Generation Game to be brought back with Mel and Sue

I actually felt that it was OK. The part I didn't like was Richard and Lorraine. They added nothing to the show at all.

I will definitely watch again next week as I feel that it got better as it went along.

I agree it was a little over produced like the slow motion clips during the judging/comments section.

Just shows you how awesome Sir Bruce Forsyth and of course the team from that era was but I hope the BBC go away after next weeks episode and make the changes that are needed and we get a few series in the Winter/Spring of 2019.

As much as I can't stand Mel and Sue as a double act, they're pretty decent when they do their solo gigs. Sue Perkins on Insert Name Here is bang on target, same for Mel on Eurovision.

But I think the crux is that the duo got lucky with Bake Off when it was commissioned on BBC2 and when the format moved to BBC1 took them to heights I suspect neither could imagine.

What has been proven is that it's the format that won with Bake Off with it performing well for C4, despite in my opinion overpaying for it, but the presenters are disposable.

Mel and Sue are simply no longer prime time BBC outside of Bake Off. BBC2, yes.

Is it confirmed that four were recorded but only two are being shown?

Back when this was first announced and Bruce had passed I looked up older episodes. There's only one of the show as I saw it (as I was too young for the older incarnations)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh3udfNkPZQ

Now for sake of fairness, yes the 1991 show had innuendo in it's own right. But I feel like Bruce does it quite well as it's more amusing asides that are kind of smart, rather than the need to comment generally to get it in there.

But in the modern version they literally try to jump on that asap so it feels both forced and really crude.

I also thought it was a bit unfair for the contestants that they had to do the dancing with 0 time to do a bit of training. In older versions they would usually be be sent off to "do it later" - so that rather than a bunch of poor souls trying to emulate based on one dance they watched had at least a semi-decent chance of pulling it off well.

The 1991 revival opening episode does do a similar thing with their dance segment, but they only have one dancer to model, and it's a dance style that doesn't really require being in sync. Bruce gets stuck in to show them how it's done too so they feel comfortable.

The whole thing becomes an utter mess with the panto activity, which doesn't really provide clear instruction for the contestants and becomes all overshadowed because they suddenly roll on the z-list celebs during this bit.

While I don't entirely rate Mel and Sue here, I think the producers are the biggest problem. Nobody put more thought into this than just "let's do what worked 25+ years ago". If there were no fresh ideas, then nobody should have greenlit this thing

Overproduced and dated. They should never have brought it back. It's dead. Shows like this need to interact with their audience nowadays. Seeing four random people trying to spin plates whilst Mel & Sue banter on would have worked when audiences all sat down as a family to be entertained but it does not work today. You would need to add a phone vote at the end of each act e.g. "If you thought that Sue's plate spinning was best, phone or text..." etc etc. but then of course, it wouldn't have been the cosy old Gen Game people were expecting. Having Richard Osman and Lorraine there was probably a desperate attempt at some kind of judge format but it obviously didn't work.

Yes say what you like about Jim Davidson but the whole reason the Gen Game ended in the first place was because reality TV turned up on ITV and was far a more a dramatic and interactive format like nothing viewers had seen before. This is one of the reasons TV is stuck in a rut with its constant talent shows and the like because there is nothing new to replace it but this is a whole other subject. I personally feel that television in its current form needs a major major overhaul, what that overhaul is, I've no idea and it's clear that execs don't either!

Regarding Gemma Collins and Arg Jameson's (or whatever his name is!) appearance, yeah I also find them irritating, 10 years ago it would have been Katie Price or someone, you have to think of what is popular with the youth audience and unfortunately it is them.. talent doesn't come into it. But aside, the whole thing was poorly produced and it felt as if they were just thrown in there.

*sighs.........*

To be honest the presence of guest onlookers made it look more like You Bet than Generation Game. All you needed was an outside broadcast of somebody doing something relatively mundane (filling wine glasses for example) while controlling a helicopter and it would have been You Bet in new packaging.

I have to agree with other people; Gen game is a dated format. Mel & Sue I just found incredibly irritating. Miranda Hart was tooted as the new replacement, I sometimes wonder whether her presenting style was better for a show like this.

I think there are people being a tad harsh. The format is fine. Saturday Night Takeaway is an old format, rehashes of shows that have long since gone. Strictly is an old format. Even XF is an imitation of Opportunity Knocks.

The problem was the presenters and moronic endgame. It all went really well (considering) until that cringe of an end endgame came on. What the hell were they thinking? Had I slipped into CBeebies without realising?

And Mel and Sue just looked like startled rabbits gazing at headlights. The show and format is too big for them to handle. It needed someone charismatic and capable. It's a shame because I would have liked The Gen Game to be brought back properly, but alas I feel now that it will be gone forever. The BBC have lost their ability to make great entertainment shows. "Ready or Not" was another show that was so embarrassing. Why do they have to be stupid and treat its audience like idiots? If I saw a man dressed in yellow lycra with a huge question mark on his chest offering me a tenner, I'd think he was barking mad and run a mile.

I think people came to this version of The Generation Game with huge rose-tinted spectacles on. The format was never the greatest and even before it was cancelled it was already dated. The people who hosted it had to be bloody good to create a good shiny-floor Saturday night show, and even them if you look back at old shows (full shows, not the odd funny clip on YouTube) it hasn't aged well.

I thought Mel and Sue did a perfectly decent job of it. In no way was it perfect - somewhere along the line the BBC forgot that the trick with innuendo is for it to go relatively unspoken, the end-game just being baffling and the 2018 curse of agents getting their acts in shows they don't belong (Gemma Collins and Arge, who have big followings but the zen diagram between them and a Generation Game audience is surely virtually nil).

I fear the real problem with this show is that the people who are likely to watch a reboot of The Generation Game are not the people who will appreciate Mel and Sue, a Bollywood dancing challenge and some people from TOWIE. You're targeting the Mrs Brown's Boys audience here.

Yes. For some baffling reason in the first two episodes recorded rather than casting two decent pairs of contestants in advance, they decided to pick two pairs out of the studio audience - despite having no idea whether or not they’d actually make good television. The result was the show was full of painfully dull couples and the episodes were so bad they had to be scrapped.

I can only assume they added this as a format point to make it feel a bit different from the original but what an awful mistake. The other two episodes had a proper casting team.

What do we know? The Generation Game was the most watched television programme last night outside Countryfile! It launched with over 5 million viewers and remained stable throughout, beating The Durrell's on ITV.

I wonder if a full series is planned for the auttum. Could do nicely at 6pm running into SCD at 7pm.