BB
Not sure if this belongs in the TV Home Forum (as a general TV show) or in the Newsroom Forum (as being directly related to news, with some presentation elements being discussed); I shall bow to the moderators' discretion should they wish to relocate it.
On Thursday, I attended an unaired pilot for a new panel-based quiz show hosted by David Mitchell, and produced by Hat Trick, called 'The Bubble'.
In Hat Trick's words:
The Bubble is a comedy quiz hosted by David Mitchell which plays on the fact that some news stories are so hard to believe you’d think they’d been made up for a joke. In this show some of them have.
Three celebrity contestants are locked away in a media-free zone for three days – The Bubble.
When they’re brought out into the studio, they’re shown a series of news reports or images from TV, newspapers and celebrity gossip magazines.
All they have to do is identify the true stories from the fakes. Because they’ve been away and out of touch – just like when you come back from holiday – they’ll believe almost anything.
The three guests used for the pilot were Katy Brand, Miranda Hart and Frank Skinner.
I was a little doubtful beforehand about whether the format would work, or if it would perhaps be compared unfavourably to other successful news/current affairs shows such as HIGNFY or Mock The Week.
In fact, it was a great laugh, although there seemed to be an endless number of rounds including:
- International TV news
- Local news
- In the papers
- Celebrities
- Quotations
...and a few others that my brain now stubbornly refuses to recall. A quickfire "true story or fake" round - on the buzzers - ended the show.
The basic format for each round (except the last) was that three stories would be presented, discussed at length, and then each guest would vote on which of the three they thought was the 'true story'.
For the video-based rounds, a number of fake news reports were created, including BBC News channel, BBC regional news (South Today and Northwest Tonight were included) and even ITV News graphics. (Curiously, the BBC News graphics weren't entirely convincing to the 'educated' eye - Gill Sans Ultra Bold was used rather extensively for even 'National' bulletin graphics - but the ITV News ones were spot on, with flawless animation and detailing.)
Interestingly, one of the fake reports included Nick Robinson standing on College Green (I think the story he was 'reporting' may have been something about 'Fred The Shred' from RBS being convinced to return his annual bonus) and then handing back to George Alagiah in TC7; much hay was made by the guests of the possibility that Nick Robinson's inclusion was a red herring, and that he was only there because one of the Hat Trick staff had asked him for a favour.
It was also rather amusing to see the guests become increasingly obsessed with some of the details in the video packages, becoming more and more convinced that double- and even triple-bluffs were in play; in the Nick Robinson report, for example, the guests were impressed that we'd seen a hand-back to the studio, but Frank Skinner noticed that Big Ben's clock was showing 4:20 (obviously pm as there was still some daylight), and that he wouldn't have been handing back live for the 6 O'Clock News at that time - which resulted in a great deal more deliberation and second-guessing.
Later, while scoffing and dismissing the 'absurd' report that the submarines Vanguard and Le Triomphante had collided earlier in the week, Miranda Hart made fun of the poor graphics that she believed the Hat Trick team had thrown together for the story (specifically in terms of the Ministry of Defence logo used as the illustrating graphic for a quote from the MoD) - which of course turned out to be actual graphics from the BBC News story.
South Today was mercilessly mocked, while Northwest Tonight was also lambasted for its coverage of the new "no kissing" rules at Warrington Bank Quay, and Frank Skinner had nothing nice to say about a story from ITV News (which he later discovered was untrue) about their 'coverage' of former senior Met officer Brian Paddick joining the cast of The Bill . (Paddick, like Nick Robinson, also made a special contribution to the show, in that they both recorded content especially for it, rather than their being any clever selective editing of existing VT.)
All in all, I think the show had some potential, but the format certainly needs work as there were far too many rounds. David Mitchell was certainly good fun, although he lost control of proceedings a little too easily (he seemed rather nervous for most of the recording), which resulted in the audience being released almost an hour later than expected.
The show seemed to be lacking pace at many stages; I've been to scores of recordings before, so I'm fully aware of the fact that things go much more slowly in the studio (often up to three hours of recording time for what will amount to less than half an hour on screen), but even so, things did seem to drag on a little in some areas. The final quickfire round was arguably the single most successful element, as it offered a lot more pace and encouraged the guests to be a lot quicker in their deliveries than during some of the much lengthier and more lethargic 'discussion' phases of the show.
Still, if The Bubble does make it on to our screens at some point, I'd say it would definitely be worth giving it a chance.
On Thursday, I attended an unaired pilot for a new panel-based quiz show hosted by David Mitchell, and produced by Hat Trick, called 'The Bubble'.
In Hat Trick's words:
The Bubble is a comedy quiz hosted by David Mitchell which plays on the fact that some news stories are so hard to believe you’d think they’d been made up for a joke. In this show some of them have.
Three celebrity contestants are locked away in a media-free zone for three days – The Bubble.
When they’re brought out into the studio, they’re shown a series of news reports or images from TV, newspapers and celebrity gossip magazines.
All they have to do is identify the true stories from the fakes. Because they’ve been away and out of touch – just like when you come back from holiday – they’ll believe almost anything.
The three guests used for the pilot were Katy Brand, Miranda Hart and Frank Skinner.
I was a little doubtful beforehand about whether the format would work, or if it would perhaps be compared unfavourably to other successful news/current affairs shows such as HIGNFY or Mock The Week.
In fact, it was a great laugh, although there seemed to be an endless number of rounds including:
- International TV news
- Local news
- In the papers
- Celebrities
- Quotations
...and a few others that my brain now stubbornly refuses to recall. A quickfire "true story or fake" round - on the buzzers - ended the show.
The basic format for each round (except the last) was that three stories would be presented, discussed at length, and then each guest would vote on which of the three they thought was the 'true story'.
For the video-based rounds, a number of fake news reports were created, including BBC News channel, BBC regional news (South Today and Northwest Tonight were included) and even ITV News graphics. (Curiously, the BBC News graphics weren't entirely convincing to the 'educated' eye - Gill Sans Ultra Bold was used rather extensively for even 'National' bulletin graphics - but the ITV News ones were spot on, with flawless animation and detailing.)
Interestingly, one of the fake reports included Nick Robinson standing on College Green (I think the story he was 'reporting' may have been something about 'Fred The Shred' from RBS being convinced to return his annual bonus) and then handing back to George Alagiah in TC7; much hay was made by the guests of the possibility that Nick Robinson's inclusion was a red herring, and that he was only there because one of the Hat Trick staff had asked him for a favour.
It was also rather amusing to see the guests become increasingly obsessed with some of the details in the video packages, becoming more and more convinced that double- and even triple-bluffs were in play; in the Nick Robinson report, for example, the guests were impressed that we'd seen a hand-back to the studio, but Frank Skinner noticed that Big Ben's clock was showing 4:20 (obviously pm as there was still some daylight), and that he wouldn't have been handing back live for the 6 O'Clock News at that time - which resulted in a great deal more deliberation and second-guessing.
Later, while scoffing and dismissing the 'absurd' report that the submarines Vanguard and Le Triomphante had collided earlier in the week, Miranda Hart made fun of the poor graphics that she believed the Hat Trick team had thrown together for the story (specifically in terms of the Ministry of Defence logo used as the illustrating graphic for a quote from the MoD) - which of course turned out to be actual graphics from the BBC News story.
South Today was mercilessly mocked, while Northwest Tonight was also lambasted for its coverage of the new "no kissing" rules at Warrington Bank Quay, and Frank Skinner had nothing nice to say about a story from ITV News (which he later discovered was untrue) about their 'coverage' of former senior Met officer Brian Paddick joining the cast of The Bill . (Paddick, like Nick Robinson, also made a special contribution to the show, in that they both recorded content especially for it, rather than their being any clever selective editing of existing VT.)
All in all, I think the show had some potential, but the format certainly needs work as there were far too many rounds. David Mitchell was certainly good fun, although he lost control of proceedings a little too easily (he seemed rather nervous for most of the recording), which resulted in the audience being released almost an hour later than expected.
The show seemed to be lacking pace at many stages; I've been to scores of recordings before, so I'm fully aware of the fact that things go much more slowly in the studio (often up to three hours of recording time for what will amount to less than half an hour on screen), but even so, things did seem to drag on a little in some areas. The final quickfire round was arguably the single most successful element, as it offered a lot more pace and encouraged the guests to be a lot quicker in their deliveries than during some of the much lengthier and more lethargic 'discussion' phases of the show.
Still, if The Bubble does make it on to our screens at some point, I'd say it would definitely be worth giving it a chance.