3%

By | January 8, 2017
8 Comments

For some reason 3% has exploded over my Twitter timeline today, it’s actually been on Netflix for a little while, but when you scan through Netflix it’s quite easy to go past Brazilian sci-fi I suppose. Anyway it’s quite good and Very Much The Sort Of Thing You Might Enjoy. It’s a drama, it’s in Brazilian Portuguese (although there’s a dubbed English version, but come on), it has english subtitles, it’s what Survivor would be a bit like if it was done through the prism of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror and The Hunger Games by way of the board game The Resistance. It has violence but not excessive amounts, it is rated 15.

In the future the world is divided into the haves (who live in the ‘Offshore’) and the have nots who live in big run down cities on the mainland. Everybody gets one shot to live in the Offshore by taking part in The Process, a series of tests and tasks with a view to eliminate people who don’t ‘deserve’ to move on, only 3% of the candidates will be allowed to make it. If you like characters and personalities you are well rewarded. If you like tests and challenges then you get those as well – there’s quite a fun murder-mystery logic problem in episode two. If you like thinly veiled political statement then knock yourselves out. The other half of the drama relates to the people administering The Process and the secrets they may hold.

The drama gets down to a core set of characters and motivations quite quickly and if there is one thing we like it’s fiction based around eliminatory processes. I’m only a couple of episodes in but so far it is quite compelling, if you have Netflix you might enjoy it as well. Episodes are about 50 minutes.

Show Discussion: The Big Spell

By | January 8, 2017
6 Comments

Sundays, 5pm,
Sky One

Join Sue Perkins, Moira Stewart and Joe Lycett as twenty kids vie across eight episodes in spelling-based challenges in order to become champion.

The show is based on Endemol’s Spelling Star format which has had some success as The Great Australian Spelling Bee on the Ten Network in Australia.

Spelling Bee formats were all the rage about ten years ago (see Hard Spell, Spelling Bee) and then they just sort of fell off the face of the Earth.

I’m afraid we forgot this was on until halfway though episode one, but if you watched it or caught up with it let us know what you thought.

Skill and Judgement

By | January 7, 2017
10 Comments

You might have seen this pop up on my Twitter feed yesterday, the first broadcast episode of Family Fortunes with Bob Monkhouse. Forget how really pared back the format for the first series was, what I found most interesting was the great pains he was in to point out how much skill is involved, from back in the day when the IBA would frown quite hard at shows based around luck. Did Play Your Cards Right, a show with a significant and obvious luck element, get Brucie to do the same thing when it first started?

A schedule as complicated as its questions

By | January 6, 2017
5 Comments

Don’t forget that quintessential weekend show Only Connect‘s baffling move to Fridays at 8:30pm (except in Northern Ireland where it’s 9:30pm) after Mastermind starts tonight, except for viewers in Wales where it’s on Saturday nights instead. Obviously.

No I don’t know why a popular and successful show such as Only Connect now has a schedule as complicated as its questions.

Show Discussion: Spies

By | January 4, 2017
12 Comments

Thursdays, 9pm,
Channel 4

Another year, another entry into the burgeoning Tough Occupational Reality Challenge subgenre, this one is Spies from the makers of the gritty SAS: Who Dares Wins.

This one features fifteen people being put through their paces by three proper spies and being eliminated if they don’t make the grade.

It’s not the first time this sort of thing has been done, there was a very well-regarded show on BBC3 back in 2004 called Spy (UKGameshows link) with a very similar premise, although doubtless this one is going to feel grittier. We didn’t really watch SAS: Who Dares Wins, we had just watched Special Forces: Ultimate Hell Week which scratched our endurance itch and was basically the same thing, but it’s been a long time since there was a good show about learning the art of espionage (does Hunted count as espionage?).

It’s only four episodes. The first episode is promising a mole amongst the trainees, which is a fun twist. Let us know what you think.