I Know Nothing (but nobody else does either)

I’ll begin by once again reminding you of William Goldman’s famous observation in “Adventures in the Screen Trade”  - Nobody knows anything. He was talking about the film industry and the fact that if you take two films, with similar ingredients and similar budgets there is every chance one will be a mega hit and one will flop. Why? Nobody knows. Similarly with quiz and game shows.

You know, writing about “Genius Game” and “Chess Masters: The Endgame” I’ve turned my mind from shows which also made you think – how on Earth did they ever think that this was really going to work, to shows where you can see what the producers were thinking, but with hindsight they were never going to work.  

Now, I want to stress here that Chess Masters was not an absolutely terrible show and neither is Genius Game. But as I said in my post, a lot of the choices about the shows seem baffling. Now, in the field of quiz and game shows, the granddaddy of all – ‘how the hell did that ever make it onto the screen?’ shows would be Shafted.

Maybe you’ve forgotten this one or were too young to catch it. But let me give you an idea of its elevated position within the Pantheon of Crap. ITV are less patient than BBC when it comes to allowing a show time to find an audience. But even ITV usually allow a whole series to elapse before consigning a show to the dump bin of History. Shafted was put back on the shelf after only four shows had been aired. The silly thing was that the central gimmick – winners having to decide whether to share or shaft (steal) was very much with the zeitgeist of the new Millennium and used successfully later for years by Jasper Carrott’s Golden Balls. But using absolutely the wrong presenter in the form of Robert Kilroy-Silk killed it. I mean, the pacing was wrong, the gameplay not all that interesting either, but it might have limped along to the end of the series with a less, erm, unlikeable host. Anne Robinson, TV’s original queen of mean was the host you loved to hate. In Robert Kilroy Silk’ case, you just hated him.

While we’re talking about shows that had their chances reduced through having the wrong choice of host I remember that both Jeremy Kyle and Gordon Ramsey had a bash at quiz host in their time, and neither of them got a second series.

It wasn’t a quiz, but I have to talk about Ice Warriors. Now, back in the second half of the 1990s, Gladiators ruled Saturday night. Ice Warriors was a home grown show that seemed to be designed to ride that vibe. The production values were huge. Dani Behr may not be a big name now, but she was getting that way at the time. But in all honesty It just wasn’t going to work. Because however you looked at it, the whole thing took place on ice. That kind of limits the challenges you can set. Also it tried to go beyond the Gladiators format by building in a kind of story – the show tried to tell us it was set in a post apocalyptic world, which it achieved mostly by having a huge hairy bloke using faux medieval dialogue to make announcements such as “I award the city state of Oxford fifty credits and now we will drink deep from the pool of refreshment.” Translation – Oxford won that game, time for the adverts.

One of the creators of “Ice Warriors" was also responsible for another game show within the framework of a sci fi story. This was Scavengers. This was his previous attempt to crack the summer replacement for Gladiators market and as such met an even frostier reception, being shifted from prime time Saturday night to Monday at half nine in the morning for the second half of the series. Like Ice Warriors it was set in a post apocalyptic future, this time with host John Leslie acting the commander of a troop of intergalactic scavengers – the contestants. Physical and mental challenges could obtain scavenged electronics for them. . . and, er, that was about it.

This idea of a game show set within a story had its roots. I guess, in shows like “Interceptor” right at the end of the 80s. Now, I’m not going to lie to you, “Interceptor” was something of a guilty pleasure for me. It didn’t have that much of a story to it – basically it was a Scottish geezer chasing a couple of fugitives with fancy backpacks across the countryside in a helicopter. The backpacks had five targets on the back. If he could laser shoot enough of the targets, then the two contestants, even if they did manage to find each other, would not be able to open their backpacks. Actor Sean O’Kane, who essentially played the Scottish Geezer, the Interceptor of the title, gave it the same oomph he might have done in a gritty film noir thriller, and for many people this was what either made the show, or broke it. It never came back after 1 series.

Do you remember Going For Gold? You might well do, for it was something of a success. The idea of contestants from different countries, important to Going For Gold, was behind ITV’s Top of the World, way back in 1982. This was a show for which ITV seemed to have high hopes, and they wheeled in one of their big beasts for question master, in the shape of Eamonn Andrews. It’s fair to say that Eamonn Andrews was in the latter stages of his TV career by the 80s, and had lost half a yard of pace, but he was still a big name and his involvement gave the show some prestige. However, either he nor all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could do much about the fact that the USA and Australia are a very long way from the UK. And each show was a three way contest between contenders from all 3 countries – and until the final this was done through the miracle of satellite communications. Which have a time delay. The efforts to mitigate for his seemed somewhat artificial as I recall. It was all a bit convoluted, although there was no shortage of quality among the UK contestants, who included future Millionaire winner Ingram Wilcox, future Mastermind champion and Egghead, the late Christopher Hughes and future Brain of Britain Winner James Eccleson, who won the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost that was the series’ prize. I wasn’t without interest, but seemed overly fiddly, and frankly Mastermind was clearly better.

In the interest of humility and as a corollary to William Goldman’s observation, I certainly know nothing about what makes a game show a conspicuous success. In this very blog I’ve confidently predicted that shows like Tipping Point and the Million Pound Drop were destined for oblivion and obscurity.

(Incidentally, my family have a story that my Nan's oldest brother, Thomas 'Wally' Cobden, got down to the final audition to become the BBC's main boxing commentator after Eamonn Andrews moved to ITV, losing out to Harry Carpenter. Uncle Wally was certainly involved in amateur boxing, so it might be true.)