Challenge programme news

One little gripe:

Challenge have the show "Don't Try This At Home". Or rather they don't. Why are they only seem to have rights to two episodes? Every Saturday afternoon for as many weeks as I can remember it's the same cowing DTTAH show. It's the one where the Halesowen woman (who, according to Darren Day, has suddenly relocated to Birmingham) gets to climb up an 800ft high TV transmitter in, I think, Wales. The other episode has a lady walking over the crocodile pit.

Doesn't really seem much point having a show and then running just two episodes of an at least 10ep run, surely? Still at least they're now running the Matthew Kelly You Bet episodes again so there is still some justice.

Unbelievably I have been watching some of You Bet since it has come back onto Challenge in the Kelly era and it has been pretty good, I do remember an episode which I saw on ITV, which I saw again on Challenge the other week, the one where some guy had to guess who lived in all the houses of Brookside Close. But forget any other programme (Such as IACGMOOH) this (and Blankety Blank) are the best at getting Z List celebs. Though I have to say Ted Robbins was good on it the other week and from what Matthew said he got one of the highest scores ever. But an even better one was when the team consisted of Some unknown Rugby player, Sarah Greene, Carol Smilie (Wheel Of Fortune era) and Bob Carolgees. (Minus Spit)

Though it's good to hear that Fort Boyard will be back? But will it be presnted by Melinda Messenger (Handy as she works for Living anyway) and Leslie Graham. (I think) Though I always remember seeing the French one (I watched it on TV5), which I think did more worse stuff than the British version.

(If you like French quiz shows, you can easily see the French version of Countdown and Going For Gold on British TV, or better known as Chiffres ét lettres et Questions un de pour Champion.)
Plus is there any news on The Crystal Maze yet? (Crosses fingers hoping for Richard O Brien to come back)

As stated in a post someone in this forum, replacing melinda will be someone that did stuff for channel 5 and i dont remember her name (damm! good start!); chrisopher ellison (? may be wrong), the bloke that played burnside on the bill, and in burnside will play boyard; and tom baker will play the professor.

Would that be yesterday's episode that went out on Challenge? These three people were on it and also had Mark Blundell as well.



If I was a certain James Martin now I would have inserted some remark about a certain remake and its failure I look forward to the Challenge new series though.



According to UKGameShows.com, the french version of Countdown has been on air for over 30yrs but is apparently "slow and boring", although I see Richard Whiteley and friends are 12th in the UKGameShows.com league of "best UK Game Show" so they must be doing something right (even if it does have to give way to the cricket).



I very much doubt that he would take the role back - I mean, according to IMDB, the gent's now 61yrs young. And according to the same page at http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm0639782/ what's this I see about "The Magic Roundabout Movie" (due out October 2004) to which Richard has apparently contributed his voice?

Just a reminder that the new Challenge made series of Fort Boyard airs from Monday 20th October. This is the new series featuring Chris Ellison as Boyard, Tom Baker as the professor and the new presenter.

A trailer is going out on Flextech channels at the moment, showing some behind the scenes bits.

Hell fire. That DTTAH episode with her climbing the TV transmitter I saw in June sometime. God, I did not realise Challenge kept repeating it! I bet the poor lady is embarrassed looking back many years and how much different she looks etc.

Two shows I don’t like on Challenge. Stars in their eyes, its silly having those again. Also Gladiators. I have flicked on to this show and they show the same stuff all the time. Wonder why?

God, I can't wait. I have to say, Emulsion drying is far more visual.

I'm wathcing the Documentry and it's filmic and very hard to watch (tohugh some of the on-set clips and filming from the show is normal). PLEASE don't make the show filmic! It will ruin it! If it is for the documentry it;s OK, but let's hope it isn't for the programme

The Documentary was interesting. I do like the New Female presenter! Just to ask, How many series were made for 5? Why was it axed? Was it axed in 2000? Wonder why Challenge decided to bring it back? Is it the most popular thing on the channel or something? If it does well, It could go on FTN, as its a Flaxtech production, as FTN never show old Five or Four etc series, but they show Home Made series so this could work!

It’s good that it’s on at 5pm. At least I wont have to watch Dale's 'I'm the answer' anymore!

Channel 5 did drop it, probabally due tot hier moving upmarket. I believe Challenge have restored it due to it being their highest rating show.

If you've seen the documentary, you will know that it isnt that hard to produce, as the fort is owned by the french tv company that originally created the show, they create all of the new games, all they basically need is their own crew (i wasnt sure whether all of the camera crew teams, in which there were 10, were from each nation or if they were just laid on and used by each country), presenters and contestants. It isnt like they have to create the set and games before they can begin!

It was interesting to see that some of the games (that they claimed were all new) were on the old series made for channel 5.

Well firstly well done on Challenge for making their own series of Fort Boyard and investing in some original programming.

They stayed mainly faithful to the original with a few minor tweaks to the format, many of the games have been seen before, and they seemed to have much longer in the treasure room than normal.

Jenny Penfold in the Melinda Messenger role was ok but she just seemed very vacant really. Chris Ellison's Boyard isn't a patch on the Leslie Grantham version, he's far too tame and chatty. As for Tom Baker, his character is completely off the wall, I don't know what to make of him.

And now Challenge are showing the new series of Knightmare, the one where they fly on the dragons back at the start, which series is this one ?