1) LOVE IS IN THE STARS AND ON DISCOVERY+
Discovery UK has commissioned 2 new shows for its Discovery+ streaming service, which will be on air later this year.
The first one is the classical Beauty and the Geek, that was originally created in 2005 by US network Fox and adapted in more than 20 different Countries.
The second one is - thankfully - a brand-new format, a dating titled Zodiac Island, produced by Barefaced TV (part of STV Studios). The series will feature 3 astrologers who will find matches for 12 cynical singletons. Living together during one lunar cycle on a sun-soaked Greek island, the series will test whether matching couples by their birth charts will lead to true love. So, 3 assets are combined in this format: the traditional appeal of dating shows, the passion/curiosity for astrology and the ‘exotic’ scenario of the set.
2) NICE CARD GAMES ARE NOT GOOD GAME SHOWS
Hong Kong-based O4 has partnered with London-based Boxatricks Television Entertainment to produce a TV version of the famous card game Top Trumps, which first published in 1978 in a wide variety of different packs, based on a theme, such as cars, aircraft, books, boats, dinosaurs, characters from a popular film or television series and so on.
The television version is not yet known. In the traditional version, each card shows a list of numerical data about the item. For example, in a pack based on cars, each card shows a different car model, and the stats and data may include its engine size, weight, length, top speed... The starting player selects a category from their topmost card and reads out its value. The other players then read out the value of the same category from their cards and the player with best value takes all the opponent’s cards.
Very simple and effective, for a card game. Very weak and poor, for a Tv game show. But, you know, often the marketing is more important than the content (at least at the beginning of the process).
3. A FARM AGAINST ALZHEIMER
In the number of formats of this last period, a remarkable one, on air in December 2021 on the Chinese streaming platform Tencent, was unfortunately missing from this blog. I mean the reality/factual Forget Me Not Farm, which is based on the 2 previous series Forget Me Not The Cafe (on air on the same platform in 2019 and 2020), which are based, in their turn, on the UK The Restaurant That Makes Mistakes, maybe one of the best formats of the last years (in the pic below the playbills of Forget Me Not Cafe 1 and 2 and Forget Me Not Farm).
In Forget Me Not The Farm, 3 Chinese celebrities, together with 5 elderly people who have Alzheimer's disease, run a farm, carrying out all the related tasks (in Forget Me Not The Cafe the celebs and the elder opened and ran a restaurant). They all face difficulties and eventually overcome them, but the most touching moments are when the elderly persevere to overcome their dementia. That’s all. But the delicacy (mixed also with a bit of intelligent humor) this sensitive issue is dealt with is worth watching it.