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September 200529th September 2005 We watched the first episode of The Amazing Race: Family Edition this morning. Despite some initial misgivings, we gave in and enjoyed it - it's just The Amazing Race with more shouting.
But kids are, you know, kids and might possibly prove a liability in the long term. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. This bit with the brakes not working was a bit scary though. Everyone survived. 27th September 2005 Slow News Update
24th September 2005 Not much to report at the moment, so I'd just like to take a second to announce how great Meteos is on the Nintendo DS. Meteos on the Nintendo DS is great. Ant and Dec do Take Your Pick this evening - probably the weakest of the seven shows being used to be honest. But it's The Golden Shot next week, which should be ace. 22nd September 2005 Big Brother's watching me, and I don't really mind
As someone who hasn't really watched US BB before this year, I will be honest and say that I quite enjoyed it on the whole, probably more so than Survivor: Palau, for example. The final was a bit limp to be honest, featuring a surprising lack of tension given that the final vote went down to the wire. We congratulate Maggie on winning, although we commiserate Ivette as being the one who provided more entertainment over the eleven-and-a-half weeks. We would have rather Janelle won it (as would have most of America if the America's Choice polls were anything to do with it) being bright and bubbly and intelligent and bitchy but there you are. We wonder again, given the continued popularity of American Idol, perhaps next year the US may revert back to the true Big Brother telephone vote formula? That's if they'll even be a next year, of course. In other news: I've decided on what the next Happy Hour competition is going to be. If you're talented, watch this space. *Does infamous hand movement* 19th September 2005 Dear Everyone,Family Fortunes isn't very good. Really. Please stop encouraging them. Love! 18th September 2005 Quite enjoyed Ant and Dec's Gameshow Marathon last night. It's a bit of a shame that after going to so much trouble recreating the Crowther era of the show, they stick loads of Brucie era anachronisms in. And we could do without the 15 minute preamble where some talking heads remember the show as well. They have to watch they aren't becoming too establishment those two, then their time might be up. Bratain's Next Top Lookalikes!This isn't as good as I was expecting I'm afraid. Watching them on the catwalk, the lookalike appeal leapt out. In pictures, it's not quite so easy.
17th September 2005 We're hearing reports that Des Lynam has been chosen to front Countdown in a new series apparently starting October 10th. We think this is a great choice with regards to the target audience - older people like him, and he has a kind of ironic student appeal. It will be very interesting to see how he copes with the show. Good luck! Survivor of the fittestWe downloaded the first episode of Survivor: Guatemala last night but appears to mess up half way through. Boo! It's a big shame, because they went straight into a big reward challenge - an 11 mile trek through the jungle to some ancient Mayan temples which the tribes will call home for the next few weeks. The first team to get there won the better camp complete with flint to make fire, the second team to arrive gets the less good camp and nothing to make fire with. Whilst we weren't able to watch the entire episode, we gathered that the winning tribe knackered themselves so much getting the better camp that they're in quite a bad way and lost the first immunity challenge (where one of their own got injured and kicked out). It's a nice setting and some nice opening ideas, we hope this series doesn't get too boring.
Quite interesting, but the title sequence isn't as good as the Belgian/Dutch Expeditie Robinson, so we'll probably stick to that. In other news: it's the Big Brother US final on Tuesday, and Ant and Dec's The Price is Right this evening. Brain's Next Top Model lookalikes tomorrow! 14th September 2005 We accidentally caught the last twenty minutes of Living TV's (Broadcast Channel of the Year, and don't you forget that) exciting British non-sensation Britain's Next Top Model. It wasn't terribly good to be honest, but it gives us enough ammunition for a new round of Minor Reality Celebrity Lookalikes, which we'll get round to in the next few days. Hurrah! 13th September 2005 Sing along if you know the words (mp3, 320k)
I like a neighbourhood that's cosy as a neighbour I'm quite nosy, I've been new New York, London, Paris but I'm not a bit embarrassed You can get to know each other, there's so much to discover if you're not shy! X, where X is the name of the town featured in that week's episode, Right, sorry for the poor quality sound (it's Johnny singing) and picture, this is of course Johnny Vaughan's US non-sensation My Kind of Town, a show made by Brits for Brits (it is really) about Americans shown in prime-time America, or at least the first four were before it was cancelled. And having watched an episode, I think this is a bit of a shame, it certainly has high production values and would fit in quite well on a Saturday night on the BBC I reckon. Certainly more so than Passprt to Paradise. It in temrs of tone and feel, the nearest comparison is, I think, Don't Forget Your Toothbrush in it's UK incarnation. It shares Will MacDonald as a producer (also prodiced by Michael Davies of US Millionaire fame), it also shares a lively fun audience (200 people shipped in from the featured small town), host call and audience response (Where are you all from? "MOUNT HOBEN!") technique, and a show mainly made up of embarrassing people who reveal certain things on their forms and then giving them a really great prize for being a good sport ("We're a wish fulfillment show"). It's a feel good kinda show. Vaughan is in his element in this style of people show format, and the British thing of elevating and revering the small and insignificant (something which Vaughan has pretty much based his whole career on) suits him down to the ground - you can think of it as an hour long version of Join Our Club off of The Big Breakfast if you like. We suspect one of the main reasons this didn't work in the US is that this style doesn't really travel. Interestingly (or perhaps not), Extreme Party Games (something that Vaughan bought with him on his very first week as a stand-in on TBB) seem to have found a permanent home here. On the downside, Name Your Neighbours (where one selected townie has to name six randomly chosen people appearing in the show in order to win a nice prize for everyone in the town) certainly isn't the killer end-game they'd hope for. Overall though, actually not too bad. Deserves more than four episodes at least. 12th September 2005 We won the Ashes! Proper update later, but for the moment I'd like to draw your attention to a comment left on the Deal or No Deal page - £250,000 top prize! Very interesting, thanks Matt. A Prendre du a Laisser (official site) 11th September 2005 The XXX FactorSo, did anyone see The X Factor last night? The one with glamour model Michelle Thorne? Well, "glamour model" might be understating it a bit given the links some of our barstaff were sent this morning. Proles, there. Although the idea of "Titney Spheres" made us giggle. It turns out she wrote and directed that, so she probably doesn't need the money. We spent the other half of this morning coming up with hilarious "Thorne in my side" style comedy porn titles. This being a family page, we suggest you don't. 10th September 2005 There's a new feature on Dog Eat Dog - US style in the Weekend Specials. It includes gratuitous pictures of women (and men) in swimming costumes. Don't forget that if you want to enter Bother's Bargain Hunt, you have to get your entry in by tomorrow at 6PM. If you want to join the Happy Hour mailing list, the link to do so is here. 8th September 2005 Shoot your mouth offIt's been a bit quiet, sorry. But hey! There's a feature on US Dog Eat Dog coming up on Saturday, and we're hoping to write something on My Kind of Town with Johnny Vaughan at the weekend too. And we're bound to write a tirade about how rubbish Challenge TV has become at some point within the next week too. In the meantime, one of the backroom staff sounds a bit like Dave Benson Phillips off of Get Your Own Back when he gets a bit exasperated. Do you know someone who sounds a little bit like an actual real gameshow host? Why not record it and send it in? There might be a prize for the best one. Or something. 5th September 2005 Thought BoyardThanks. Anyway, we've been watching the cream of this year's (I refuse to go all American and use "season's") Fort Boyard crop, and it's largely excellent, particularly with what they're doing at night. Prisoners are kept underground again, but not in the cells of animal based scare torture like last time. No! Now they're cooped up in rather uncomfortable alcoves. When the night comes, once again the rest of the team must earn the right to release them. This year, there's a three figure combination hidden amongst the flooded caverns underneath the fort. One person in swimming gear must attempt to find the three figure combination and communicate it to the rest of the team watching on a monitor. If they do this in two minutes, releasing the crystal, then they are fine and the team get the full four duela against the Maitres des Tenebres. However, after two minutes, a lurking Maitre upends a large slender thirty second sand timer with a rather loud crash - if it runs its course, the team lose a dueling opportunity, and the timer is upended once again - repeat until the team have the crystal or they run out of duels. It's rather more exciting and frenetic than the night tests of previous years. Once inside, the contestants pull a lever to open a door and release the prisoner. The prisoner's only way out is through the (da-da-da-duh) Corridors of Fear (a small crawl corridor covered in rats, an obstacle laiden room invaded by snakes and a dignity sapping unexpected see-saw into some foam bricks). Get through that... and they end up behind a barred door guarded by Monseur LaBouille the jailer. After all the duels have taken place, the prisoners are released... into another holding cell. If the team have won enough duels to release all the prisoners then everyone is happy, they can all go and sleep in a comfortable bed that evening (more often than not, the night sequence has ended in a pillow fight in the living quarters). If not, however, then the team must select who to release and take with them into the important adventures and treasure day, and who (apparently) has spend the nght and the rest of the game in their small alcove. Awww. If they win more duels then prisoners, they can exchange the other wins for 15 seconds extra in the treasure room. Result! (We're So Good At Telly Idea: Seeing as they film all the episodes on consecutive days, wouldn't it be a brilliant idea if in next series (and the ratings have held up and even saw a significant rise when cyclist Richard Virenque was a captain so we're assuming a series 17) prisoners who don't escape are secretly offered another day's appearence fee and the next team who came along could try and them to their team as a seventh pair of hands? This would be brilliant! We would assume that losing prisoners don't really have to spend all night in their uncomfortable cell, in the same way that people who used to get sacrificed to the oubliette didn't really spend half an hour in a dank hole) Our only real problem with this is that whilst we'd stop short of shouting "fix!", producers are, how do we put this, imposing conditions that are conducive to the taking of prisoners. The difficult "trapping" games (games where you need the key to get out of the cell) that tend to come around the 15 minutes left mark have noticeably less time in their clepsydres then you'd expect them to have normally. This comes in direct contrast to several years ago, where they always seemed to "forget" to lock people in and wouldn't show you how much time was ever left. Hmm. Star TrekWe can't make it, but if you've nothing to do in a fortnight's time, why not see regular punter Clay Zambo's critically acclaimed comedy play about Star Trek? In other news, you'll notice there's a little thing on the side there for talking about Aussie Mole. If you want to discuss theories, you can do it there. If you don't want it spoilt, don't click! Easy. 4th September 2005 Bother's Bargain Hunt is go! go! go! 3rd September 2005 Sorry, we're still a tad busy with all sorts of things (converting Fort Boyard 2005 mainly, watch out for a feature update soon). Normal service will resume next week. And don't forget, Bother's Bargain Hunt begins tomorrow! |
Some of the families have bought younger kids to travel with them. This actually makes for some quite interesting dilemmas. This week's detour was a choice between "build it" (put together a waterwheel - easy but time consuming, apparently) or "buggy it" (put two people inside a cart and then the other two push and pull it a mile-and-a-half, something strong teams could do quickly, but in reality seemed to take more time than the waterwheel building). Funnily enough, the team that put their kids in the cart had a much easier time of it then people hauling two adults.
Ant and Dec Do Take Your Pick was predictably several notches less good than The Price is Right the week previous. We can blame that on a weak game rather than the lads themselves though - Take Your Pick, whilst iconic with its gong and "take the money or open the box" conceit, rather loses its appeal when played with celebs who don't really care either way what gets won or not. And having the car in the same box as the key to Box 13 felt a bit cheap tension-wise. We're fascinated to see how they're going to do Bullseye and Play Your Cards Right for the semi finals, as both of these shows used couples (apart from really early PYCR, obviously). And Bullseye uses three couples! I predict a chance for the losing heat players to make a surprise reappearance.
So Big Brother US limps in to its conclusion. Most reality shows finish on a high, as people tune in in their droves to see who wins the big prize. BB finished on some of its lowest ratings yet.
In other news, we also saw the start of Swedish Expedition Robinson. Survivor in a foreign language doesn't work brilliantly we find (because when you can't follow what's happening, you can only really get enjoyment from the challenges and twists and not the politicking) but first episodes are usually worth a watch because they're more action packed. This year, the potential Robinsons began as chain gang slaves in a race to the beach to get the key to unlock the shackles. The losers were given a file to break the chains. Then the usual building of shelters, and an immunity challenge based on that challenge from World's Strongest Man where they have to pull on ropes to keep poles up, whilst the opposition tried to make them heavier so as to make it more difficult.
"I like the kind of place where you know everybody's face,