Twil's Week in Gameshows (TWiG)

Episode 2 – Week Beginning 30-09-2024

This week’s Raven: Series 3 Week 3

Welcome back! Monday was a big moment for fans of when gameshows overlap (aka me) as Richard Osman’s House of Games had a Rhyme Time answer of The Traitors/Gladiators. That’s three gameshows for the price of one! Surely that’s a good omen for an abundance of gameshows this week? Not that I believe in omens…

The next day they rickrolled us. Unbelievable.

Last week, I lamented about having caught up with all my regular gameshow related podcasting. This week, I decided my situation was so dire that I actually turned to a podcast that has been heavily recommended to me (I’m not great at following through with recommendations). Lateral with Tom Scott is not quite a quiz – you’re not supposed to know the answers, all questions are answered eventually by design and it’s collaborative with no way of ‘winning’ – and instead has nestled itself comfortably in the panel show category of gameshow. And yet it does an excellent job of scratching that quiz show itch. I’ve been really enjoying the episodes I’ve heard.

New to my Tuesdays – Into the Jungle with Ed Stafford. It certainly isn’t marketed as a gameshow and didn’t flag up on my normal gameshow watching sites, and yet I caught the trailer a few times and it certainly looked like some challenges were taking place. So is it a gameshow and, more importantly, is it any good?

Firstly, I struggled to find it on Channel 4’s On Demand, because they decided last minute to rename it to Jungle Dads. And I mean last minute, because it was advertised as Into the Jungle, that’s what the in-episode title card says, and when you click on the episodes it redirects to a page titled Into the Jungle. Personally, I think Into the Jungle is the better title, if a little generic. Jungle Dads just reeks of working title.

The basic premise is to see whether a jungle adventure can improve a father’s relationship with his child. And we have a real mix of dad-child relationships. Some dads need to listen more. Some needs to learn how to let go. Some are making up for lost time. Some of them seem fairly normal and I don’t see what could be bad enough that only something this extreme could fix it. One dad seems like he’d be better off sitting down and having a talk with his wife about domestic labour ratios. However, they were excellently cast. Both the parents and the kids have personalities that are very camera friendly and lend them to this kind of show.

Are there challenges? Yes, kinda? There are lots of the classics – Cliff jumping, abseiling, eating bugs, raft-making, high ropes seem to be coming up – and they’re all designed to test the dad’s parenting ability. But there is also no winners and no consequence for failures. They do look pretty epic though. It’s like Escape from Scorpion Island if the Island was a benevolent force, Nachtraven style, instead of evil. I wonder if they’ll make them do a fire walk?

Ed Stafford is a deeply strange man. At first he seems like your typical guru, peddling what worked for specifically his family to the masses, taking advantage of conservative cultural concerns like ‘the death of the nuclear family’ or ‘generational softness’. You’re not inclined to trust him. And then his to-camera pieces are filled with so many bizarre anecdotes that you realise, no, he’s just like that. He does seem to be able to identify what’s going wrong with the parenting, and offer genuinely good advice to the point he must have a psychologist in his ear. The whole effect is both cosy and one that keeps you on edge looking for dog whistles.

So is it a gameshow? Not really, there aren’t any apparent win-lose conditions. It’s more adventure reality, with challenge elements. But the challenge elements are strong enough that it’ll keep me watching.

I’m a big fan of some of the recent Taskmaster tasks. Obviously I’m a massive quiz fan, so the ‘Cheat at the Pub Quiz’ task was lots of fun. And I’ve already made jokes about the house theme of this year essentially being the Ocean Zone (especially because Channel 4 decided to create the train wreck of the Eastern Zone instead of bringing it back), but the ‘Murder Maze’ task was so incredibly Industrial Zone. Not only that, but it’s also just a brilliant challenge with an excellent maze design. I really want them to keep it and re-use it for some cyberpunk/cassette-futurism gameshow, you can’t waste a set that good.

Recently dropped on iPlayer is The Traitors Aotearoa. And Kiwis do not mess around. I’ve been watching one episode a day, so I’m currently on episode 7. Next week I’ll be able to give my thoughts on the ending but for now I have a couple of things to talk about.

Firstly, they’re using the pieces of silver which is always a nice stylistic touch. They’re also using the civilian-celeb mix, which is less good. In the US, it’s big enough that you can easily get enough reality show D-Listers and have them never have met before. In Aotearoa? The pond is much smaller, leading to people who are already friends and disproving the show’s own opening statement. This also might contribute to how swiftly they’re picking off Traitors – the social reads are more informed. It’s a little bit of a blunder.

There were lots of interesting variations on the international pre-existing challenges. I thought using actual bible verses on the confession booth challenge was a nice touch. And there is something vaguely amusing about a spot-the-difference challenge being dominated by a man who is legally blind. There was a bit of a vengeance play in episode 6, which is one of my biggest pet peeves though. Ultimately, it’s an excellent execution of the format.

I kinda want to get the Gladiators annual thing. I like collecting gameshow memorabilia, and I really enjoyed Gladiators. I’d like to see if they’ll have any ‘making of’ pages or interviews with the production team. Plus it will be an interesting preview on how they’re planning on developing and improving the gladiator’s personas. But I’m also aware it’s probably made for kids and that anyone who sees an adult buying it will see the muscular people in skimpy Lycra and get the wrong impression. Well, the wrong impression for the men. Some of the women gladiators however...

There is one book I wish the BBC would put out. A volume 2 of The Traitors Interactive Game Book. I loved the first one. It was excellently written, the other contestants had a remarkable amount of character for how much of an ensemble they were (Elif and her ‘computer’ my beloved ♡), and it reminded me of the Knightmare gamebooks in the best way. I think the book might have endeared me to the format more than the show itself.

Because I spend so much of my waking life thinking about gameshows, it is logical to assume I also dream about them. And I do. Raven dreams! Last-Commanders-but-harder-and-cooler dreams (actually had another one of those this week)! Trapped!-but-it’s-also-Star-Wars-and-in-reverse dreams! Scary-(in a very good way)-The-Crystal-Maze dreams! Itopia series 3 being really good dreams! Itopia series 3 being really bad dreams! Lots of them, and most of them good. The dream that prompted this segment wasn’t a good one.

I was sitting in a bar (I don’t even drink???) chatting with some people about Knightmare. And during the conversation, my dream-self decided to claim that Fort Boyard: Ultimate Challenge was the only gameshow to feature contestants in the 15-17 age range. And that’s not true!! Not only does Knightmare itself feature 15-year-old contestants, but 50% of The Quest contestants also fall in that age range. I can’t believe I was wrong about gameshows in a dream! It’s truly mortifying.

And that's it for this week. I'm really enjoying this, so I hope I can make it last. I don't have any concrete plans for what I want to write about, so you can expect some stream-of-consciousness rambling. Or maybe I’ll make enough progress on one of my side projects that it’ll be worth talking about (unlikely at this rate).Either way, remember that it's only a game, isn't it?

Gameshows watched: The Traitors Aotearoa, Raven, Knightmare, Prosiect Z, Lateral with Tom Scott, Only Connect, Richard Osman’s House of Games, The Hit List, Into the Jungle with Ed Stafford, Taskmaster, Strictly Come Dancing