The Game Show Project - Introduction

For my third year at university we can propose whatever we like for our productions. Most people will be pitching short films and documentaries but I fancied doing something a little bit different. No-one will pitch an action game show I thought, so the ball was rolling.

Before Summer I worked on the game and the format including a test run with some friends and now it's reached the point to propose them to the university. It's very much possible that it won't go any further than this stage but it's worth a try! Here's the proposal.

On The Run (wt)

23 minute, multi-camera action game show

4 contestants take the roles of secret agents and embark on an epic chase around the city streets in order to reclaim stolen money from an evil corporation.

The presenter acts as the leader of the operation and oversees everything from the studio/mission HQ. He introduces the 'agents' (contestants) and explains what needs to be done. The evil corporation, with contacts in high places, has taken money out of several different high street banks. The money has been dropped in 4 different rucksacks near these banks for a different henchman to pick up and return it to their base. Our agents must pick up these bags before the henchmen do and return them to HQ and receive a percentage cut of the money they recover as their prize.

There are complications however, Inside each of the bags is a dye pack which, if fired, will ruin the money in the bag. These dye packs were put in place to prevent anyone besides the intended recipient taking the bags. They are set to fire under a number of circumstances. Firstly, if the bags are taken beyond the range of the corporation's central base and secondly if an internal timer reaches 20 minutes. The only way to prevent the packs firing at the end of the timer is to use a disarming key attached to the outside of each bag, however each bag has the key to a different pack. This means the agents must find each other to save the money.

They're not the only ones searching for them however, two operatives for the corporation receive a radio message that some people have taken the bags from where they were and they begin to hunt our agents down. Each bag has a tag attached which, if pulled out, fires the dye pack regardless of whether the pack has been disarmed. Our agents will have to avoid these people in order to finish with their cash intact.

At the end of the game all of the agents return to HQ for their debriefing, and to find out how much money the team finishes with. Each contestant is unlikely to know whether someone else's bag has been dyed or not so this acts as the 'reveal' at the end. Each contestant tips their bag out onto the table revealing either crisp clean notes, or a clump of soggy ruined notes.

Eurovision Song Contest 2008

Well, looks like my prediction was way off but with the current situation of political voting none of the decent songs can win. Besides from my prediction, Serbia certainly continued the current Eurovision trend of putting on an excellent production although why does the hosting country every year pick presenters with the most annoying voices? Wogan was on top form commentating for the UK as ever, although sadly it's currently unknown whether he'll be doing next years contest.

Moving on to the songs, it's usually this long after the contest that you personally realise which song should have won. Last year was one exception however after hearing Ukraine's entry on the night I was without doubt that song was the best. This year my opinion is split between Bosnia & Herzegovina and Iceland's entry titled 'This is my Life'. Both are excellent songs and it's well worth listening to them if you haven't already.

Eurovision always seems to attract a fair amount of abuse every year but frankly, at least when compared to the rest of the stuff filling the schedules these days, TV doesn't get much better than this!

Beat the Star

Combining ITV's two biggest loves, "Celebrities" and Vernon Kay comes Beat the Star, a gameshow based on a member of the public taking on a "celebrity" in a series of challenges.

Filmed as if live, the programme begins full of promise, up until the first game of this week's show. Hammering nails into wood. Sadly, this pretty much sets the tone for the show. The only real highlight was the off road buggy time trial race which was over far too quickly. Things rapidly spiral down to an It's A Knockout level of games including one where the two players had to milk a cow as much as possible, leading to some of the most laughable shouts from the audience, "Go on, milk it!".

Beat the Star also uses a pointless scoring system, each game is worth progressively more points (Round 1 = 1pt, Round 2 = 2pts, etc.) meaning unless one player is really useless, it will all come down to the final round. I foolishly expected them to win me back with a brilliant final round and what did they give me? A penalty shootout. The nail hammering round felt like The Eliminator from Gladiators in comparison.

This week's star, Amir Kahn, also demonstrated to us a masterclass of arrogance and idiocy as he was too scared to stand on top of a telegraph pole and in the only mental game of the show he was asked to name pictures of celebrities, and after seeing the face of Daniel Radcliffe he exclaimed with glee to Vernon, "Harry Potter".

Ultimately, with only about 15 mins of decent games in a 1h15m programme it's not worth tuning in next week.

Beat the Star
Sundays, 6:45pm, ITV1

That Mitchell and Webb Look - Mid-Series Review

Currently 4 episodes into the series, That Mitchell and Webb Look continues the duo's style of slightly surreal, but always very original comedy.

Unlike the uncomfortably racist Little Britain which reused the same 7 or so sketches over three series, M&W rarely reuse the same sketch over one episode. In fact, so far over the series so far there has only been one completely reused sketch (the Helivets).

Some of the highlights are the occasional 'on the set' sketches where the pair supposedly play themselves and perform some of the wittiest dialogue I have heard in a long time.

Warning - Contains strong language.

Copyright BBC 2008

Without a doubt it's one of the funniest programmes on television at the moment, and is well worth watching.

That Mitchell and Webb Look
Thursdays, 9:00pm BBC 2