And the winner is? No one you know... or care about
Let the games begin,’ declared the continuity announcer before the first episode of ITV’s big series of the week: a five-night sporting competition between 12 celebrities – many of whose names will perhaps have sent the audience straight to Google. As it turned out, though, we had to wait quite a long time until The Games did.
Say what you like about the programme (and I’m going to), you certainly can’t accuse it of underselling itself. Middle-aged viewers might remember that when Sky started broadcasting Premier League football, it swathed every match, however unglamorous, in layers of comically desperate American razzmatazz.
The same also happened here, as a modest crowd in Crystal Palace, London, watched a lengthy opening sequence of fireworks, cheerleaders, acrobats and marching bands. The atmosphere, we were duly assured, was ‘electric’.
It was then time to meet the assorted soap stars, influencers, Love Island participants and so on who make up the contestants: a process that proved rather shorter than meeting the presenters (Freddie Flintoff and Holly Willoughby), the pundits (Tyson Fury, Denise Lewis and er, Yung Filly), the commentators (Simon Brotherton and Chris Kamara) and the trackside reporter (Alex Scott).
All spent a good while exchanging ‘bantz’ and repeatedly saying how excited they were.
Eventually, almost 20 minutes in, we got some actual sport: the women’s 100m hurdles. Thirty seconds later, however, that was over and it was back to the bantz – and to perhaps the most hard-fought event of the lot: the one between the presenters and pundits as to who could use the word ‘incredible!’ the most. (Sadly, try as they might, nobody was a match for the old pro, Holly.)
But by now, and despite the best efforts of all concerned, the main problem with The Games was becoming clear – it was boring. There are, after all, only so many times that you can be fascinated to hear a celeb explaining how they’re looking to get out of their ‘comfort zone’ (approximately zero).
In the circumstances, a definite highlight of the episode came when Love Island’s Olivia Attwood abandoned all cliches to say why she was nervous about the synchronised diving event – or the ‘falling together into a pool’ event, as it could also have been called. ‘I’ve got 20 new veneers, fresh Botox and fake t**s,’ she dolefully pointed out, adding that ‘These are my second pair’.
In its defence, by night two the programme did appear to realise that changes were necessary. As the main setting moved to the London Aquatics Centre – a venue scrupulously described as ‘iconic’ every time it was mentioned – the bantz was definitely reduced and the sport increased. Suddenly, there were extended scenes of the celebs training and of various solemn sporting types emphasising the need to ‘stay focused’. We even got to know some of the contestants, although still not well enough to let us care who wins.
The trouble was that none of these revisions made the result any less dull – or the commentators’ attempts to make the events seem thrilling any less doomed. In fact, the louder they bellowed things like ‘OLIVIA HAS WON THE BREASTSTROKE!’ the more obvious it felt how little that mattered.
I should say that, deadlines being what they are, I’ve only seen two episodes of The Games before writing this. Then again, the show being what it is, I suspect I’ll still only have seen two by the time you read it. On a happier note, this week saw the return of DNA Family Secrets, the reliably touching series where, in a strange twist, people who aren’t even famous get to find out about their relatives.
The main presenter is Stacey Dooley, who manages the neat trick of coming across like a kindly older sister to people 20 years her senior. Nonetheless, the real star is geneticist Professor Turi King, whose status as a scientific expert is established by a few brisk shots of her striding about in a white coat but who, judging from what we see, knows even more about how today’s television works.
Take Thursday’s first item, in which 52year-old Richard sought to discover his biological father. As ever, at the introductory meeting, Turi stressed that finding the answer would be somewhere between extremely hard and flat-out impossible. But, as ever too, she ended up providing it – although not before keeping Richard on tenterhooks in the manner of someone announcing the evictions in a reality show.
‘It was really clear,’ she told him at the debrief several weeks later. ‘Your father was Irish.’ To his credit, Richard greeted this as the full revelation he was after, gamely managing a ‘Wow, really?’ But, of course, Turi was only limbering up.
Discreetly nudging a box of tissues towards him, she next drip-fed Richard information about his Galway grandparents, before finally putting the poor man out of his misery by giving him the news that she’d tracked down his father and four half-siblings.
And, with that, Richard went off to receive some sisterly support from Stacey while Turi prepared to do the whole ‘No Chance’ to ‘Big Reveal’ routine all over again with a woman hoping to find a half-sister somewhere in Austria.