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October 2005

31st October 2005

Channel 4 afternoons

When I eat a roast on a Sunday, I tend to eat all the vegetables first before moving on to the more interesting things like yorkshire pudding and meat. With this in mind, let's say a quick word or two about the vegetables before moving on to the meat.

Des Lynam (or Desmond Lynam to give him the proper name he was credited as during the credits) was fine hosting Countdown. When he stops being quite so apologetic for not being Richard Whiteley, I predict he'll settle into the role quite well - he's certainly taken the show back to a new level of laid back. Carol's taking a lot of the lead, which at the moment seems fair enough.

Now, Deal or No Deal - it's had a largely positive response over the internet but also it has its detractors. We must confess ourselves only having seen big money evening versions of the show (Australian, original Dutch (which as Travis P helpully points out, you'll be able to watch on the Internet from Talpa next weekend), Belgian. Mexican.) and having only seen pictures and websites of the European versions this particular daily version of the show takes its cue from (France, Spain, Italy). With this in mind. We'll assume you all know basically how it works and take a look at the criticisms that have been levelled at it thus far. And whilst we have the big money versions to compare it to, we must also take it on itsa own merits.

• It's just a guessing game isn't it?
  Guilty M'lud.
• But there are no questions in it!
  We've always been baffled by the idea that this show loses something when it loses it's basic Q and A format to select a player. The questions I've seen were all uniformly a bit easy and an absurdly pointless addition to the short format show. Three questions won't be missed. When you have up to 500 people to select a contestant from then a big quiz seems like a more reasonable idea. Besides, everyone on the podiums here is going to get a go anyway so "random" selection is as good a way as any.
• The music is a bit rubbish.
  I agree with this actually. We seem to have a light comedy based title tune and then ambient mood music which is so absurdly low key it might as well not be there. There's a point where background music becomes obtrusive, this may as well not be there. And we're not entirely sure the light and bouncy theme fits the mood of the show well, although it is very daytime.
• You could fit this down to thirty minutes really easily.
  Yes you could. However I didn't feel the show dragged or outstayed it's welcome at all which isn't bad going considering how little there is to the concept. To be honest I was actually expecting much more banter between Noel and the podium contestants but in fact the time was taken up by Noel playing Devil's Advocate with the player.
• Atmosphere.
  Yes this was a bit wierd. Having seen so many pictures of the various European versions, I was expecting quite a light set and a rather celebratory feel to the proceedings and a lively audience. Instead we've got a back of a warehouse meets Star Trek. I think it improved immensely as the audience got a better feel for the show. Seeing as three were being filmed a day, and assuming they've got the same audience for several recordings, they should be properly warmed up for tomorrow's episode.
• Rule changes.
  When we first heard 22 boxes, we had no idea whatsoever as to how the show would be structured. What we've got is 5, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, final choice. This makes the final couple of offers very real risks - if your luck goes bad towards the end there's no get-out point to take a reasonable deal - the producer has a very real advantage. Jury is out at the moment. Not offering a "guess the box value bonus"? I'm ambivilent, everyone is going to get a go anyway and it's not as if the odds are ever in their favour. Again, I'm surprised by the lack of podium interaction. I don't see how the money tree is particularly strange. I actually think it's rather more generous than many versions.
• Staying power
  This is the biggie. Can it sustain an audience for six days a week? Is it a show we're all going to get bored of? Ask us again in three weeks. Foreign versions seem to hold up pretty well though, and I think that an afternoon slot for this version of the format is quite good for it - it's 4:15, it's time to give away lots of money!
• I'll tape it and fast forward to the last ten minutes
  To be honest, if you're more interested in the result than the journey then the show was never going to appeal to you anyway.
• What if they bail out after the first deal?
  They won't unless they're very stupid. Nevertheless, auditionees were apparently being told they'd get their money and throw the show out.
• Noel.
  Very strange to begin with, but I think with a few more shows experience he'll fit in fine. A bit like our good friend Desmond up there somewhere.

I might have had a bit more to say on the matter but I've forgotten it now. My gut feeling is that Glenn Hugill is on to a sleeper hit. It's another example of something that Endemol do quite well - simple formats done adequately or higher.

As ever, I'm fascinated by your fascinating opinions so please feel free to leave some.

30th October 2005

Ant and Dec's Family Fortunes

Given how much I despise the amount of love that everyone has for Family Fortunes (no Jeremy, it isn't "the greatest format ever") I have to concede that last night's Gameshow Marathon finale worked really well, and didn't feel as though it was padding for time like some of the other ones.

There were some weirdly low numbers coming up during Double Money though - the first round we did a double take the points were so low. "They've not even bothered doubling the money, even though they've called it 'Double Money'!" we thought. However, since all the answers for the second round of it added up to well over 100, it looks like they've deliberately picked questions which had a wide variety of responses. However, in missing out on answers worth at least 150 points, it clearly wasn't realistic enough.

Here then is the Gameshow Marathon Order of Merit:

• The Price is Right
• Family Fortunes
• The Golden Shot
• Play Your Cards Right
• Sale of the Century
• Bullseye
• Take Your Pick

Bullseye was the one that everyone was looking forward to, and yet they managed to make it as tedious as anything somehow.

Dealer's choice

Well done to Bother's Bar regular Travis P for pointing out the one aspect of Deal or No Deal that no-one saw coming - it's also going out on Saturdays! It will be interesting to see if that gets more viewers.

The last show to go out six days a week was, of course, I'm the Answer which was, of course, absolutely rubbish.

27th October 2005

And The Mole IS...

A bit rushed actually. As is this graph of The Aussie Mole 5's relative greatness to The Mole as a whole.

As you might be able to work out, the black line represents greatness over time of an average series of The Mole. The pink line represents what Aussie Mole 5 was a bit like. Except really the black line should be a bit steeper or the purple line should be bought down a bit. Shut up, I've got a headache.

25th October 2005

More Expeditie Robinson twists.

Oh my God, Expeditie Robinson is literally amazing. Suck on this, Survivor:

• At the merge, everyone is given an equal amount of voting slips - enough for one for every elimination left..
• Can you see what's coming? Yes! If you want, you can vote multiple times at each tribal council! You must vote for the same person each "go" though.
• Or indeed not at all.
• But your slips have to last the rest of your stay on the island. Run out early and you are powerless.
• But if you win immunity you get to go to Winner's Island. Whilst on Winner's Island, you don't go to tribal council.
• And you get to stay there until one of the new immunity winners chooses to send you back over your rival who is also there.
• Think of the voting power this could buy you later on!
• Amazing.

23rd October 2005

That 19th Expeditie Robinson contestant in full...

His name is Chico. He's a monkey.

Altogether now: aaaaaaaaah.

He's only joined in halfway through though, which is clearly cheating.

Reality UPDATE!

I think it's about time we did some sort of reality show editorial on the Big Five shows that seem to be on at the moment.

The X Factor: The Saturday night shows are proving to be highly entertaining. Not for the singing, but for the fact that Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh seem determined to hate each other ("I bet you can't even name the members of your own band!" "We don't have time for that..."). A bit like last year really.

Aussie Mole: I'm not entirely sure how many people this is pulling in every week, but messageboards seem to be quite negative about it. I think this is a shame. Despite the questionable changes to the format (the live elimination which only has five questions in it, dragging everything out over ten weeks to make it a bit "reality", and if the episode on last week was anything to go by, taking challenges they've done once before and making them less good) in the main it's been highly entertaining with some really excellent challenges, such as the blind off-roading. It's the final this week and all the cheating is going to get revealed.

The Amazing Race 8: Family Edition: Hasn't really got out of first gear yet, to be honest. The first four episodes have been like a road trip across America, and so far they haven't really done anything interesting with the four people to a team dynamic. Also a rather unforgivable wait-your-turn Roadblock followed directly to a pitstop, which is a bit cheap. Come on guys! AR7 was easily up with AR5 as cracking pieces of television.

Survivor: Above average season so far with the inclusion of some proper characters (namely a loud and slightly obnoxious New York doorman and an ex-NFL Quarterback determined to go unnoticed despite the fact that one of the other contestants was a proefessional sports commentator). No real unexpected twists this year yet (there's already been a tribe shuffle and a double elimination - where can they go from here?). And there probably won't be any.

Expeditie Robinson: I don't think I can go on about this show nearly enough. I really wish the Americans would take some of its more interesting ideas on board, and you can watch it all here. In fact there are so many twists and turns I've had to get some explanations from from friend of the Bar Robbie off the International Mole Page. This year in the Dutch/Belgian Expedition Robinson variant, the two tribes were split along age lines - under thrity and over 40. The opening task was to hang from a cross for as long as possible. The winner won a "vote neutraliser", the team that the first person to fall came from had to vote someone off before they even got to the island. This person went and joined two thirty-odd year olds in a secret cave. A few episodes later, it's time for a tribal shake-up with the leaders being the two thirty year-olds, who had to decide who they wanted based on a photograph of each player left. Our leaders were each given immunity up to the merge and a log cabin to sleep in. This, understandably, puts some people out, so people could challenge the leader to leadership by striking a gong and playing a game - the leader and challenger place their hands on a box with a shell in the middle and a candle is lit. The contestants must wait for the candle to go out and then slam their hands on to the shell - the first person to do this wins, unless the candle hadn't gone out in that case they lose. If the leader loses, they lose their leadership, but if the challenger loses then all votes cast for them at tribal council count double.

At this point I learn from Robbie that alliances are seriously frowned upon (not illegal, but won't endear you to anyone) in this version. "You'd be Satan himself if you suggested anything like that." This is a very interesting cultural difference from the American show, especially as I thought that the politics was inherently important. Apparently not!

At the merge there was a race - the teams boat out to another island and on that island a feast had been laid on. But the catch was there was one less chair than there were players, so players had to decide when to bail out the boat and swim for the island, knowing that the person who didn't get a seat is apparently off the expedition.

More recentrly, people who win immunity challenges ge tto pack their stuff and head off for Winner's Island - the overall aim, as the final two will come from there. The problem seems to be that there is only room for two people on there, so when a third person comes and joins somebody will have to go back. Also on the island is an ugly yet utterly cute little monkey who likes to nick everyone's food. Aaaah! Also, people who come last in the immunity challenges get a vote automatically cast against them at council as punishment.

This is all very interesting.

22nd October 2005

Ant and Dec this evening

I predict Ant and Dec will rather tediously attempt to give away a speedboat this evening during Bullseye.

Post show edit: Well that was massively disappointing, frankly.

20th October 2005

Now is as good a time as any to say some things about last Saturday's Ant and Dec do Play Your Cards Right. Namely it was OK, but probably would have been a bit better if they'd played some calming music to the audience beforehand. Panpipe Moods, for example. There was, I think, just a little bit too much playing up to the audience by Voderman and Kensit which slowed everything down to a bit of a crawl. And during the tie-break, they played with five cards rather than three. Duh, I thought they were trying to be accurate. Still, nice to see they were using the old eighties theme which was always slightly superior to the modern Laurie Holloway composition. Celebs played with a chum they had bought along.

Jim Bowen made an impromptu appearance. I wonder if this means he'll actually come along and host Bullseye? They could have three teams of Vernon and friend, William and chum and the third team of Ant and Dec. That, actually, might be brilliant.

Looks like official confirmation of Channel 4 afternoons according to people in that little comment box below. 3:30 for Countdown, 4:15 for Deal or No Deal, 5:00 Richard and Judy. We can't help but feel that 4:15 is a bit too early for Deal or No Deal to be honest. Apparently Noel is having a few teething troubles in early filming according to a report in todays Mirror. We shall see.

17th October 2005

Deal or No Deal

Right, there's been a press release, let's calibrate what we know:

• Noel Edmonds is definitely hosting.
• There will be 22 boxes. This is, as Ryan points out, exactly like the French show. What might be a bit different is that in the French show, each contestant represents a region. Currently there are no such guarantees here.
• The bottom prize is a penny, the top prize is £250,000.
• The bank will be known as "The Dealer". Which is fair enough.
• It's going out after Countdown. But we're not sure if that means it's going out at 4PM or 5PM. Will it replace Richard and Judy?
• We are 60% sure it's going to be an hour long, assuming there's going to be a lot of room for banter. This being said, it could fit a half hour slot quite easily.
• We're confident of a 31st October start. But we haven't seen anything written down yet.
• Everyone who goes will get a chance to play. How this is going to work towards the end of the series remains to be seen. We don't know how many episodes have been commissioned - it could conceiveably go on indefinitely.

Going Commando

Channel Five have stopped doing reality because it's a bit naff. Thank goodness then, that the forthcoming Commando VIP (Wednesday, 8PM) wherein some celebrities get shouted at by army instructors and take on apparently exciting missions is being classed as a documentary with action-adventure overtones, eh? Anyway, Nigel Benn, Steve Collins, Lee Latchford Evans, Ryan Dunn, Heather Peace and Jason Cowan from Big Brother 5 are your competitors.

15th October 2005

New feature!

We've written up the entire episode of the Crystal Maze episode of Maid Marian, and we've done it here.

11th October 2005

Take the money or open the Crinkly Bottom.

It's been a day of exciting reveals. Daniel Craig (who?) is the new James Bond. And now someone's let slip that our good friend Noel Edmonds is to be the host of Channel 4's Deal or No Deal. Excellent! We're proper excited now.

The first day of recording seems to be October 24th, and contestants may be needed for up to a whole month, on the proviso that they'll definitely get a shot at the £250,000 top prize.

Other things we've learnt is that the show is set to go out at 5PM "after Countdown" which suggests Countdown is moving back post four o' clock. Where will Richard and Judy fit into this? We'll find out soon enough.

Des Lynam's first episode of Countdown goes out on October 31st. We reckon DOND will follow immediately after. What an exciting time for Channel 4 afternoons!

Box of Trivia

Whilst browsing GameShowNewsNet as we occasionally do, we noticed a link to something called Trivia Box, which seems to be a place to gamble money away based on your quiz knowledge. If you don't fancy gambling cash, you can try the games for free. They're mildly diverting.

10th October 2005

Has anyone noticed how ubiquitous Peter Dickson is these days?

We're due a bit of an Ant and Dec Gameshow Catch-up right now I think. Last week was The Golden Shot which has been the best in the series so far, mainly because it was originally quite a strong format - the celebs could still mess around (as Ruby Wax frequently did) but they still had to concentrate quite hard when playing the game. The only real downer is that nobody figured digital delay into the live end game (or they did and it was designed to be as unwinnable as possible). The Golden Shot still has a really ace theme, doesn't it?

We were expecting Sale of the Century to be a closer in quality to Take Your Pick. However, by instigating a "each contestant MUST buy one item" rule, the spirit of the original lived on. Ant and Dec only got through about half as many questions as Nicholas Parsons would have got through, and the questions were much easier and celebrity based, but it was still a fun and diverting show. Entertaining as she is, we're quite glad Ruby Wax is out now. Eamonn Holmes and Ruby each win £5,000 for their chosen charities.

Next week Carol Vorderman plays Patsy Kensit at Play Your Cards Right, and the following week William Roache plays Vernon Kaye at Bullseye. Seeing as these shows have differing amounts of players, we don't know how they're going to work it. We're willing to bet money on super secret celebrity partners though.

9th October 2005

Bother's Bargain Hunt crashes to its rather tedious conclusion!

It's time to find out if you're a winner! Quickly now.

Look out for Bother's 3-2-1. Coming soon!

8th October 2005

Test the English Nation

Test: here.

For the record, 48/70 which breaks down into:

Comprehension - 8/11
Spelling and Comprehension - 12/14
Language - 9/14
Grammar - 14/16
Words - 5/15

Pity there's no IQ test this year. Would anyone here care to admit their marks?

7th October 2005

Hurrah!

Good news for people who are lucky enough to "be" on UKNova. Someone is currently seeding series four of Maid Marian and her Merry Men. This is great news in itself, but it's even greater because according to UKGS columnist and good egg Iain Weaver, this is the series which dedicates half an episode to a Crystal Maze parody.

The file is 1.12GB (which is a lot) and if you're not a UK Nova member there's no guarantee you'll be able to download it (you'll also need BitTorrent). But don't worry if that's too much for you, we've decided that next week's exciting special feature will be a transcription of the entire episode with pictures for you - the reader. Oh goody! I really enjoy doing transcriptions.

Frustration

I've just watched the new episode of Aussie Mole. Do you realise how frustrating it is not being able to write about it for fear of spoiling it for others? Everything is really coming together now. This week's is a cracker.

5th October 2005

It's spelling week on BBC1!

With Test the Nation: Know Your English on Saturday and more importantly, Eamonn Holmes presents a new run of Star Spell all next week! Don't worry fans of not-celebrities, a proper run of Hard Spell is apparently in the works.

Here's the website with the list of contestants. We're putting large amounts of money on Jennie Bond or Steve Ryder winning.

4th October 2005

We're not dead.

• Well, Bother's Bargain Hunt looks like being quite the failure as it turns out. Still, we look onward for ideas for our next competition. We had our hearts set on a Bother's Bar one-off remake of 3-2-1, with proper talent, rhymes, the bin and everything. But we've also been toying with the idea of a beauty/personality contest in a similar vein to Miss World. We'll keep you posted. And we urge you to drop Your Sinclair casually into conversation in the hope that it will go for loads.
• Messageboards are suggesting that the final format for Deal or No Deal UK has yet to be finalised. The original intention was to film a load of episodes with the same people over a couple of days so that lots of people get a chance. They now aren't ruling out the possibility of 26 people playing in 26 shows over 26 days of filming, like in the French show. Dare you put your life on hold for a month for a possible 50p payout? And yet it's exactly this sort of dilemma which might make DOND feel rather more tense and exciting than originally planned.
• Lots of high up staff changes at France 2. I hope this doesn't mean Fort Boyard gets the axe...

2nd October 2005

Remember, remember the, er, second of October.

There really is Not An Awful Lot happening at the moment is there?

We've put our final item up for bids in our exciting Bother's Bargain Hunt experiment-cum-competition. We suggest you casually drop Your Sinclair into polite conversation in the vain hope that they might go looking for a copy on eBay (YS does tend to sell and the reason I've saved it until last is not by accident).

We'll do a mini review of Ant and Dec's Golden Shot tomorrow when we've downloaded it from UK Nova so we can take a picture.

In other news, we've heard that Glenn Hugill from Coronation Street is producing the forthcoming Deal or No Deal. So there we are.

Also in other news, after a shaky start, Aussie Mole is really hitting it's stride. We wish they'd remember a simpler age where winning immunity meant more of a sense of betraying the team rather than just giving them away like hot cakes as they do now. We blame the Americans.