LTPHarry

So, good ol' Martin Lewis teaches you how to save money... a lot. You see him on many ITV programmes like This Morning and his own programme, The Martin Lewis Money Show. This time, he's teaching you how to win at board games; four to be specific.

First of all, this is yet another example of why ITV's commissioners should reconsider some of the shows that they've been putting on lately. This special is nothing more than something you can easily watch on YouTube and even feels like it was formatted for that in mind. Like, what's so exciting about Martin helping some junior school kids play Connect 4? Sure, he can't turn into a money-prone superhero and save the world from impending doom, as that's just my imagination thinking of something much more exciting than this.

A good thing about this special, yes there is some good as well... is that it's not a blatant product placement farm for Hasbro or Mattel because if it was, it would show that it would be - big time. The other good is that it is educational and teaches some good advice; but once again, if I wanted board game tips then I would go on YouTube, of which you can find many different examples rather than four with an abundance of filler.

Overall, this is yet another flopped commission from ITV proving they can be relevant with the audience. If you want your share of Martin Lewis, just wait until his Money Show goes back on air, or even then; just go onto his website!

Here's a Ready, Steady, Build! Episode review, which I haven't done before. This is the only episode Sharon Miller has written for the entire Bob the Builder franchise.

So, in this episode, Roley is made the team leader to help refurbish a football pitch. Just like how Thomas is portrayed throughout the Miller era, Roley is portrayed as a raving idiot who does not stop chanting rhymes and doesn't listen to Bob properly on how to do the job, messes up with the other machines three times; and then he says "And it's all my fault" when he gets into trouble just like the T&F characters. As I just stated, the traditional three strikes formula is utilized here as well. I didn't notice it as much as I do with T&F, but it's still there. Ready, Steady, Build! Has quite a number of three strikes-centric episodes.

At least the good thing here is that the rhyming is only done through Roley's chants, and isn't peppered all throughout the episode. However it doesn't make it less annoying.

This episode is not great and isn't worth a watch.

This one-off special came through the depths of another charity crossover event Channel 4 did to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary. Although unlike the Countdown version, this remained a one-off while the other obviously went to series and is more popular than the original EOOTC.

The show first starts off as a plain ol' DOND episode, where Darren Brown is the contestant and Noel is going on and on. But of course, the usual shenigans happen and we swap over to a completely twisted version of the show, where Jimmy Carr is the host and Sean Lock and Jon Richardson are double contestants winning money for the respective charity. A majority of the box openers are comedians (eg, Kathrine Ryan and Rob Beckett) but there are also other faces like Rachael and Suzie from Countdown, and even Nong (the then-most recent £250,000 winner on the actual DOND). Joe Wilkinson is the Banker's assistant but takes the job less seriously than you could imagine, but being what you expect Joe to be like that isn't much of a surprise.

Within the last two-box offer, Sean and Jon deal at £32,000 and successfully give the Banker a spanking as their box had 10p inside. Overall, a fun event that Channel 4 could really do again sometime with their existing lineup of shows.