn’t feel like much buzz around it this time but it might develop across the three Tuesdays of drops.
• And Bullseye‘s back on Sunday (at 8pm, which feels quite late) after its successful Xmas special that’s been seen by approximately 22m viewers now, probably. And it’s got a new round, apparently! Format development after forty years, you love to see it. It will be interesting to see how well it can stand on its own two feet now it can’t play the nostalgia card quite so hard. Also I note on ITVX it’s “Little” Richard Ashdown now, “Little” Alex Horne should sue.

The last time we did this it was August 2024 – a long time ago, and you’ve been saving your gossip up evidently. So a reminder, this is an anonymous tip line, we cannot verify anything here so you’ve only got yourselves to blame if you go around calling it all “fact” and it turns out it isn’t – I suspect there is elements of truth to many of these, I wouldn’t print them if I didn’t think they were at least plausable, but also I don’t know.

I’m also going to hide everything under a cut, because there is a lot of it.

Before we continue, happy Physical: Asia On Netflix Day to those who celebrate, this will almost certainly get discussed on #koreanvarietyroundup on the Discord. Also if you follow me through social media channels you might be expecting the Stool Pigeon to be opened today, however I forgot, so we’ll try again on Thursday if I don’t forget again. Get your anonygoss ready!

Or to give it its Russian title, Форт. Возвращение легенды which premiered on Russian CTC on Sunday night, and looks like its available to watch geoblock free for now. This is of course Russia’s knock-off version of Fort Boyard (what’s Adventure Line going to do, sue?), they’ve converted one of their own Forts in the Gulf of Finland and the results are… interesting.

It hits a lot of the same beats as Fort Boyard, albeit a sort of alternate reality version of it. A team compete to win Alexander the Great’s golden treasure by playing a series of timed challenges inside (and occasionally at the extreme outside of) cells of the Fort. Winning games earns parts of some sort of anchor symbol, and they need all five bits to open the Treasure Room. They also need to earn pictorial clues (inside what look like specimin jars) to work out the codeword that will release JCB bucket of gold. For whatever reason the team in the first episode was all male, which feels unusual, but I don’t know if that’s a cultural difference with the Russians.

It feels quite weirdly paced, certainly initially, feels like a lot of chat between games, feels like fewer opportunities in the 45 minutes to get the five pieces, feels like the in game editing is slightly off. On the other hand some of their takes on Boyard games are quite good – Bizutage in the dark with cockroaches feels like a reboot the French missed that feels like a missed trick, and Jenga with someone on top of the tower having to climb higher and jump off is a good and clever idea for a game that again, feels like something the French ought to have considered at some point (although probably a version that isn’t six minutes). But for each one of these there’s a version that falls a bit flat, their version of From The Earth To The Moon is just trying to launch a ball up a ramp. Their version of the aerofoil game is just a large flat bit of wood, and losing that doesn’t have the punchline of falling into the sea. There’s an absolutely bizarre game that involved trying to balance sacks of weights in the clues bit with seemingly no scary element whatsoever, when FB did something similar it involved an impressive prop you had to hang off. Their version of a phone riddle was being distracted by fireworks going off, which is different certainly. The chef doesn’t have have Willy’s chutzpah, but does give the team a lot to eat.

Part of an issue I think is unfamiliarity wih the location, but whilst Fort Boyard looks like a big stone boat, this fort (Fort Alexander, I think?) looks like it could be an office building on the outside, and thanks to the layout the courtyard feels compact even thought it’s probably bigger than Fort Boyard’s. It might be the same height, but it doesn’t feel that high when you see someone doing something. Indoors it all feels a bit dark and samey, I grant you for twenty years you could probably level that with Fort Boyard, but it was always well lit and it knew where to add an accent or something unusual. Nice sweeping staircases though, and I quite like their steampunk-esque light-tube clocks.

The Treasure Room’s a bit of a let down – they spell a word out on dials, eventually, and if they’re right a gate opens sl-o-o-w-l-y, they run to the end of a corridor, grab lots of coins the JCB bucket has released and then run back as much as they can – and they can use their clothes which is forbidden on Boyard. But the ending reveal is a bit odd – they dump the coins on a large set of scales, and when they let the scales go there’s no tension building, line goes up and down then settles element, it jumps straight to a figure and then the host tells them how much money they’ve won. Cheers then.

Peppered throughout are adverts for what seems to be a Russian credit card and a streaming service.

The Russians were big fans of Fort Boyard when it was on originally, several multi-year runs, so this feels like an interesting swing. But “interesting” is the word that best seems to describe it. I can’t say it’s a great interpretation, but I’m intrigued to see what else it has up its sleeve and I’m fascinated someone has has a go.

OK, Game.city have just released their latest gameshow based cash-in and it’s Million Dollar Money Drop. In fact it’s a sort of weird amalgam of US and UK presentation – US set, UK currency, UK theme tune, UK questions (or at least I don’t think many US players will have a chance at “What was the name of Jo Brand’s 2009 autobiography?”). It plays a fairly decent game of Million Pound Drop, although it did hang up on me during play which seems like a pity. Provided that’s a one-off, it’s a much more successful interpretation than their Deal or No Deal one a little while ago, it plays 1-8 players Jackbox-style and it’s £9.99.

If you don’t want to fork out for that, Ash the Bash is playing his own very good interpretation on his Twitch stream tonight from 8pm you can join in with.

In other news, Fremantle getting very excited about buying up Japanese format The Walls which they’ve called Inside the Grid. You can watch the Japanese pilot with English subs if you want. I think it’s got something, in the same way I really enjoyed Wall Go in The Devil’s Plan, but for an hour show it’s really slow to get interesting and the ending is an awful lot of a lot of time with not very much happening. The middle bit’s quite fun though – quite difficult to see it as anything but a one-off or occasional series really, as a regular show it’s going to get tiresome quickly.