As Bother’s Bar, a dying site representing a dying genre in a dying medium meanders towards its twentieth birthday (April 19th, don’t get overexcited), an increasingly expensive signpost to its rather more dynamic Discord (deets in the sidebar), you might want to know some things that are happening in that Discord this weekend:

• It’s Schlag den Star on Saturday! 7:15pm UK, our clocks won’t have have gone forward yet so consider that if you want to come and join our watchalong.
• We’re having a Jackbox and Friends Night on Sunday, 8pm UK (our clocks *will* have changed by then), come and join us for some interactive fun featuring Jackbox and similar things.

In other news, who’s been following the Marble Survival 100? 100 daily races (they’re up to 31 now) with all your favourite Jelle’s Marble Run teams battling it out to avoid weekly elimination in a series of minute-long races. Greg “Woodsie” Woods has maintained commentary enthusiasm throughout, will he still be as excited in another two months time? I can’t wait to find out. Somehow my Thunderboiz are still in the competition, in typical “useless but not quite useless enough to finish bottom” style and if they can maintain that all the way to the end then by default they will win.

This image spotted on the Remarkable website looks quite glam and sexy. I’m glad they dropped the “The”.

A new Fort Boyard game has been announced, The Challenges of Father Fouras, June 27th, if it gets a UK release I will OF COURSE have a video showing off the new (10) games, this time your adventure is governed by one of six modifiers, a bit like what they’ve been doing on the French show the last few years.

• Great news! the new Flemish series of De Mol starts tomorrow (Sunday) night. It is the best version of the show by a distance, that it’s still consistently coming up with creative, funny and dramatic challenges a decade since the reboot started is incredible really. Last year in the US we had a movie-inspired set of games, including an escape room set on a bus that couldn’t drop below 50mph, this year we’re in Sicily and we’ll be very disappointed if The Mole doesn’t get to leave a horse’s head in a contestant’s bed at one point. It is, unfortunately, a pain in the arse to watch with subs these days but if you’re willing to put effort in then it’s usually possible, keep an eye out on #molchat in the BB Discord (link in the sidebar) for news.
• Physical 100 returned on Netflix on Tuesday! Episodes drop variously across the next two Tuesdays. It remains deliciously shot and directed, doing a lot with a massive dark studio and spotlights. It is questionable whether the opening challenge’s sea of treadmills is quite as strong visually as last year’s opener with 16-stone guys raining into a swimming pool. It’s a shame that the new-and-improved Murderball quest fills another two episodes, but even these feel more entertaining than last time. We really like the Maze quest introduced in episode four, played out three times so far but each one playing out slightly differently in terms of tactics.
• Jungle? Check. Paradise? Check. Trust? Check. Netflix have blended their reality staples and come up with Fight for Paradise: Who Can You Trust? dropping 23rd April.
• Monday at 9pm features a titanic multichannel battle of Loaded in Paradise series 2 on ITV2 AND ITVX, the first series of which I really got into and I’m pleased is returning, and The Underdog: Josh Must Win on E4 where celebs must try and rig a reality competition so Josh the loser nerd ends up winning over everyone else. Big ‘London media types will like this, general audience nonplussed’ energy about this one, but we’ll see.
• Finally Celebrity Big Brother ended last night with a whopping 1.7m viewers. My early bet on Fern Britton winning didn’t pay off – where was the Fred Dinenage goss Fern? Anyway:

Lots of fun spin here so lets analyse:

• Anytime anyone mentions “streams” take them with a pinch of salt, the numbers are nebulous at best, even if they capitalise MILLION to make it look impressive. We’ve no idea if that’s across the 17 main episodes, L&L and/or the live streaming. We know the first week’s episodes added about a million to their overnights.
• Late and Live being ITV2’s highest rating show every night says more about ITV2 than L&L, bumping along around 400k consolidated.
• Where the show probably has earned a second go *is* in its moneymaking A16-34s. We know from Thinkbox the Launch did 700k on televisions which slid to 400k by the end of the week, but we’re aware it was also doing around 300k in devices which won’t show up in those numbers and it’s fair to assume (although we *are* assuming) at least half are going to fall into that demo. These are not stratospheric numbers – Love Island will do better, The Apprentice will do better, even Taskmaster will do better, but they are extremely solid numbers that would be top ten most weeks of the year and getting them on a nightly basis, and provided the following fortnight’s numbers hold up then it’s done alright. I don’t doubt that overall the numbers are lower end of what they were hoping, but BB did alright for itself, CBB can be worked on.
• All the losing finallists getting their interview on ITV1 and the winner getting it on ITV2 is rubbish though.

Alright, look, can people stop announcing stuff about half an hour after I’ve just done a perfunctory “We’re not dead” post? Thanks.

Amazon Prime have announced Beast Games. Mr Beast’s hosting, 1000 contestants, one top prize of $5m (“biggest single prize in TV history”, provided you don’t count The X Factor US, presumably). That’s basically the story. I’m presuming it will be a “lighter” version of Squid Game: The Challenge, essentially.

…is on Netflix! Physical 100 2 starts tomorrow and is set in a mine. We enjoyed series one, great set pieces, although some of the early rounds suffered a bit from “yes i get the idea… oh there’s another hour of it” which hopefully series two will improve upon, the first one was a massive, possibly surprise, hit, one of their highest originals of 2023, which might explain why they haven’t dragged their feet on getting a second run out.

Last series started with people hanging onto a bar above a swimming pool, looks like this series is starting with a treadmill test.

Also ITV are repeating old episodes of Winning Combination in the afternoon 3pm slot, for some reason. They’ve not made new episodes since 2021.

We mentioned this about a month ago but it’s this Saturday that it’s happening, modern day Chris Goss Ben Lathbury AKA Royal Flush AKA Persephone’s Chair is doing his 400th quizzy Twitch stream and it’s a giant all day-er, featuring most of his original formats you’re encouraged to playalong with with various web apps. It’s all in aid of CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, so you’re encouraged to give generously. You can watch and join on his Twitch channel on Saturday from 11am – 1am, although my money is on it overrunning, he should have a sweepstake.

Unfortunately for me he’s timed it to coincide with a Saturday I have to work, but I should be about for the evening session. If you like quizzing there will be a lot there for you. Ben otherwise usually streams most Saturdays from 8pm UK.

That is a *get* if true.

In other news, both Loaded in Paradise series 2 (ITV2 and ITVX) and The Underdog: Josh Must Win (E4) both scheduled for 9pm 25th March launches. A multichannel battle for the ages, there.