Box 23 and the offer button weren't bad twists as far as tinkering goes but it never really recovered from being stretched out to an hour. It worked perfectly at 45 minutes, especially as the climax of the game was almost always in the last part. It should never have stayed at 6 days a week and it certainly lost something when it lost it's "as live" element meaning episodes weren't filmed with specific dates in mind - though by that point the audience had gone anyway. It certainly ran at least 2-3 years too long.
Will be interesting to see Noels new shows though - they'll either be awful or brilliant. Sell or Swap airs live one night after Xmas whilst Cheap, Cheap, Cheap sounds like it'll be far more interesting than the name suggests with a cast of characters working with Noel.
Well it'll be interesting to see what the new shows are like. Certainly I remember when Telly Addicts was tinkered with in its latter series it was awful and ruined a perfectly good quiz show.
What's worse is when a show's tinkered with when it's still popular and doesn't need it... but they still do it. And end up killing it. Of course the tinkering wouldn't be as bad if they were at least good ideas, but 9 times out of 10 they aren't.
When it comes to DOND, I personally felt it needed cutting down to 30 and tightening up, not extending to 60 minutes. Even when it was 45 minutes there was enough of the "dream factory", "I picked this number because blah blah blah", "blue, blue, blue" chanting, "east wing, west wing" and all that other nonsense- extending it to 60 minutes just meant another 15 minutes of that crap.
The nonsense was annoying but it is also what made it - I think stripping it all out and just playing it straight in 30 minutes wouldn't have worked either.
It's always a balancing act with long running shows when it comes to making changes and they're often damned if they do, damned if they don't. Deal or No Deal was clearly coming to the end of it's natural life over the last few years but that also came at a time of significantly increased competition from ITV and BBC1 - arguably Tipping Point was what finally killed it off, though that is one show I really don't get the appeal of at all.
The nonsense was annoying but it is also what made it - I think stripping it all out and just playing it straight in 30 minutes wouldn't have worked either.
Well, indeed. That said, when I was in New York a few years back I ended up watching an edition of the US Deal and it was a Speed Deal or No Deal special where they had to make all their decisions against the clock. But you couldn't do that for every episode because the game isn't strong enough.
When it comes to game shows there are those which have a finite lifespan because the formats aren't anything special and all the attraction comes from it being the hook for other bits of business. People didn't watch Deal for the game, they watched it for Noel and his bits of business. It's the same with The Weakest Link, as a quiz itself it was nothing special, you watched it for the insults. That was always going to have a limited lifespan. But with shows like Pointless, The Chase and - the best example - Countdown, the formats are strong enough in their own right to last for as long as they want. They don't need to fling a load of new rules and twists at Pointless, the game itself can always be freshened up with new questions.
I believe although this is the last aired edition, it was one of the first recorded, I think the last recorded game was yesterday's edition from Longleat
I believe although this is the last aired edition, it was one of the first recorded, I think the last recorded game was yesterday's edition from Longleat
Taking advantage of the fact that the people with the boxes are no longer future contestants?