Quiz shows left, right and centre
Television has launched a plan this year to enlarge our brain cells. If it’s important to know that Melania Trump’s son is Barron and London Bridge is the oldest train station in England, then TV has the deal for you. It’s saturating its playlist with quiz shows.
When you meet round the barbecue you can discuss whether a person, who spends time working out, is called a gym bunny. If you’re answer is rabbit, then you’re wrong and from another planet.
We already have The Chase, The Chase Australia, Million Dollar Minute and Tipping Point. Now we’re joined by Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (TV One, Tuesdays). It’s very simple. If you answer 15 questions, you walk away with £1 million. And you have Jeremy Clarkson to help you. He can answer your queries, so can a mate, and you have four lifelines.
It’s simple. It’s a far better deal than buying Lotto. But there’s a problem. It’s called the ‘‘thick contestant’’. This week it was Ricky Holmes, a prison officer from west Yorkshire. Not only was he dense, he was boring also.
Despite his charm, Clarkson was left with someone who knew nothing. Holmes had to ask the audience what part of his body he vented when he got angry. They said spleen, which, I’m sure, most of them vented at him.
As a result the programme had more padding than an opening batsman. That’s the problem with
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. You can be lumbered with a contestant who turns boredom into an art form. The format for The Chase is so much better. If a contestant has the IQ of a walrus on steroids, then he or she is shown the way out.
There must be an upside to quiz shows. I’m sure that by knowing the murder scene from Psycho took place at Bates Motel, you can be a better person. You could read the lesson in church, know how to clean blood off the shower curtain or avoid anyone called Anthony Perkins.
In The Chase (TV One, Monday/sunday) four contestants joust the bejesus out of the resident brains. They rarely succeed. This week despite knowing that Sandy Shaw was a barefoot singer from the 1960s and cherry brandy was an essential ingredient in Singapore Sling, they still lost out to Paul Sinha.
I’m hoping more than jaded holidaymakers view quiz shows this new year. If TV producers lifted ideas from the best, found a popular Kiwi location, invited friends and family to contest and called it Pub Quiz, then we’d have our own show. It could enlarge our brain cells.
Heartbeat (UKTV, Tuesdays) is comfort food. It’s the series you return to when there’s nothing else on offer. I read of the death of Bill Maynard (Greengrass) and decided to dip into an episode.
David, who’s an oddball, can be an irritating replacement for Greengrass, but, on this occasion, he buys a jeep with his race winnings. You’d think with his luck it’d be not just the last horse in the race, but the last race in the horse. Instead he won £10, collected his earnings and bought the jeep.
It was derelict, complete with undetonated grenades from World War II and an iconic beret. The cap, kit and caboodle all belonged to Field Marshal Montgomery. The series is set in the 1960s, when Montgomery was still alive and collecting his pension.
Competing with Heartbeat, was Anne Of Green Gables: The Good Stars (Vibe, Tuesday), an awardwinning Canadian production, directed by John Harrison. It’s the second in a trilogy of movies.
I met Harrison last year when he visited family in Manawatu¯ . He was looking for a NZ setting for a TV series and I said ‘‘why not here?’’ He’s on my New Year’s list to contact. We could have Maia or Aroha or Kiri Of Green Gables.
At least now, for the first time in a very long time, we seem to remember the way.