New Years Day, 6pm, then weekdays 3pm from Jan 5th, ITV1
This will hopefully be quite fun, Sara Davies has always come across as The Dragon Who Is Probably Legitimately Into This Sort Of Thing so hopefully this translates into being good at it.
Contestants start off with a load of money but they have to answer questions quickly to hold on to it. That’s the premise, I don’t know more than that, but those podiums look quite sexy. I hope there is more to it than four-way chess clock quiz but we’ll have to wait and see, win more money by doing something fast is basically the most tried and tested premise for a gameshow (said without any real evidence but it sounds right).
It’s been sitting on the shelf for a little while, we were wondering whether they’d be using it to synergize with Davies’ upcoming appearance on The Box, but it doesn’t look like it. ITV have given it the coveted New Year’s Shoulder Peak Sneaky Peek slot, let’s hope it does a bit better than Jeopardy and Pictionary.
Watched it? Let us know what you thought in the comments!
A bit of fun this Christmas, hope you’re having a good one, Mister Doc has found and uploaded the first episode (a Christmas celebrity one) of STV’s version of Split Second.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the US original, the 70s Tom Kennedy one where you could buzz in if you could infer the question was my favourite, but I also enjoy the 80s Monty Hall one, if only as it has the most magnificently 1980s theme tune out of all 1980s theme tunes (Synths! Soft rock! Guitars! Love it). Even the recent GSN one is fun enough, although the material doesn’t feel quite so challenging.
Here we have a theme that’s reminiscient of the Hall one (although not the same), Coia has developed some excellent pointing action, the first round (and the Countdown round) play like (a slower version of) the original really, the mystery additions don’t really add much (it just becomes a reaction test), and it’s surprising how much explanation is required for the idea that the computer will rank how quickly you buzz. I was expecting it to be rubbish, but it’s a more successful reimagining than the Coia hosted Press Your Luck he’d go on to host a few years later for HTV at any rate (which no longer seems to have a clean version on Youtube, sadly.
Neil Patrick Harris invites eight teams to figure out what prizes are in 12 giant boxes by way of quiz, the team with the most prizes at the end of the arced series wins what’s in the SUPER BOX worth over $250k – I know what this is but I will leave it as a surprise. Opening the box doesn’t necessarily mean you will keep the prize as there are ways and means to steal prizes and eliminate other teams across the series.
It’s Netflix trying another high stakes shiny floor quiz, an entertainment form they’ve tried to crack before and not really succeeded at. Will this break their duck? There’s not much hype about it. Also we know someone who went and saw some episodes being filmed and they weren’t very impressed, but perhaps it will edit extremely well and become a Christmas hit. UK production company Rollercoaster are behind it, the hitmakers behind You Bet On Tour and I’ve got an “I thought rollercoasters were meant to go up as well as down” gag lined up to go viral on Twitter if this doesn’t work, so everything to play for.
Watched it? Let us know what you thought in the comments!
Some Monday fun, FOTB Alex McMillan has written an entertaining essay on their new Substack about what audiences from different countries expect from reality competitions, and how The Traitors might buck the trend a bit in the UK.
It is curious that whilst The Traitors has been clearly a success in many countries, it’s the UK where it’s gone absolutely stratospheric in a way I don’t think it has anywhere else.
Thrilled to see/hear that Bother’s Bar favourite The Answer Trap makes its triumphant return in the latest episode of the Here’s What You Do podcast with special guest star Bobby Seagull (it probably helps that one of the hosts used to be a writer on it).
It’s Christmas and that means games, so in a nod to old-skool Bother’s Bar before Discord came along and ruined everything I thought I’d give you some consumer advice for the Christmas holidays.
Game.city seem to be the online branch of Big Potato Games and offer many of their board game products in Jackbox-style form – you load the webpage up on your TV by whatever means and then you all sit around with your mobile phones and connect up using your phone’s web browser. However they’re increasingly broadening out into officially licenced TV show tie-ins that cost about a tenner each. About the same as a travel version of tie-in table games you might get from gift shops. But are they worth your hard earned cash?
We’ve covered Deal or No Deal previously and unfortunately we’d still find it difficult to recommend in it’s current form. It certainly has the look and feel (and Noel) of the original show, but the Banker’s algorithm remains terrible. Edit: They have updated this and the algorithm is waaaay better, perhaps a touch generous early doors in my one test of it which may be down to randomness, but much more realistic. Some of Noel’s reactions remain baffling though.
Catchphrase is a bit more successful and plays a decent enough elided ten-minute version of the show for up to eight players individually or in teams. Three rounds, but only four catchphrases (and Bonus catchphrases) a round. It seems to use actual catchphrases from the show, you buzz in and type filling in the boxes hangman style (so you know how many letters are in each word). It has an American voiceover doing all of Stephen Mulhern’s catchphrases. Which is weird! There’s an add-on pack with more catchphrases in it if you want.
More successful still Million Dollar Money Drop is a confusing melange of US and UK ideas and presentation – US set, graphics and voiceover, UK theme tune and questions. But it does actually play a pretty good version of Money Drop – you use sliders on your phones to deposit money on each drop, you get to see how much money people have put on each drop after each question (you all play simultaneously), try and last as long as you can or have the most money at the end to win. All the questions are voiced by US-non-Davina. Plays up to eight at once.
Unfortunate placing of the timer over the graphic, but not as unfortunate as forgetting you’ve got a button that takes screenshots directly. The answer’s 4 by the way, because of the L positioning.
Which brings us to today’s release: The 1% Club. This plays an elided version of the show (90%, 70, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10 and 1%) and you get three lives in lieu of passes, although once you reach the 10% question you’re instantly eliminated if you’re wrong. It certainly looks and feels like The 1% Club with the graphics and music present and correct. It does not have Lee Mack, it has someone who sounds like Kerry Godliman voicing all the questions, and you’ll have to do your own crowd work. I have to say I thought the questions I encountered felt a bit chestnutty (which of these lines are longer? Oh they’re both the same!) and it’s a pity there doesn’t seem to be much spelling leeway in the typed questions, although at least if it wants a number from you it will go straight to number input. My own feeling is that the questions are a bit easier than you’d expect at the difficulties you’d see on the show, although if your friends are basically normal I don’t know how much that would matter, and with three lives your friends would have to be complete thickos not to get quite far through each eight question stack.
Edit: Released today (December 18th) is Pointless! It’s got Alexander and Richard’s voices, it certainly sounds like they’ve recorded them especially, but they don’t read out the questions or anything, it’s Noel-style reactions. Rounds are a mixture of open ended and quiz (one quiz round had six answers worth 60+ and one worth 2, and then got told off for giving one of the 60-ish answers). You get four questions and a Final, but as I was only testing it by myself I don’t know if it works like the show with multiple players or each podium just gives one answer between them – it keeps a running score for the first four questions. Final you get a choice of two categories with three questions each, you note down as many possible answers in a minute and then pick your three best chances. Can’t talk for the accuracy of the surveys, but I was quite surprised that for X Factor Finalists Olly Murs scored 15 and Fleur East was Pointless but there we are.
Are they worth the money? At a tenner each I’m not sure I can confidently say they’re fully featured enough to definitively say yes. What I would say is that if you’re able to set them up easily on your TV, your mum is likely going to enjoy herself more than if you bought out Brass: Birmingham or whatever – that’s where these games are pitched really, gatherings of people who want to play a game but nothing too serious, and they already know how to play because they’ve watched it on telly.
