Gameshow Madness

Being the professional layabout that I now am, I get to watch a lot of TV. Daytime TV after 3pm seems to be a minefield of gameshows and quizzes, I can guarantee that at 5pm, the latest shit-fest on ITV will be there to blow your left leg off. They seem hell-bent on making their own version of 'Deal or No Deal', as Noel Edmonds gets smugger with every episode, safe in the knowledge that he's the King of Retarded Gameshows. He's the leader of his own box-worshipping cult of perpetually optimistic dicks. Whoever has the audacity to ruin another persons game by revealing the £250,000 box (which they obviously knew was in there, what do you think this is? Randomly opening boxes hoping to avoid big numbers!?) is dead to the group. After the show they probably behead the offender into that box, while Noel laughs manically as he sends another sacrifice to his God-like Banker. Probably.

Noels after-show activities aside, ITV have been churning out 5 o' clock nonsense since Goldenballs. No-one remembers it because they either steered clear of it or their brain exploded when they tried to work out what the fuck was going on. Then they moved onto Divided, which is only marginally less stupid. You think Noel Edmonds is smug? Meet Andrew Castle, spouting off the show's "Will the team be united...or divided?" 'catchphrase' with the kind of sinister tone normally reserved for the Saw series. And yes, chopping your leg off with a hacksaw is less painful than this. The main gimmick of the show is that for each question, the 3 team members have to agree on the answer, the longer this takes, the less money they get. Then at the end, the overall pot is split into 3 unequal parts with 'A' being around 75% of the pot, 'B' 15% and 'C' the remaining 10%. The team then has to agree on who should get each pot of money, before the time runs out and they have fuck all. To walk away with the most amount of money, you've either really earned the team's respect, or you've put on such a stubbornly amazing display of bell-endery, the others just gave up. Then again, you were probably just affected by too much exposure to Andrew Castle.

Not even Divided can hold down a slot now though, and The Chase has been called in for a replacement. Which, unfortunately isn't a contestant chasing after Andrew Castle with the intent of beating him to a bloody pulp. It's a 6 foot-odd brick shithouse of a man who is actually clever (The Chaser, to give him his dramatic title) 'chasing' a member of the public with questions. Never mind winning the thing, you do well to decipher the cock-en-ay accent Bradley Walsh's voice provides as he stumbles through reading the questions. ITV should give him one million a week wages and take away a quid everytime he makes a mistake, he'll finish the week on less than a part-time McDonalds worker. If you ever get around to watching it, you'll quickly hate 'The Chaser' for being from the 'Eggheads' school of answering. As in, don't give the right answer, explain why the other answers are wrong and whatever's left is "the answer, I assume".

It makes me long for someone to revive Catchphrase, an actually brilliant gameshow. It's the right mix of genius concept (say what you see!) and shit execution (Microsoft Paint visuals) all held together effortlessly by Roy "It's Good But It's Not Right" Walker. No-one in game show history has managed to nail the put-down like Roy, the contestant couldn't feel any more destroyed if the screen flashed up with "YOU C*NT" and Mr. Chips pissing on a picture of their face. An experience right up there with blagging a supermodel orgy is getting the catchprase on screen with enough time spare to remark "How do they not know this?" as everyone in the room nods in agreement of your utter genius.

And yes everyone, I have been reading Charlie Brooker, which inspired this.