Margaret Thatcher! Bonnie Tyler! Catchphrase!
It’s like the eighties coming back.
Meanwhile apparently Channel 4 have bought up Draw Something! Ahead of the game as always that Channel 4. Expect it to be very popular for about a week then everyone to get bored of it when it gets resold to ITV1. Edit: It’s being called Draw It! which is shrewd at least.
8 episodes for GSN. The suggestion is Mark Labbett of commenting-during-our-Schlag Den Raab-broadcasts fame will be the Chaser. Really pleased for everyone involved.
Buzzerblog’s fuller report here.
ALSO: The new Fifty 50 Show is out. Lewis Murphy chats to Tom Scott and David Howell about 5 Minutes to a Fortune‘s first episode and game show jobs. Amazing.
…and open to all. Come and join us if you fancy a game.
Lots and lots of interesting things this weekend, so to make sure it all doesn’t get lost, here’s a quick guide:
Please direct your opinions of the relevant shows in the relevant places, don’t go getting lost, now.
Sunday 6:45pm, ITV1
Say what you see. JUST DON’T LOOK INTO HIS EYES.
Catchphrase is back with Stephen Mulhern as the new host.
We went and saw the pilot, and also an episode of the show being made.
The spirit of the original is there, as indeed is the theme tune. Don’t like the new graphics, although I do quite like the set. Don’t think the elimination round really adds anything, except an excuse to extend the show fifteen minutes on the cheap. To answer your burning question yes, losers get to keep their money. The new version of the M Square is a bit rubbish.
As ever, it might all change in the edit although in this case we’re pretty confident what we’ve seen is what we’re getting. I think it will initially do OK business.
Right I’ve just got back from watching Reflex filming at The Fountain at Wembley. It’s changed rather from the pilot (which Martyn wrote up here a while ago).
For pragmatic reason of keeping the 5 Minutes to a Fortune show discussion post more visible, I’m going to hide my thoughts under a cut.
Premiere episode: Saturday 6th April 5:10pm, Channel 4,
Subsequent episodes: 5pm on Channel 4,
Celebrity Specials on weekends.
Well we’ve been looking forward to this for a while and it’s opening today after the Grand National with a celebrity special featuring the teams of Ann Widdicombe with Anton de Beke and Jo Brand with Meera Syal.
It’s a pretty simple game – one person answers questions, the other person determines how much of the five minutes their partner is going to get. If the gameplayer gets five questions right in the time allotted, great. If not, a massive hourglass filled with prize money flips over and starts draining out until they succeed. After five games, the timekeeper has one final list based challenge to win all the money that’s left in the hourglass.
Some of us went to see episodes being recorded. From the recording I think it’s a really strong concept with a nice variety of interesting quiz ideas, but also that it’s probably one or two playtests from being perfect (five minutes doesn’t feel like quite enough time to be able to have a proper strategy given the questions, and the five minutes it takes for the hourglass to drain might not look quite as exciting as the idea sounded). That hourglass is a GREAT prop though.
Of course we have those opinions on the basis of one game and without the benefit of seeing how it’s been edited.
Civilian episodes go out during the week with a £50k top prize, celebrity episodes on Saturdays with £100k on the line. Just as it will be up against Pointless and The Chase on weekdays, it’s up against them on Saturdays as well which is an interesting scheduling decision.