1- LONG LIFE TO QUIZ SHOWS!
The quiz show is maybe the first genre of tv history… and even before tv! In the ‘30 a certain mr. Craig Earl, better known as Doctor Quiz, had some success making “live quiz shows” with the public of American cinemas, between one film and another (this tradition still continues in the UK with the Quiz Nights in pubs). The genre has been widely used also in radio (Information, Please - a fun game show - was broadcast for the very first time on NBC in 1939) and immediately after in tv: CBS Television Quiz, the very first television quiz, premiered in 1941.
Now, more than 80 years later, quiz and game shows are still extremely lively in the screens of the whole world. The last news is that London and L.A. based prodco Studio 1 has partnered with actor and producer Kevin Bacon to create a new quiz show, Lucky 13, defined as “a general-knowledge, high-stakes rolling quiz format”. Bacon will host the show in some English-speaking markets and the co-founders of Studio 1, Adrian Woolfe and Claudia Rosencrantz (who first met more than 20 years ago through the development of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) are in discussions with some broadcast networks and plan to announce primetime partnerships soon.
And it’s not all: a new season of the comedy quiz show Win the Week will debut on ABC Australia in August. The format tests people’s knowledge of politics, sport, world news and celebrity gossip. But it’s also a test of loyalty, because regular people are the team captains who are given the power to choose which celebrity they think can help them win the week: at the end of each round they get to choose whether to stay loyal to their celebrity teammate or “betray” them for one of the other celebs who might give them a better chance to win.
Furthermore, music game show format That’s My Jam has been tapped for a UK adaptation and will debut on BBC One and iPlayer. The original U.S. series, which combines celebrity guests, dance, trivia-based games and musical performances, was NBC’s best digital launch for an unscripted program. BAFTA-winning comedian Mo Gilligan will host the UK version, replacing Jimmy Fallon of the U.S. edition.
Long life to game shows!
2- TRAVELING WITH THE CELEBS
In these last days 3 new travel shows with celebs have been announced.
The first one is the Korean In The Soop: Friendcation, a spin off of BTS In The Soop, which premiered in 2020 on JTBC. In this original series the k-pop group BTS takes a break from their busy lives in the city going to a more peaceful, remote forest location (the Korean word soop means “forest”) for a period of relax. Now, 5 celebrities (one from BTS + other new 4, including the actor of Parasite Choi Woo-shik) do the same, but this time the series will premiere on Disney+ on July 22.
The other 2 are English and will be soon on air on Channel 4. The first one is titled Joe and Katherine’s Bargain Holidays and follows the adventure of the 2 comedians having a holiday in and outside the UK with a very low budget.
The second one (The Wonders of the World I Can’t See - w/t) is more peculiar: the blind comedian Chris McCausland (pic) travels to iconic landmarks around the world, with a different celebrity guest as his traveling companion for each episode. The companions will provide an audio description of the site for McCausland, and try to prove to him that there’s more to visiting these places than just their visual splendor.
3- ALL SHADES OF COOKING
The ongoing C21 Digital Screenings Theme Festival - Lifestyle: Food & Drink gives us the opportunity to review the ways in which one of the most popular genre of television (the cooking) is declined in different programs.
First of all there is the big group of cooking formats on locations, in which the chefs are in contact with the territory, the local cooking traditions/recipes, the local products and the “ordinary” people (The Chef in a Truck - Netflix: pic; My Country Kitchen - Seven Network Australia; Simply Raymond Blanc - ITV Food and many others).
A little less used recently (also due to the high costs) is the classic formula of big and “epic” competition in the studio, with eliminations, sweat and blood (literally, because cooking is dangerous): Cooking With the Stars - ITV Studios: pic; The Taste - Red Arrow; The Great British Menu - All3Media International and others.
A bit different are the formats with “light” competitions (usual in studio) between 2 or max 3 families / friends / single amateurs. Starting from BBC’s classic game Ready Steady Cook (1994), we can remember the fun My Mom Cooks Better Than Yours (Fremantle: pic), the original The Rolling Kitchen (The Global Agency) and many others.
Another group of more heterogenous programs uses cooking to talk also about other sensitive topics, such as the intersection of crime & food (Devoured, VICE distribution), between food and economic/brands (The Food That Built The World, A+E), or animalism and animal rights (Meat the Family - Red Arrow: pic).
And finally there are other formats that are unclassifiable and really different from all the others, like the Japanese Wonder Food - from Fiction to Reality (Chukyo TV Broadcasting Co.): some famous chefs bring alive amazing dishes spotted in fictional masterpieces of our time (fairytales, manga, fantasy etc). Really peculiar.