I think Taskmaster‘s the only show we’ve bothered to give a show discussion post to seven different series now and here we are again as Rhod Gilbert, Kerry Godliman, Phil Wang, James Acaster and Jessica Knappett compete in ridiculous tasks over the next ten weeks.
In related news, Alex Horne did a very interesting Ask Me Anything on Reddit on Tuesday, including the revelation that We Need Answers might be due a comeback.
It’s the first Monday in September, that means today there are BRAND NEW episodes of Pointless, Jeremy Kyle, Judge Rinder, Tenable, Tipping Point (I presume) AND The Chase to watch today. Will any of them have any significant changes (probably not?)
I actually had no idea they recorded more Tenable, so that’s a nice surprise.
Philip Schofield returns with a new series of visi-quiz 5 Gold Rings and its pretend hi-tech floor.
There have been a number of changes since the first series – new set (the last series was filmed in the Netherlands on their set, this one was filmed at Elstree) and new gameplay mechanics – this time teams only get one crack at each question, and if they get it wrong their opponents can come in and steal the money for themselves, so it’s no longer effectively two solitaire games leading up to a final – the advantage for the final feels better earnt. It also means more questions as everyone is guaranteed five plus a floor flip.
I reckon the changes that have been made are solid and good. I don’t know if they are enough to break the show out into proper ‘hit’ status. You can still appalong, or at least could at the time of recording, but like most appalongs I just find it too much hassle for not enough reward whilst trying to watch a TV show.
Ultimate Beastmaster series 3 has dropped on Netflix, and this one’s especially interesting because there’s a Great Britain team.
At time of writing I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet so don’t know what other changes there are (although I’ve read there’s a new tournament format and eight countries being represented this time round, with none other than Dannii Minogue commentating for the Australians) so feel free to discuss it here.
There’s no Crystal Maze tonight as it’s ended its run. So! Thanks to a tweet from @danielmarkhurst let us revisit what ITV were determined to make “the new Crystal Maze” in 2010 with the second of two episodes of… The Door, with thanks to the uploader:
Looking at it through 2018 eyes it looks pretty damn lavish, they would have had to have built separate sets for each of the challenges and they look pretty good. Really it’s a shame the challenges are a bit trite (and it feels like that laser maze goes on for about ten minutes) and involve a lot of Rummaging In Stuff (this was particularly true of the first ep IIRC) and the US style confessionals remain hugely irritating. Great imagination in the sets, less so in the content. If you want to read what we thought at the time, there are two threads here and here.
It’s not the first time ITV had tried to upscale Bushtucker Trials into their own format as they tried making a big thing of Scream If You Want To Get Off, starring Nigel Marven and Charlie Brockett, but despite the claims at the time it was the scariest show on television it basically ended up being It’s a Knockout + an occasional animal in South Africa. It didn’t last long.
It always amazes me to remember that in the first series of I’m a Celeb, one of the trials was just Nell McAndrew on a Bucking Bronco.
OK then, let’s see what has transpired. Don’t forget that these are given anonymously, so the actual truths are known only to the relevant parties. Here we go!
This is a bit of a weird opinion, but I think if the Weakest Link comes back it should be presented by Greg Davies playing a similar character to on Taskmaster. He feels so much more of a natural fit than all the other people being suggested. [Speaking of which, it’s been almost a year since the CiN Special and everyone was clamouring for a new series off the back of it despite the one-off being, well, not that good. What’s happened with that?]
Jeremy Clarkson’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire originally used pairs of contestants. I’m not sure what about Clarkson’s cheery demeanour made people think this would be a bad idea. [Not sure I ever really liked it as a pairs game, to be honest.]
Safeword US debuted its new season last week. They’ve screwed up the format: Teams play games to earn points, but have to post embarrassing things online to keep them. Loser takes a lie detector test. [I must confess I’ve never really watched Safeword, even if it does star FOTB Rick Edwards.]
I recently saw the words ‘University Challenge Dating Show‘ floating about as a format pitch. [I hope Jeremy Paxman will narrate. This sounds like a horrendous idea. And yet! I’m as guilty of playing the would/wouldn’t game as everyone else on Twitter.]
With the popularity of Fornite these days, I wouldn’t be shocked to see them try and make a TV version of it (If they were smart, they’d adapt the Battle For Money format- that show seems tailor-made for it)… [Funnily enough, I wrote a post about this sort of thing all the way back in March.]
And there we are! New season starts next week so hopefully we won’t be opening the Stool Pigeon for a little while.
Wednesdays, 9pm,
