August 2005

Bother's Bar will be a bit quiet for a few days whilst we catch up with all sorts of exciting things.

In the meantime, thanks once again to Robbie for the following link (I won't say what it is, but do play around and see what you find):

Your Moleage May Vary

Host Tom Williams is quite good fun, but rather lacks Grant Bowler's sense of authority. He's quite likable and covered his rather schoolboyish errors on the live show quite well (errors which those with a bit more live experience probably wouldn't have made, in truth).

The elimination quiz has changed quite dramatically in recent years, especially in the Aussie show. It began as twenty questions, dropped down to ten by series three, dropped down to six by series four and this year it's only five, so would feel a bit more of a crap shoot. This would appear to be deliberately designed so people can play along with the SMS competition (you text in the five letters representing the answers, if you get all five correct you get entered into a draw with $50,000 worth of prizes on offer). This means that all the questions are on the Mole's actions during the assignments and not on their life history. We're not convinced we approve. Still, though.

First impressions of Aussie Mole: it feels very modern, we wish it would make its writing slightly bigger, we think if they're going to make the eliminations live then the show should be on twice a week to keep the inertia up. We hope that the clearly bigger budget doesn't mean all the challenges are going to be inherently physical. Looking forward to episode 2, that is all.

We always thought calculating the Mole's fee should have been done along money lost with a detection penalty subtracted, and it's interesting to see that the Mole this yesr will be receiving everything the team don't win. I hope this still means they're getting lots of help from the producer.

Da-duh, da-duh, da-duh-duh-duh BOO!

Our copy of the Countdown board game arrived today. This was rather unexpected because we thought they wouldn't bother releasing it after Richard Whiteley's death, however released it they have. And it's fiddly.

Let's crack on to the bit you're interested in - no you don't get a fully working replica clock. Instead you have an electronic button which provides the Countdown clock sound effect, and very loud and clear it is too. They advertise a proper clock with moving hand, but we've yet to find anywhere selling it.

Letters and numbers come on playing card sized cards, and I highly recommend giving them a thorough shuffle. We thought we did, but we still managed to get four (count 'em) Ts in one selection, and Es were coming up so many times they were beginning to get cheers, as if they were a comedian retelling a classic reference to some students.

Numbers games work OK. They recommend shuffling the target number cards and then just dealing three out, but that would mean potentially getting a three figure number beginning with a 0, which isn't realistic enough. Nothing two minutes bodging won't sort, but still.

Conundrums work OK, puzzles on one side of the card with the answer hidden by another card. You wish it would be a bit bigger though.

The pencils aren't very sharp, and you don't get an awful lot of paper to write on frankly. Overall: 5/10 - it plays Countdown fine, but they've really put very little effort into it.

In other news: nobody has put The Mole up yet. :( We have discovered that the contestants fly between Sydney and New Zealand every week, and the eliminations are live. It's The Mole gone reality!

Reality Special!

Thanks to the excellent Robbie of the excellent International Mole Page, we've got some interesting news on some forthcoming Dutch reality shows which sound interesting.

First up, a new series of Expeditie Robinson (Survivor). Last time it was Belgium versus the Netherlands, this year it's under 30s against over 30s. Here's a link to the official trailer, it's two and a half minutes long. Somoene else has told me that the trailer hints at subtle and slight religious imagery, however I think I missed it. If someone else can spot it, please drop us a line.

" An all new show from the creators of Expeditie Robinson (who had to come up with something new now that Expeditie Robinson had been taken away from them by another channel. 18 contestants try to live the lives of an almost forgotten civilization. In the first season they're following the footsteps of the Moken, seanomads in Thailand. There are three levels in the game: main land, the island Koh Muk and the island Rang Nok. They have to play battles to get promoted to a higher level. Six people will go on to the higher level and receive a mysterious book of the lives of the Moken. However, the last pages of the book are missing.

The 12 who stayed behind can still play battles to get promoted to the next level, however the six who are at the island Koh Muk also risk getting degraded. A Life Wheel will select two people who hve to battle each other. The los er is degraded back to the mainland, but of course has learnt something of the lives of the Moken in the meantime, and the others at the mainland didn't. So knowledge is power in this game.
In the end, only three will make it to the last island where they have to try to unravel the mystery of Rang Nok.

And there's also going to be a new reality show in October, called Oberon, in which contestants go back to the Middle Ages and have to try to work themselves up from serf to King or Queen. There's no trailer of it yet though."

Oberon sounds a bit like something we heard was set to go up against Fort Boyard in France this year. Whether it's the same thing or not I don't know. (Sidefact: Fort Boyard has held up remarkably well against the onslaught of Lost, a show which we just can't get into, incidentally).

Of course, it should go without saying that the new series of Dutch Big Brother begins on John de Mol's Talpa network... this evening, we think (goes and checks)... yes, this evening from 10pm CET. You can watch it all for free, according to Digital Spy. It is perhaps interesting that they are using our BB6 Shattered logo for their version.

And Aussie Mole starts tomorrow! Rest assured we'll be scanning newsgroups and BitTorrent to see if it's downloadable anywhere. And if it is, we'll tell you.

Russ Landau

Finally, we had all of one person list some things they rated and hated. We need a few more than that.

It's French Survivor!

We were going to watch this last night, but it turns out we were too tired and turned it off after five minutes. We'll try again tonight.

The voiceover/host chap sounds pretty jolly.
The theme tune sounds a bit like Russ Landau's US tune.
It's made by Adventure Line who cannot do wrong.

It's in French. Can you still find backstabbing and double dealing convincing in a language you don't understand?
It's 65 minutes long. And that will be without advert breaks presumably. Will have the pace to carry it through?
Actually, Adventure Line did The Desert Forges, didn't they?

Join us for the result... tomorrow!

In other news, we heartily recommend little Timmy H's proposed musical pieces in the comments for the 18th August.

In a fascinating INteAcTIve twist, why not tell us what you rate and hate and why and we might bother updating the side thing tomorrow too. Bonus points for tenuous game relation.

What's this? Deal or No Deal UK to go out on Channel 4 afternoons? What can this mean?

Do you remember our brilliant "Give us first degree Burns - bring back The Krypton Factor!" non-campaign, which single-handedly almost got the show back onto primetime Saturday night BBC1 quite recently?

Another one of those "aren't US reality shows funny?" posts

And by that we mean funny peculiar and not funny ha-ha. Something I notcied ages ago is that boy, do American reality TV producers love their dramatic irony.

You can guarantee that if someone makes a throwaway comment and it is subtitled, you can be guaranteed that it will come back to haunt them in a situation later on in the episode. Similarly, if the producer makes a big point about showing people talking about something happening (like, say, four people announcing in the diary room that "if James won the golden power of veto, I would just die") you can be absolutely positively sure that that is going to happen.

This said, I was genuinely surprised that Kaysar (Iraqi ex-pat, critical of the US's war in Iraq) was America's Choice to go back into the Big Brother house on an 87% vote over Eric (New York fireman and all round good guy. And prize fighter). However we're pleased, because Kaysar is excellent viewing. Also, we quite like James, whom most of the house are plotting to get out by the backdoor method this week (for the uninitiated, the head of house selects two people to go up for eviction as pawns, when they do the veto competition, the winner takes themselves off the block and the HoH then puts their desired evictee up and there's nothing they can do about it). What are the odds that we'll get treated to a blue screen flashback of first HoH Rachel announcing that "this year there are games where nobody might win the power of veto", followed by a game that nobody will win so the strategy backfiring?

And they didn't even do the thing with the money going from the Bank of Big Brother into Anthony's account or even the thing where they'd do lingering camera shots with audio clips on top of them before turning the lights out at the end.

Makosi didn't come out too well in her interview, Eugene seemed awfully pleased just to be there, Anthony was highly arrogant.

One of them's a cheat, a crook, a villain, a spy, a saboteur...

No, it isn't Makosi with her crime of signing up to an agency that tells potential reality contestants when there are shows to go on, it's the new series of Aussie Mole!

The fifteen second trailer gives a quick glimpse of all the contestants and a few action shots of a man climbing a snow peaked mountain and someone trying attempt a handbrake turn in a speedboat. It certainly has a different feel to old Aussie Mole, we do hope they've kept the wonderful theme tune.

Big Brother betting: Going into the grand final tomorrow, and taking the money doesn't seem to have hurt Eugene one bit - in fact, Anthony's whinging has set him back considerably. Eugene goes into the final tomorrow with Betfair odds of 1.45, whilst Anthony has slipped way back to 3.2.

DISLAIMER: The bookies have been wrong before! Bez was at 6 when he won Celebrity Big Brother in January.

Absolutely the correct decision

Tonight Eugene is £50,000 richer after a night of typical Big Brother surprises and twists. And if it's one thing that modern Big Brother does quite well, it's forcing tough decisions upon the housemates.

First on the agenda was the fifth place contestant to get the boot (that was Craig, obviously). Later on, a housemate was asked to the diary room - Eugene went, expecting a second eviction. Instead he was offered £50,000 cash from the main prize fund. If he wanted it, it was his, but the main prize fund would be reduced £50k to £50k. Unknown to him, but revealed to the other housemates watching on a plasma screen, if he refused then the total prize would have doubled to £200k. After a minute of seeming indecision, a distraught Eugene did what we think any sane person would do - and took the money (justifying it by saying "I suppose at least they'll be two winners then," unaware there's a chance he might actually win the show), to the applause of the remaining three housemates.

How do the other housemates see it? Makosi insists she wouldn't have taken it but fully respects him for doing it, Kinga says she absolutely would have done it (and for two week's work that's hardly surprising), Anthony said he would have preferred a £200k pot.

This has played right into Anthony's hands regarding winning the show, Betfair now have him at odds of 1.78, whilst Eugene is slipping back to 2.4. Only two days left!

Actually, we were almost a bit annoyed. It worked tonight Endemol, but don't be under any impreession that whipping all the prize money away on the final night in next year's Big Brother as an idea will go down well.

We really wanted to do a side bar with Anthony's and Eugene's heads stuck on a set of scales, to represent Betfair's current odds. But we don't have time, so we'll announce that immediately post tonight's 10PM highlights show, featuring Anthony and Criag being hilarious in acting as past housemates and Eugene showing his annoyance with an apparently drunken Kinga (despite the fact they were secretly given non-alcoholic beverages), the winners odds have reversed, Anthony has retaken favourite status at 1.84, whilst Eugene (playing as Any Other) has slipped to 2.26.

We figure there's a real anti-Eugene winning groundswell building which is playing back into Anthony's favour - certainly in real life, but People Off OF The Internet rather favour Eugene's chances. Against Anthony, the news that Criag would be devastated if Eugene won is playing right into Eugene's hands.

This Friday will be fascinating, but don't forget a special eviction tomorrow night at eight,

Ooh! Eugene is now favourite to win Big Brother! His current odds are 1.82, to Anthony's 2.32. It's all that Craig's fault. Come back to see how this changed throughout the week!

Who is this man?

Well, his name is Tom Williams and watch out girls... heeeeee's single! (*) Thanks to a guy named Mark, we've learnt today that The Mole is coming back to Australian screens later this month after a two year hiatus on the Seven Network with Mr Williams being replacing the outgoing host Blue Heeler's Grant Bowler, who we know better as Brett Lee (**). Some things we've found out about Tom Williams:

For details on what The Mole is, we direct you to our wonderful feature. What we know of this new series is that there's $500,000 on the line and that it's being filmed in New Zealand, which might not sound like much of a trip but but most of the Aussie Mole series have been filmed actually in Australia (the fourth series was mostly filmed in New Caledonia).

We don't know when it starts, but when we know we'll be scouring the Torrent sites and binary newsgroups to try and find it.

In other other Aussie news, they're bringing back an old kids show called It's Academic to be hosted by Simon Reeve, who hosted a show we're going to write a feature on soon called Quizmaster.

We reckon now might be a good time for ITV to comission The Mole for its difficult Saturday evening slot. Provided they don't mess it up, itd be a sure grower, and would fit into their action mould nicely.

What's Jacques Antoine doing right now?

We don't know. But here he is doing an interview with Patrice Laffont on Laffont's last episode of Fort Boyard in 1999.

As you can see, he's not looking too bad for a man who died in a boating accident in 1991. Black and white, but certainly not dead. We'll get a colour version at a later date.

Mixing your metaphors

"I've got a brilliant idea!
"Go on then."
"Well, you know how you push things physically to the limit, and close things go down to the wire..."
"Y-e-e-es..."
"Well how about we do a new physical show called The Wire, where we 'push people to The Wire?'"
"Erm, why don't you just call it The Limit? That would actually make sense."
"Because there are no limits! We'll offer an infinite amount of prizemoney in our final round. And we'll get Jamie Theakston to host it. On Saturdays."
"Brialliant! Comission x 6."

In other news, Nadia off of Big Brother 5 is making a guest appearance on Aussie Big Brother 5 tomorrow night, as the show prepares to enter its final week.

Buy things from our very good friends at Amazon.co.uk!

Whilst we're on the subject of Things The Americans Do Differently (which we sort of were a while ago), Big Brother US on Tuesday seemed to be a product placement special. Of course, here in Britain we're not used to this at all (in our version you may have noticed that there are no products mentioned on anything and generic stickers are placed on each can and bottle).

This doesn't actually happen nearly as often as you'd possibly imagine but when it does happen you know about it. Prize sponsorship was always a part of recent Amazing Races, but there would always be one episode per race would be handed over to a task where teams are forced to use a product in a rather intrusive manner (Kodak easy printing digital cameras, usually) in a task and the contestants would always remark "wow that's so easy to use and brilliant!" to go with regular close-ups of the product in question. It's more funny than annoying really as an anomaly.

In Big Brother, not only was a birthday party thrown by K-Mart ("thanks K-Mart for providing the best birthday ever!") but three of the housema... sorry, houseguests won a premiere screening of a film in the Head of Household room (full marks to the team for the build-up incidentally involving hiding quarters around the house and getting housema... sorry, houseguests to put them in a gumball machine, followed by a large puzzly game involving correctly setting up a large marquee in the garden). This was not before a preview trailer in the living room (recreated in full on our screens) where the housema... sorry, houseguests oohing and aahing in the appropriate places, where everyone in Britain in an actual cinema would turn to each other and whisper "worst... film... ever."

We're really appreciating the effort gone into BB US's Summer of Secrets conceit. Nothing's ever a given and the contestants have to think of the implications of the clues they've been given. Which is quite interesting.

The Ironic Review

Do you know what we came across a couple of days ago and really really deserved to last more than two episodes?

Originally invented as a way of "doing" Big Brother for a mainstream Saturday night audience, Judgement Day saw five people vying to be the most popular with an audience of two hundred people who would vote off the most annoying after each round (after just saying who they are and where they're from, delving further into their interests, having a peek round their house, taking questions from the audience. To help with the final decision the final two players tried to attract the attention of the Decidalator (a cute fluffy dog)). Eliminated contestants were sent packing with bursts of song (not unlike in Remote Control - in fact Hit the Road, Jack was one of the tunes used).

The winner sat in a chair and got spun round the Wheel of Helmet, so called because wherever the helmet landed would be what the winner would play for - a car, a holiday or a year's salary. Then, on looks alone, they had to pick one of three pre-selected members of the audience and they'd win the car they drive, the last holiday they went on or the equivilent of their year's salary.

The game was fairly solid (if already been done before in Without Prejudice, really) but the real star of the show was Brian Conley. He often gets lumped in the patronizing "we know best" set of seventies and eighties conservative comedians and entertainers, but this is a bit unfair as he was always cheekier and more anarchic than that. Here, dealing with members of the public he's really in his element, whether that be embarassing the contestants ("I've been raahnd your 'ause!") or admonishing the audience for voting someone off (how could they do such a thing?).

In other news, it's been pointed out to us that there hasn't been a black winner of Big Brother. So there we are! We can still afford Makosi to win after all.

Go on, get it out of your system

We've decided that against all odds, we'd quite like Kinga to win. Why? Think about it - we've had a male winner, a female winner, a gay winner, a transexual winner... all that's missing is a winner who joined late in the series. Think of Kinga as a "none of the above" option.

Sure, it would be tremendously unfair on all the other housemates that have been there from the start. But once it's done it's done and next year Endemol will be forced to pick a more entertaining and varied bunch and should be left to get on with it, as there isn't much elsewhere to go. The evil thing is fine and just about works, but if we're being honest last year's worked because the combination of housemates was unbeliveably strong - it would have worked with or without the twists.

Whilst it's fair to say that this year has a number of housemates that would have fitted in well in any series (Makosi, Derek, Kemal at a push) too many of them were too young and samey. Big Brother 7 should therefore be brilliant.

Back to the Bar

August 2005

Your Moleage May Vary

Da-duh, da-duh, da-duh-duh-duh BOO!

Reality Special!

Russ Landau

It's French Survivor!

Another one of those "aren't US reality shows funny?" posts

And they didn't even do the thing with the money going from the Bank of Big Brother into Anthony's account or even the thing where they'd do lingering camera shots with audio clips on top of them before turning the lights out at the end.

One of them's a cheat, a crook, a villain, a spy, a saboteur...

Absolutely the correct decision

Who is this man?

What's Jacques Antoine doing right now?

Mixing your metaphors

Buy things from our very good friends at Amazon.co.uk!

The Ironic Review

Go on, get it out of your system