The best thing about afternoon recordings is that because I have to wait for the off-peak trains to start I can shoot off to Westfields and give you some IMMEDIATE REACTION.
- The show is sponsored by Cadbury’s and their Spots vs Stripes thing, whatever that actually is. In the queue outside BBC Televsion Centre hi-octane people were challenging people to do things for chocolate. Which is sort of a good idea, but probably not in 24 degree temperatures.
- The set is similar to international versions – big circle in the middle (not surrounded by 60 lights, surrounded by 12 circles which are occasionally used as a sort of clock and occasionally not), big marquee up the back but different is a large screen on both sides of the stage, and a sofa area on both sides of the stage.
- The host is Darren McMullan who more astute readers will recognise as the mixed-accent host of the Australian version (and also current US reality show Love in the Wild). In the main I thought he was really good, like a party host, although I think he was better ad libbing, the jokes on the autocue tried a bit hard I think.
- The two team captains are Caroline Flack and Joe Swash. Listening to them backstage behind me it seems quite clear they’ve got a good relationship going and this comes out on stage as well. Joe Swash being a bit thick is the show’s running joke but he takes it well and gives back what he gets. Caroline Flack is a woman in a show with two male leads. Mild innuendo happens. We love The Flack.
- The game then – five female friends + Joe take on five male friends + Caroline. Teams introduced by VT. The teams compete in six challenges, the winning team plays two more to determine how much money, if any, they will win.
- The games are all in the MITW style – they’re introduced with a blueprint-esque film (although they’re never referred to as blueprints) with a US male voiceover who you will recognize but not know the name of – does films but isn’t Redd Pepper, more Disney. The description can feature a joke and/or mild innuendo.
- For each of the first six events each team member can play only once, apart from Joe or Caroline who will double up in a two-player game. In each game you will have one minute to score as many points as you can, after the sixth game the team with the most points are the winners.
- There’s little real discernable balance with the scoring mechanism – some games have a low realistic maximum (transfer oranges between your knees into a target area), others relatively high (one person wears a helmet with a pin on it, team mate throws balloons, burst as many as you can in a minute. Four pyramids of six cans, knock as many over as you can by elastic band in a minute). Edit: Some games have the two teams playing simultaneously, sometimes one after the other. Unusually I thought, the team that’s behind going into a game will go first, and the other team are welcome to watch and pick up tips.
- Similar to the international versions, McMullan offers a running conspiratorial commentary, although you can’t hear this in the audience.
- Speaking of hearing things, the clock music for this show is terrific, very electronic and disco inspired.
- If I haven’t got this across properly yet I’ll spell it out for you – this show has a very different voice to international versions. It’s more Double Dare than The Cube, albeit without the mess, and it does that by way of Shane Ritchie-era Win Lose or Draw. It is unlikely you will see the host throwing an orange at Joe Swash in the US show (and even less likely he’ll throw one back!), or indeed one contestant throwing an orange at another contestant in a last second act of hilariously backfiring sabotage. It’s also unlikely the host will get a surprise load of table tennis balls dropped onto him in a throw to an ad break – his surprise was palpable.
- Despite the messing about there is a decent and proper game here and an adjudicator looks at the tape to make sure it’s all proper and correct. The contestant gets to see a slow motion replay of some of their performance (but again sometimes this will be sort of a joke – not always the contestant’s best performance and sometimes something funny that happened before or after the game).
- The team with the most points after six games goes on to the final two games.
- Te first game is a Cash Builder game – the team are spotted £5,000 to begin and for each point they score during the game minute £1,000 gets added to the prize pool.
- But to win it for the team one person must successfully complete the end game – this is one of the more traditional MTWI games (hanging six coathangers off each other today, called Down to the Wire). This is all or nothing and they get only one chance to complete it. If they win then the streamer cannons shoot.
- That’s it really. It’s a very different take on the original idea and I think it works well. I daresay in fact it’s probably had more thought put into it as a show than the original ever did. It starts on ITV2 at the end of August.
