Originally Posted by F1Ken:
“Yes that would really suit her. Lee Mack and maybe Michael mcintyre? It would really be refreshing if we moved away from talent shows. When was the last big style mainstream sketch show on. French and Sunders probably.”
We've already had a show like this - and Lee Mack did it! His All Star Cast was only two years ago, which shows how memorable that was, it had sketches and stand-up and it was on a Saturday night.
It didn't do very well, though, cos it all seemed a bit confused, it was on post-watershed but it didn't seem to be doing much that they couldn't do in a pre-watershed slot. And it wasn't clear enough to the audience what it was about, it's all very well saying we should move away from formats but there has to be a hook to get people in. Ant and Dec in their book say one of the issues with Slap Bang was that it was just Ant and Dec doing stuff.
Originally Posted by iaindb:
“There are some people who think the tasks are now a waste of time because Lord Sugar chooses the winner based on the business plan they present in the final week.”
But you've got to do well in the tasks to make it to the final week and present the business plan! I don't think that's a major issue, people don't watch shows like this for the prize. Why should we care what the winner goes on and does in Amstrad, we don't get to see them?
Originally Posted by AlexiR:
“In the BBC's defence The Magicians was an infinitely better show second time around so creatively at least they were right to give that another go. Obviously it didn't work out commercially but I think it was worth a shot. I think with Britain's Brightest it'll be hard to abandon because there are so many obvious and relatively minor changes that they can make which can make the show so much better and whilst the numbers haven't been great they've hardly been terrible. I think it probably deserves another run albeit on a smaller scale. Perhaps instead of something like In It To Win It or Secret Fortune rather than as well as...”
I'd agree with that, the idea of Britain's Brightest itself was an alright one and most of the issues were with the execution - the unmatched head-to-heads, the weird scoring system, all that. If they find half a dozen decent games it would work, as you could say it could probably be reformatted as a lottery show and do tolerably well. I don't think The Magicians' revamp had anything to do with its failure, it was never really going to catch on however they did it. I don't think people are very interested in magic shows.
Originally Posted by guestofseth:
“There's four Sundays between Ripper Street finishing and Easter, not enough time for both Shetland and Case Histories.”
Why do they need to get stuff finished for Easter?
Originally Posted by
Dancc:
“By the way, what happened to MOTD2 yesterday? I'd have thought United perhaps putting the title race to bed might have done a little better than that. Beaten by a repeat of Die Hard! 
”
Originally Posted by Dancc:
“It's quite a bad number IMO. Both of the games featured had potentially massive implications for either end of the table. I'm puzzled as to why this would be a turnoff for any football fan, or why they'd choose a film awards show or film repeat instead.”
I don't think yesterday was that pivotal, Man U are miles ahead but they certainly haven't won the title yet and beating Everton at home is hardly big news, that happens most seasons. And apart from Villa fans, people aren't bothered about whether Villa go down yet, they'll take an interest in that towards the end of the season when the matches have obvious consequences. We'll decide in May whether those matches actually mattered.
And it was on earlier than usual last night so presumably some people will have forgotten it was on or expected it to follow the news as usual. And it had tougher competition from the BAFTAs than it would from whatever they normally show opposite it on BBC2, like a Mock The Week repeat.
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