Stool Pigeon July 2023 – The Results

By | July 24, 2023
4 Comments

OK, quite a lot to get through this evening ranging from the quite interesting to the pretty crap, let’s have a look. Remember, everything’s been sent in anonymously, I’ve tried to remove anything that I suspect is an attention seeking lie, but I can’t make any guarantees of the veracity of what follows. Eyes down, look in:

Jeopardy UK board is 25/50/75/100/150.

Yes we’ve heard this, and also the way they’ll be getting an hour out of it is Single/Single/Double/Final. That means that I think the min-maximum, if they put all the Daily Doubles in the bottom row, of £121, 600. What will actually be given away a show is probably closer to £1,500.

SAS: Who Dares Wins – next series is taking place in the Arctic rather than the desert.

Chilling.

You were asking on Twitter earlier how Aussie Traitors has done on iPlayer and that it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that more people have watched it in the UK than in the home country. Well, episodes have been requested between 230k and 600k times but each request is being watched about 50% on average. So far!

Thanks, really interesting and yes given it was getting around 250k an episode in Australia it’s certainly close, and I suspect those figures don’t include the BBC3 transmissions.

Heard Lego Masters is officially canned. No xmas special this year.


ITV want another run of In With A Shout.

Can believe. Where’s Picture Slam got to, eh?

Tenable is almost certainly not returning. The repeats get healthy numbers and there simply are no more potato products to list.

I can believe this, there’s currently no contestant call out for it.

ITV has been kicking around the idea of reviving Don’t Try This at Home(!) in some form – live studio, VT challenges. Would make sense as a SNT replacement but feels very early to nail colours to the mast if that’s the thinking.

Don’t Try This At Home feels like the sort of show there are probably loads of TV people would quite like to make happen so I can believe it. I think you’d need to add stakes to it in 2023 though.

Is there any truth to the rumors regarding who “actually” owns Hollywood/Celebirty squares? I’m wondering cuz people on the buzzerblog discord suspect there maybe a “use it or lose it” cause (similar to the dispute over Sony/2waytraffic/CPL vs ABC/Disney regarding the rights to US millionaire, where contractual obligations force Disney to produce a version every couple of years lest they lose the rights.). This might explain why paramount made hip hop squares for mtv2 in 2012 and revived it for vh1 between 2017-19, and why its getting revived now under the clebirty squares name (which is what the uk version uses) for BET. Your take on these rumors? (It does line up…)

My “take”, like I’m sort of US sports commentator now, is that I could not give more of a toss about Celebrity Squares. Who is clamouring for it? If they’re going to reboot it in the UK, I hope the sound effects aren’t extremely anaemic like last time. We don’t need Celebrity Squares, we’ve got Michael McIntyre’s The Wheel. Perhaps they’ll make it really funny in the US, who knows.

Channel 5 interested in a revival of Total Wipeout.

Their parent Paramount does have a big presence in Argentina, where the Wipeout set is located, so that could be a factor in their decision.

Mmm. On the one hand I can see the logic, on the other it’s not the sort of thing that’s going to happen unless several countries are on board to film there, and I’ve heard absolutely nothing to suggest this would be the case – they don’t seem to have made the Cena/Byer US one for at least 18 months, and didn’t that one film in Texas?

ITV have plans for a series consisting of one-off programmes based on offshoots of their most popular shows, so think Celebrity Cyclone from IAC, Casa Amor from Love Island, Get Out Me Ear from Saturday Night Takeaway.

No tentative timeslot yet, but just personally thinking, could a Saturday night could work?

There was definitely talk of a Celebrity Cyclone spin-off wasn’t there? A series of one-offs might be quite interesting, although I suspect after filling out for an hour you understand why they’re better served as a ten-minute bit. What else could they do? 60 minutes of the think music from The 1% Club?

Popmaster greenlit for second series

I suspect this will be true even if it isn’t true right now.

ITV open to more sitting on a fortune. issue is moneyball and whether they will commission one as they came as joint commission

SOAF is an interesting one as it spent several weeks below 2m and suddenly had a bit of a spurt in the final weeks. I do think series two of Moneyball is an improved show, but it’s certainly not a must watch. Neither of them are must watches really.

Is your stool pigeon in the logo singing the Finnish 2023 Eurovision entry to the journalist?

No, he’s singing Stool Pigeon by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, as sampled in the seminal Gold Digger by The Dolly Rockers (gone too soon). And it’s to a policeman!

Stool Pigeon – July 2023

By | July 24, 2023
0 Comment

Christ I’m bored, so that seems as good a reason as any to open up the Stool Pigeon for the day.

Send us your TV formats goss, remember if it’s already been posted on Buzzerblog or TV Zone that’s not gossip that’s news so no need to bother. Also try to keep it truthful, it’s not me you’ll be upsetting with fake stories.

We’ll keep the box open until around 9:30 tonight.

Box closed! Keep an eye out for the results!

Romesh and Tom Take Takeshi’s Castle

By | July 20, 2023
0 Comment

It was quite sad back in April when Amazon’s Fuuuun! Takeshi’s Castle! reboot launched it wasn’t launched around the world simultaneously, but it soon came to light the strategy was for each territory to get their own commentary team on it and it would launch sometime during the year.

Well that time is August 30th and that commentary team is Romesh Ranganathan (Weakest Link, A League of Their Own) and his mum Tom Davis (Murder in Successville), who worked together on Judge Romesh on Dave and have since had a podcast, The Wolf and Owl podcast, which has somehow made it to 150-odd episodes without me having any idea it even existed and am now quite annoyed about.

Not long to wait! The reboot looked pretty damn good from the clips.

AFK

By | July 17, 2023
3 Comments

Don’t worry I’m not dead or anything, I’ve been looking after family for the last week or so I’ve been away from the SCENE but don’t worry I’m back now.

I don’t know if I’ve missed anything big format wise, but if you liked Voyager at Eurovision, the Australian one, their new album came out on Friday if that is your wont.

I’ve started watching Aussie Traitors on iPlayer, they should do a version with 24 psychics.

Great news: Moneyball is back on Saturday!!! At 8pm as well, what confidence.

Edit: And of course Quizzy Mondays is/are back on BBC2 tonight! It feels too early.

The Traitors Australia joins iPlayer on Sunday

By | July 8, 2023
23 Comments

From 6am.

The Aussie version really wasn’t very successful, but those who watched it have said it’s actually pretty good, and it’s getting a second run probably because it *has* been successful in other big markets and they want to try and tap into it.

It’s the same game you know and love, but the location (it’s a hotel) and the challenges are going to be different which might be reason enough to have a look if you’ve enjoyed the US and/or UK ones.

Watching Telly: Deal or No Deal (2023)

By | July 4, 2023
9 Comments

I’d have loved to have seen this live myself and it’s filming in Salford all this week and some of next, but I can’t. Happily there are people who can be my eyes and ears, and today we have the lovely John Round who went to this afternoon’s first session and has told us all about it.

  • Been a while since I’ve done this! But that’s the reality of everything getting shot in London, so when something new and Salford based turns up I’ll try and jump on it. (See what I did there…)
  • I ended up spending the day with a very nice gentleman who I got chatting to in the queue who it turns out has been to pretty much every TV audience for every TV show ever!
  • Expecting a radical change of design perhaps based on our international friends? Think again, although the Dream Factory is now a sort of mash up of the classic, Tron, The Chase and perhaps even Blockbusters (yeah I have no idea how this will look on TV but obviously it’s got lots of fancy lights that can change between Blue and Red), also the boxes whilst looking somewhat familiar seemed to have had a slight makeover inspired by a set designer who had obviously received far too many Ferrero Rocher over Christmas.
  • Audience capacity quite intimate a bit like the original Dream Factory setup, perhaps 200 maximum? (Probably a good thing as there was by no means a crazy Gladiator style queue waiting to get in, in fact I would be surprised if anyone had got turned away in the end)
  • Any long term fans of the show should know who was going to be on warm up duties, of course it was the one and only Mark Olver! He’s always good value and seemed right back at home resuming his 3,000 odd show streak
  • Stephen Mulhern was also basically exactly as you would expect Stephen Mulhern to be, he just wanted the contestants to try and win as much money as possible but made sure they took their time before deciding to say ‘Deal’ or ‘No Deal’, was also more than happy to take some selfies with several audience super fans so that was nice
  • The contestants are all strangers and only met up the night before, but they remain constant between the episodes and a newbie is introduced to replace the previous player – so essentially it’s just like the old days and it seems as if the selected player genuinely doesn’t know they’re going to be the player for the day until they are chosen.
  • Before the game kicks off on camera there’s the usual box of boxes wheeled out and allocated via balls in a bag business, the same IA from Channel 4 is present to oversee proceedings
  • Stephen does the intro bits and then a player is selected who makes their way to the table and attempts not to crash into the chair whilst doing so
  • So far, so good…this is just classic DOND with a lick of paint and a presenter with significantly less facial hair!
  • INTRODUCE THE GAME BOARD!
  • Oh…they won’t be winning a quarter of a million quid then…the top prize has been slashed to £100,000 and as a result the red side of the board has been brutally altered, £1,000 – £2,000 – £3,000 – £4,000 – £5,000 – £7,500 – £10,000 – £25,000 – £50,000 – £75,000 – £100,000
  • I guess that answers the question of which slot this is intended for.
  • We learn a bit about the contestant, their family or mate in the audience is strategically shuffled around to be behind them and we have a little chat with them, then Stephen takes care of the usual housekeeping and we’re off!
  • Usual 5 box opening before the dreaded call from The Banker, who made several audience members jump when he decided to ring!
  • Although there is no ‘guess the offer’ and/or ‘offer button’ revival
  • The Banker and Stephen have a bit of banter, the audience could hear him to a certain extent which I think they were trying to turn down a bit as the recording day went on.
  • Eventually an offer is presented to the contestant who deliberates for a bit then Stephen poses the question, again pretty much business as usual.
  • Next round is 3 boxes, they shove a cut to the ad break in around here.
  • Bla bla bla, you know how the rest of DOND works…
  • Well until you get to 3 box and The Banker decides to telephone with an offer! At first I thought this was just a one off but it seems this is a permanent fixture so make of that what you will!
  • The game eventually gets wrapped up, Box 23 nowhere to be seen and Stephen invites us to tune in again ‘tomorrow’.
  • We got to see 2 games being recorded, the first was a bit of a drag but they seemed to have fine tuned things a bit by the second and we got out of the studio by around 6pm.
  • Overall I ended up leaving having enjoyed proceedings but feeling somewhat ‘meh’ about the reduced money format as it naturally affects the offers somewhat (hard to write too much else without spoiling games), it felt a bit like how The £1m Drop turned into The £100k Drop.
  • They’re filming a lot more so with the bonus clues above surely it’s destined for the daytime slot although perhaps a few primetime celebrity specials will appear.

Thanks John. Really dislike the lack of quarter million, The outsize box lends a certain gravity to the offers throughout the show which I think this may well end up lacking and the big boxes are too evenly spaced out for interesting texture, also “who is going to be our one-tenth millionaire?” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it does it? It all feels a bit “daily Netherlands”.

I can live with the three-box offer, although I think it downplays the genius of the 5-to-2 round which was a properly hard decision and moment of tension the original provided. I am relatively happy with the otherwise played straightness of proceedings as neither the button or Box 23 were any good.

I’m not jumping for joy, but we’ll see how it comes across on television. Thanks!