Surprise cash-in launch on mobile, is it any good?
There’s a microtransaction sting in the tail – you need to spend 10,000 coins *every time* you want to get to the 1% questions if you want to see them again, the price of those coins and to remove the advert is 89p on Android.
Well that didn’t last long.
Here’s what we wrote on February 21st 2021:
Anne Robinson’s the new permanent host of Countdown.
When Nick Hewer took over we thought “that is an interesting piece of stunt casting” – he went on to host it for almost a decade and is now retiring at 77. Clearly this is also an interesting piece of stunt casting, we’d be lying if we said this didn’t grab our attention and are quite intrigued by the prospect, but she’s only six months younger than Hewer so this can’t be a long term thing, surely?
According to The Mirror:
Over the past 12 months there’s been several reports of Robinson clashing with her co-star Rachel Riley, but this has been widely denied.
Robinson, who recorded 265 episodes of the show, said of her decision to quit: “I’ve had a blast hosting this wonderful show. And I stayed longer than I signed up for. Now it is time for an older woman to take the reins.
“I hope too I’ve encouraged TV bosses to realise that not all women at the wrong end of their seventies are in care homes playing bingo and watching conjuring tricks,” she continued.
Alright then, who’s next? The book probably says Colin Murray, but the book said Colin Murray last time. People have already suggested Jeff Stelling again, but he’s unretiring and staying on Sky Sports for a bit longer yet. Do they want a longer-term host or are they happy with regular bits of stunt casting? Perhaps they should beat Celebrity Lingo to the punch and hire RuPaul. If only Sir Trev wasn’t 82-ish.
Bored on Saturday night? Join us on the Discord from 7:15pm UK as we’ll be following two German celebs playing 15 mystery games vying to win €100,000 on ProSieben’s LIVE Schlag den Star.
This episode, actor Frederick Lau vs rapper Materia, who unusually will be competing and also will be one of the musical acts alongside Die Toten Hosen.
Unless someone gets COVID again last minute. Like the last two episodes.
It’s:
I mean, it’s basically fine – it looks like a gameshow, it hits the same beats of a gameshow, but it’s unmemorable from a presentation and game point of view, it lacks any sort of unique voice that means you might deliberately seek it out.
It’s basically Celebrity Squares without the jokes. The hotseat player has to answer multiple choice questions, and after secretly discovering if they’re right or wrong justify their answer to a panel of three others who must each decide whether you’re telling the truth or bullshitting. The hotseat player succeeds if they either got the question right, in which case it’s largely irrelevant what the panel thought (except for the panel, as the person who correctly ascertains whether the hotseat player is right or wrong thoughout the best becomes the next hotseat player – determined as a percentage rather than a straight points score because American), or if they convince at least one of the panel thought they were telling the truth. Each question the Hotseat player survives takes them up the money ladder, where if they’re especially lucky they’ll get the chance to gamble the best part of $750k for $1m.
I don’t mind the answer justifications so much, but what slows the game down is the justifying the agree/disagree response angle – sometimes all three will talk through their decision and I really couldn’t care less.
There’s probably a decent 80s daytime celebrity panel game in it, as it is I’m not sure who’s going out of their way to watch it.
Well well done everyone, after a few dry episodes I think you’ve given us a lot to chew on this time round. As ever, I can’t verify any of it – the truth is known only to the writers and the people involved and I usually filter out stuff that feels a bit attention-seeky and false but you never know. Let’s see what you’ve given us:
Apparently Million Dollar Island isn’t doing that well in the Netherlands – it was losing to their version of Beat The Chasers and the reality show Farmer Wants A Wife – but it still is selling; Australia’s 7 Network just picked up the format….
I can verify this though – it’s not doing well, although Farmer Wants A Wife is one of those shows that’s massive in one particular territory and not really elsewhere. Still, at least they can reuse the armbands.
Channel 4 considered showing the bleeped edits of Taskmaster in one of their struggling daytime slots
Not the worst idea to be honest, although probably not when they’re in season.
BBC Three discussing yet another revival of Castaway 2000 / 2007, as though it’s the poorly rating show that just won’t flush.
Don’t really see the point of this if the BBC is meant to be doing Survivor, although thanks for reminding us of Castaway 2007 which I don’t remember at all, but did apparently have a contestant called Joe Chicken on it.
Kind of a game show. Dave are piloting a new show where comedians take control as managers of Football teams using Football Manger to simulate matches. They have challenges in between based around press conferences, motivational team talks etc. each week, one comedian is relegated until one remains.
Potentially, I love this idea – Fantasy Football Manager League – although I fear so much of it is going to be down to casting, it will need comics that properly get into it and take things a bit personally. Also the way it’s described it sounds like it might come across as both under- and over-formatted. Definitely something to look into, but I suspect less might be more. My gut right now is saying excellent Youtube series that doesn’t quite translate to television.
Britbox is getting that delightful game show we know and love… LETTERBOX
A special Eurovision-themed edition of Richard Osman’s House of Games Night will fill the gap between the FA Cup final and the Eurovision final on BBC One, with contestants Måns Zelmerlöw, Michael Ball, Cheryl Baker and Mel Giedroyc.
I don’t think this is true, but it’d make a great line-up. What would get played? Sing When You’re Winning obv. I’m sure there are other games that’d fit the theme.
Series 2 of Moneybags has a slight format change- contestants are no longer ruled out of play the next day(s) if they’ve made the final before, which now means one person could potentially win the million pound prize pot throughout the week
Yeah fair enough. Although it was quite nice that everyone was at least guaranteed a chance to get into the Final by Friday. I suppose it means it’s worthwhile everyone hanging around in the audience.
Fastest Finger First has already been filmed and edited, ready to air whenever now. Using the current Millionaire set but with 6 podiums stage left.
Big fan of The Rani getting another quiz gig, I’m still a bit perplexed as to how this is going to work from a broadcast point of view – are they all going out in a daytime block? Are they going out in the afternoon/evening that Millionaire is also going out? It makes sense for one to feed directly (or closely) into the other so you’ve got an easy narrative to follow but you do risk having Too Much Millionaire. I don’t know. I know Spain had a daily version of The Money Drop where the winners got to play for the big money in the evening, so there’s previous in the idea.
BBC are done with new quiz until mid 2023. They’re happy enough with all their current quizzes that there are not looking for new ones at all. C5 are looking for heritage quiz to bring in to compliment Eggheads. I’ve heard 15-1 is one about to go to pilot, but in a condensed form.
Well I wish my boss was happy with result expectations that low. I’m always wondering with these format pitching contests (that saw The Tournament and Bridge of Lies being made) how bad the other 30 shows must have been. A touch unfair on Bridge of Lies perhaps, especially as we’ve heard way worse about a similar pitching contest for Channel 4 that has apparently led to One Question With Claudia Winkleman, so that’s something to look forward to.
I have heard that Channel 5 are looking for similar quizzes to Eggheads as they’re very happy with how it’s done. Surely a condensed version of 15-1 is just… old-skool 15-1?
A pilot for a UK Jeopardy revival was filmed this month with Richard Madeley hosting.
ITV have another UK revival of Jeopardy (with Richard Madeley hosting) in the pipeline for lunchtimes when Loose Women is on hiatus.
Yeah I’ve been sitting on this for a little while and was caught off guard when I heard about it. So much of it feels like a hard sell – getting an hour’s format out of it, the sort of stakes you’re likely to be playing for at 12:30pm, whether there’s any real call for a middlebrow quiz at 12:30pm. Does Loose Women regularly go on hiatus these days? It strikes me that there are probably enough people in the rotation that they don’t really need to take a break. Madeley would probably be quite a good host, but could you take it seriously?
I’ve always said that I’d hope someone would try it just so it would crash and burn and everyone would stop banging on about it. If only there’s another channel looking for a heritage middlebrow quiz they could run for half an hour, possibly whilst another show is on hiatus, and could probably get away with lower stakes and expectations. I guess we will just never know.
I’m told on the Discord, because I have forgotten the date, it was Bother’s Bar’s 18th birthday yesterday! Yay us. To celebrate I appear to have possibly contracted gout so forgive me if I’m a bit grumpy. Don’t let me forget the twentieth.
Anyway for the site’s birthday I hope for the continuation of 2022’s HOTTEST quiz show trend: quiz show hosts folding their arms for publicity photos, and if you don’t believe me you HAD BETTER BELIEVE I’ve created a montage to get value from my Adobe Creative Cloud license.
Could this be AS BIG as #hostholdingaquestioncard?
In other news, if you’re bored here’s something that sounds unique and exciting that’s looking for an audience. Tickets SRO.
