FRIDAY'S ESPRESSO - 25th August
The most followed newsletter about international formats & factuals
1. A COMEDY / SURVIVAL / HYBRID FILIPINO SHOW
Thursday 31st August on Prime Video will premiere Comedy Island Philippines, produced by Amazon Studio in collaboration with BASE Entertainment Asia. The show is an interesting hybrid between scripted and unscripted and two different genres, comedy and adventure/survival.
7 Filipino comedians, actors and social media celebrities embark on a hilarious adventure when they are washed upon the shore of the mysterious Tawa-Tawa Island, which resurfaces after 100 years to commence the fictional “Centennial Games.”
They soon find themselves competitors in these games, and must improvise to survive and escape the island. Pitted against each other in unscripted improvisational scenarios, the celebrities pull out all stops to bring laughter and entertainment to the island’s citizens, in order to win the most votes and a chance to go back home.
It’s difficult to judge this series from the synopsis and the trailers online (that are anyway quite funny), but it seems a courageous and ambitious format, out of the usual patterns seen over and over again hundreds of times.
2. ESCAPING FROM TRACKERS
Today 25th August is going to premiere on the streaming platform MAX (formerly HBO Max and still such outside the US), Tracked, a Warner Bros. Discovery ANZ format, produced by Great Southern Television. The show was launched on the New Zealand channel Three last April and is New Zealand’s first local show to premiere on Max.
The format (hosted by the British actor, presenter and former professional footballer Vinnie Jones) follows 16 individuals, in teams of two, competing to reach the evacuation zone and helicopter out before they are caught by an elite team of military trackers, with the winning team securing the $100,000 jackpot.
The concept is certainly not original (see Hunted and dozens of other similar formats), and in particular it’s a bit too close to the Danish Flokken (The Lost Ones, see Friday’s Espresso 2nd December 2022: the evacuation part is the same). But in shows like that who cares about originality? All you need is a proper casting, an amazing location and lots of adrenalin.
3. TRAVELLING & COOKING (OR VICEVERSA)
The “travcooks” trend (the sub-genre of factual that joins the two most popular factual trends: cooking & travel show) continues to be very strong. ITV and its streaming platform ITVX have commissioned a new series hosted by double BAFTA award winning broadcaster, artist and TV chef Big Zuu: Big Zuu’s 12 Dishes in 12 Hours, co-produced by Twofour and Zuu’s new TV production label Big Productions, that will air in 2024.
In the program Big Zuu (pic) will take celebrity guests on a quest across Europe to get a true flavour of each city through sampling the delights of its local delicacies. Big Zuu will teach his famous travel companions everything they need to know about a place through tasting 12 dishes. And at the same time they will discover hidden gems, food markets, local eateries and fine dining restaurants of some of Europe’s most vibrant destinations.
And this is exactly the core of the “travcooks”: celebrities who travel all around the world discovering local recipes, together with beautiful places and sometimes themselves, too: Qué Chica Es El Mundo, Sabor De América (see Friday’s Espresso 7th July), Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, Eva Longoria: Looking for Mexico and Aventura Gastronomica are just a few recent examples.
