The Krypton Factor

It was good, but so many things to be improved - mainly the assault course. There is no point it being tough if we can't see it on TV - the original was much easier to watch, and also we really want to see a sprint finish, not them crawling over the line one by one.

The set - I'm not too sure. On the one hand I really like it, but on the other it doesn't work as well as it should, especially in the final round. The Kube seemed a bit pointless too - and in a way, having a live audience. Yes, it's great it's not canned, but considering how long it takes to film and how they're only heard, but not seen, perhaps it would be better without.

Fingers crossed it does well though because we need shows like this back on ITV - and I'm sure by any second series such problems would be addressed.

As for the glitzy new title sequence, I've chucked this up online here:-

http://www.tvwhirl.co.uk/tvwhirl.php?file=tesgameshows/kryptonfactor2009.mp4 (1.85mb MP4)

A complete change from the famous Art of Noise, but a welcome one nonetheless I'd say!

I wasn't convinced by the opening theme itself from first impressions, but the music throughout the show was very well done.

I found that the whole show recaptured the original programme brilliantly and well modified too. The music, graphics and set fitted together greatly. Ben Shephard proved to be a good host, and overall a great show was created. I will tuning in again.

Nothing has been said about Corrie moving back to Sunday nights permanently - its just you giving your opinion as if its fact again.

Anyway I really enjoyed TKF - nice to see something different from soaps/dramas on primetime ITV. Although the opening titles were disappointing the show overall was rather good IMO.

From what I saw it didn't seem too bad at all.

The filming of the assault course was very off-putting. Who's clever idea was it to run an assault course through a forest and then film it when there's hardly any sun to illuminate it? Has nobody heard of flooding the area with artificial light? Headcam shots seem to add nothing to the visual experience. Enough with the modern day curse of background music already. And yes we'd all love a four way sprint, otherwise it defeats the whole point of it being a race.



The original production had an audience as well. Who were very silent, I seem to remember.

The set - well the first thing I thought when I saw it was, "The Matrix". Or "Tron".

The scary thing about the Cube - the lady who managed to get the most right answers in that thing couldn't figure out to get out of it. Rather unsurprisingly, she came 4th overall. But the Cube had a level of mentality that didn't consist of things such as "what is this a picture of?" or other banal drivel. The questions wouldn't have been out of place first time round, though the heartbeat was a pointless gimmick.

Observation round now isn't a case of "press the appropriate colour", more buzz in when you know. This is simply a catch-all solution for no better ideas. The original worked better because at least having a stab at the wrong answer proved you were listening whereas not buzzing in would imply you weren't paying attention. An Emmerdale clip of all things? Not even making special serials now for the show? Oh dear.

Intelligence round, well you'd never had had a camera showing you how badly you've screwed it up in the original series. Nor would the host butt in like he did. If it went on for hours in the original series because the contestants couldn't get it, it went on until they did. Apparently it "only" takes two hours to film an episode now.

The final round's gone back to the earlier format where it used to be two for right, one deducted for wrong. IIRC it was 1989 or 1990 where the scoring changed into two for right, two deducted for wrong. Still only 70 seconds though. The problem with this round (and it was a problem in the original format too) is that it's only effective if there's a possibility of a tie. Quite often somebody ends up home and dry by the time of the last round where nothing short of a miracle for the others would help them.

Tragically, no clever looking side-on effect for the final round. Just a tacky looking wideshot. But the subliminal links from question to question are still there and they're relatively intelligent questions too.

Overall: Plenty of potential. Nothing happened tonight that was wrong that can't be fixed probably in the next series if there is one. The assault course itself is probably fine, not that anybody watching could follow what was going on since it was badly edited, badly lit and nobody else seemed to know what was going on.

But it could have been alot worse, this was actully decent attempted by itv and there should be credited, its in the RIGHT direction!

True. In the grand scale of things, it's a fine production. As it stands now it has teething problems, what new programmes don't?

Two things surprised me tonight - firstly I actually made specific plans to watch something on ITV which hasn't happened for about 3 years. Secondly it was actually pretty good.

Couple of minor niggles - firstly its a shame they didn't t retain the iconic Art of Noise theme tune in some form (it would work quite well with the plain black end credits) but then I suppose things must move on. Also don't really like the lack of a studio audience, IMO any gameshow looks decidedly budget and shoestring without it. Otherwise I think the graphics and studio side of things work brilliantly - it was a foregone conclusion that they'd never have an austere set like the old days but what they have done is still simple enough and not too glitzy. It does truly look like an evolution rather than a reinvention - had the series never left production you can look at it in 1994 and today and imagine how things might have looked this way.

The new assault course though I think is a really bad call - having only space for 2 people on it at a time necessitating the need for two separate races really dilutes things because you can't see at a glance who is in what position. It must be annoying to be a competitor too because you only know whether you're ahead/behind of the person you're racing with, you have no idea where you are overall in the competition. If there is a second series, they need to get back to a course where all the competitors can run at one.

Overall though, a rare good effort from ITV here.

The assault course was the only real letdown for the show, the old one was much better.

I think we're all of pretty much the same opinion then - good, but a few creases to iron out.

Hopefully as it's filling a dead slot for ITV ratings won't be too crucial in determining the second series - it'll be interesting to see if by the final the show starts containing ads.

Going slightly OT but unsurprisingly Duel won't be returning to ITV this year - which IMO is a damn shame because out of all the programmes that came with the "new look" ITV last year, it was one of the best and with a few tweaks I'm deserved a second attempt - it could even work in a stripped down daytime format really.