Thames and Talkback are ultimately two rival entertainment labels with two rival development teams and it was Talkback that developed the idea of Epic (even if it is a rip off of Gameshow Marathon).
I'm surprised Epic Gameshow is solely a Talkback Production given they have Bullseye as one of the gameshows whereas Gameshow Marathon had Granada/ITV Studios as co-producer.
The rights to the format are actually held by an individual and they were optioned directly from him.
Well the revival of The Price Is Right aired tonight, and fortunately they haven't buggered about too much with the format, the theme sounds like a remixed version of the 1994 version.
The only thing I would say that didn't seem right was the revealing of the price of the showdown, it sort of looked like the Pointless stack in reverse. It's always bugged me to an extent that prices of various little things like a toaster and what not is hidden behind revealable boards, yet they've never done that for the showcase figures, which seem destined to appear on a videowall/digital display somewhere...
Agree it was a bit flat and the showcase reveal didn't work - would almost have been better to flesh it out and price each item fora slow build to the total. Play Your Cards Right a far stronger format though that seemed to suit Alan better.
Alan not as good on TPIR as he was in PYCR. Which is strange as this is the only Gameshow that he’s done before in his repertoire, albeit a one off special.
There were multiple things that didn’t quite work for it. The dark set, the relative lack of enthusiasm from most of the contestants and indeed from Alan himself, lack of Peter Dickson voiceover, no range finder for the showcase, an awful reveal for the showcase which she didn’t win in the end anyway.
Looking forward to Strike It Lucky and Take Your Pick to see how Alan copes with those. Just hope they don’t over-complicate the format too much like they’ve done with the past two shows.
Alan not as good on TPIR as he was in PYCR. Which is strange as this is the only Gameshow that he’s done before in his repertoire, albeit a one off special.
There were multiple things that didn’t quite work for it. The dark set, the relative lack of enthusiasm from most of the contestants and indeed from Alan himself, lack of Peter Dickson voiceover, no range finder for the showcase, an awful reveal for the showcase which she didn’t win in the end anyway.
Looking forward to Strike It Lucky and Take Your Pick to see how Alan copes with those. Just hope they don’t over-complicate the format too much like they’ve done with the past two shows.
You can see why they started with the celebrity PYCR first.
Looking forward to Strike It Lucky and Take Your Pick to see how Alan copes with those. Just hope they don’t over-complicate the format too much like they’ve done with the past two shows.
I have an abject feeling these (and Bullseye as well) are are all going to be painfully stretched out. Take Your Pick most probably will, since its the sort of thing that seemed to struggle to fill its half hour slot when Des O'Connor was doing it. I suspect it may have been the same when Michael Miles was doing it in the 1950s, but I haven't seen any of those, not withstanding the fact they've all mostly been wiped.
Looking forward to Strike It Lucky and Take Your Pick to see how Alan copes with those. Just hope they don’t over-complicate the format too much like they’ve done with the past two shows.
Strike It Lucky was incredibly reliant on good contestant casting so I think that will make or break it.
It felt like Alan was too far away from contestants row but I guess the nature of the show is you have one set that can’t be customised easily for each show. They also ditched the range finder and set it at £3,000, which just seemed a bit rubbish. I didn’t like that all the contestants didn’t get to go to the wheel which seemed to go against the spirit of that part of the show. I still don’t get how that totaliser worked either.
Interesting Alan’s Channel 4 pilot for The Price is Right is still on All 4. I can’t remember thinking much of it at the time but having watched the first 15 minutes it seems miles better and with everyone a lot more pumped up.
Yes, I remember the C4 pilot being pretty awful but also it just seemed so out of place on C4. I think though considering he'd done this before I expected more out of tonight, but it just didn't work. If it's still on All4 though wouldn't be too surprised if it ended up on C4 again the week after this finishes.
Absolutely agree regarding the wheel too - they had plenty of time for an extra two spins and also with the range of prices in the contestants row rounds being from around £200 to £800 it seemed unfair to eliminate those furthest out as £50 out on a £800 item is better than £20 out on a £200 item. Also not that the contestants really played tactically but your bid is also somewhat dependent on other peoples bids too, though perhaps this rule was in place to encourage people to bid what they thought the item was rather than just undercut the highest or lowest bid at the table.
Interesting Alan’s Channel 4 pilot for The Price is Right is still on All 4. I can’t remember thinking much of it at the time but having watched the first 15 minutes it seems miles better and with everyone a lot more pumped up.
I saw the Channel 4 pilot for The Price is Right and I agree the energy level seemed a lot higher compared to the Epic Gameshow version. I wonder if Channel 4 ever planned to make a series as I think the pilot did just over 2m?
Looking forward to Strike It Lucky and Take Your Pick to see how Alan copes with those. Just hope they don’t over-complicate the format too much like they’ve done with the past two shows.
Strike It Lucky was incredibly reliant on good contestant casting so I think that will make or break it.