Despite myself I though I would brave the Saturday night light entertainment offerings just to enjoy a little bit of a walk down memory lane for some of the gameshows that used to be on when I was younger. Taking a different show each week, PJ and Dun
.sorry, Ant and Dec lead a group of celebrities through each old gameshow, adding up their scores over the whole series. As an idea it is ironically both quite clever and incredibly unimaginative at the same time. The idea of doing it is a nice one and it does work well when placed in the Saturday night schedules but it is hard to shake the idea that really the series is devoid of any imagination and is simply yet another show doing "cover versions" and presenting it as something new (Pop Idol etc anyone?).
Essentially though what is just what this doing churning out old ideas but presenting it as something new (sort of); but remarkably it more or less manages to pull it off and be quite fun. It does this by essentially keeping its tongue in its cheek for the whole show, letting the audience know to just relax and enjoy it and not take it too seriously. This style of delivery is what stops it becoming just a cynical rehash of old ideas in the absence of new ones because it is fun, silly and quite enjoyable. As much as I don't care of the shows they present, Ant & Dec have gotten rich off doing this having fun in front of camera and taking the audience with them by never taking it too seriously. I'm sure that "lovable Geordie lads" stuff will wear thin eventually but for the minute it seems to be working for them big time. They enjoy themselves with each new show and they get the celebrity contestants into it as well, delivered a sense of fun that rises above the retread of the specific ideas. This isn't to say it is fantastic because it really isn't but it does well enough for Saturday night telly.
Overall an OK idea that is delivered with a cheeky wink to the audience that stops it being exposed as just yet another cover version fronting as something new. It shouldn't be allowed to run for more than one series and hopefully they won't bring back the old gameshows (although they probably will try to) but other than that you could actually do a lot worse on a Saturday night (although those that hate that whole TV slot should just leave this alone).
