James reviews The Boss on BBC2, Lingo on ITV1 and Deal or No Deal on ITV2

Transcript

Hello, I’m James Brook, and welcome to the forty-first episode of ‘I Review Freeview.’

This is where I review Freeview programs. Go to IReviewFreeview.com to search, listen, or indeed read and/or comment on all my reviews, past and present. And it should be available in the usual places where you get your podcasts. If you’re curious about the future, see the ‘What’s up next’ section at the end, or look for the ‘what’s up next’ page. That’s IReviewFreeview - all one word - dot com.

In this episode, I will review:

The Boss on BBC2,
Lingo on ITV1, and
Deal or No Deal on ITV2.

On a historical note, I’d forgotten: I’ve already reviewed a couple of game shows: Pointless (Way, way too much banter. Get on with it!) and the 1% club (I’d have been eliminated in round 3, so I’m officially dumb).

So maybe I should not be reviewing another clutch of them, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Game shows! That’s a whole world of TV I’ve always scorned as too trivial to bother with. Completely erroneously, I think my mind is too refined and precious an instrument to watch irritatingly hygienic hosts, all white teeth, orange skin and plastic smiles, getting people to answer silly questions and do dumb things on a brightly lit chipboard stage.

(Ha!)

And yet I am a man who can spend hours thinking how nice it would be to go on dragon’s den with something truly world shaking, like a matter transmitter or a time machine. Or, on less whimsical days, just staring out of the window, trying to guess the colour of the next car to drive past.

And uyet I tend to think game shows are a waste of time. (Ha!) All proving my important stuff is not your important stuff.

But anyway, it started with Susan Calman: I noticed she is hosting ‘The Boss.’ I’ve been a bit of a lukewarm fan for a little while, so I thought, why not. Then, well, the idea of a theme occurred and, before you know it, here we are. I’ve never seen any of them before. It feels almost like 3 blind dates, one after the other, bing bang bong!

So I plan, in this episode three short(ish) reviews followed by another short bit which compares them, before going the usual what’s up next and wrap up.

By the way, the image for this episode was generated by a free AI image generator with the prompt:

A black and white drawing of stick figures on the set of a generic TV game show.

Yep, not too bad, except the audience looks too big.

Anyway, so: let us start:

The Boss (S1 E2) on BBC2, Tuesday 15 October, 2:30pm

This is a general knowledge quiz show with a few puzzle questions thrown in, all structured to mimic a ladybird book called ‘How it works: a badly organised small business.’

All the contestants are nice. They joke and smile and, if eliminated, leave with good grace. And, here’s the thing: the game is so structured you can’t leave without at least having a go at being the boss and winning the money. But being the boss means you can be eliminated.

So, maybe I’ve got it wrong, but the best strategy seems obvious: be an old soldier: never volunteer, never challenge. Just keep your head down and hide in the trenches, only surfacing right at the end. But I’m only a viewer. Who knows, if I were under the spotlight, being asked if I wanted to be boss, I might change the habit of a lazy lifetime and say ‘yes please’. And undoubtedly get kicked off.

Susan Calman, who I last saw looking for a grand day out by driving a converted ice cream van around the Nottingham countryside, is the host. Without evidence, she says this is ‘where nice guys come last.’ Which is so obviously just a hook to get you to watch, it borders on the criminal.

I have to say, I preferred her in her little van, tootling along and finishing - if memory serves - with a bit about the mad, bad and dangerous to know poet, Lord Byron.

Here, wearing a white shirt and a mail-order suit, stuck in a studio set designed by Ikea’s younger brother, Calman seems somehow hedged in, like an over groomed sea otter stuck in a puddle. But, as ever, she’s comfortable in front of the camera, encouraging the audience to have a laugh with a few asides and eye-rolls.

The first round is fingers on buttons, the five contestants on their little podiums frantically jabbing away. The winner is Mike, who opts to be the boss and goes up the steps to join Susan in what she called the manager’s office: a sort of elevated balcony, looking down on the others, who have become ‘the staff’.

Then the boss had to answer more questions, to set the money level, before nominating members of the staff to answer yet more questions. The key point here, is how they are positioned. The staff are all standing behind their little podiums, looking at the audience, with Calman and the boss elevated behind them, also looking forward.

It is absolutely crucial you understand this. To help, I’ve done a little diagram, a plan, which I’m waving in front of the microphone. (Chuckles) I know that helps ….

This is important, because we are now building up to the exciting moment. When the round is concluded, Susan puts on her serious voice and asks if any of the workers want to challenge the boss. We’re all on tenterhooks. There is a roll of drums and (gasp!) Mark’s little podium revolves! Wow! He’s challenging the boss to a face-off!

There are three puzzle questions, the loser to go home. Oh, I’m on the edge of my seat. This is so much better than a kick up the bum with a burnt stick.

These puzzle questions are under the umbrella title of ‘missing link’. An example is shown: 92, 103, 114, a blank and 136. My mind turned to porridge. The answer is 125, as they go up in 11s. I have a sinking feeling. The next sequence is: B E H space N. I try saying the alphabet, but Mark’s already there. ‘K’ he says, and gets a round of applause for being right.

Then Mike gets the next - another number sequence - before he times out in the sudden death and has to go home.

Time for a chat with the new boss who, it turns out, is a prison officer. Calman seems to miss a trick here. I’m sure she should have asked if - when he goes back to work - will all the inmates shout ‘yo boss’ and bang on their bars with metal cups as he walks past. Or maybe they only do that in films.

Anyway, with a new boss, the entire process starts again. A round to set the level. A round with the staff answering questions. A challenge. A face-off.

Mark survives. There were two women at the start. They followed my strategy and kept their heads down, and so are in at the end.

One of them beats Mark, so off he trundles. The women decide to split the winnings and it’s over: run credits, that’s a wrap.

It’s all completely as I expected: there’s just enough going on to keep you watching, but not enough happening to make you want to watch another one.

Series record? no.

And what next in this cornucopia of early afternoon game shows? Well I never, it’s

Lingo (S3 E45) on ITV1, Tuesday 15 October, 3:00pm

Now I like to think I’m good at word games and puzzles. I do Wordle every morning. I once smuggled ‘oxymoronic’ wrongly into a sentence and no-one noticed. (Ha!) I write this podcast with (sometimes) long words in a sentence that makes sense. And sometimes sentences of short words that make no sense.

Unlike cooking, gardening, golf or DIY, words is mine own thingy.

And Lingo is a game show where teams of two compete with two other teams of two to solve word puzzles.

So I sat up a bit. I might have been a bust at The Boss, but words? (Ha!) Bring it on!

The host, Adil Ray, is in the quiet spectrum of game show hosts. It’s hard to imagine him cavorting around, punching the air if someone wins the grand prize. No. He’d grin, clap his hands a bit and that would be it.

The set is even more basic than the one for The Boss. Think MFI on an off day. Functional to the core. Not a spinning podium to be seen. An oval screen for the questions and three small stands for the contestants, one between two. Poor old Adil has nothing. He just has to stand there.

‘Lingo’ the game show contains several rounds of ‘Lingo’ the game. A bit like a chess tournament being called ‘Chess’.

And ‘Lingo’ - the game - is practically the same as Wordle, except you’re given the first letter, and if you come up with a nonword, you lose. For the record, Lingo has been around far longer than Wordle. But it’s not, I would imagine, as well known. Just shows you the power of getting a web-based game out there during a pandemic.

The other game they play is ‘puzzleword’, where you have to guess a word from a clue and randomly inserted letters.

Identical twins Monica and Lucille are up first.

G dash dash dash appears. Immediately, Lucille says, ‘Gear G-E-A-R’. The new letters appear, colour coded. I’m just about to start thinking about this when -

‘Good, G-O-O-D’ toots Lucille. I think, yep, that’s a good word, but -

‘GOLF’ honks Monica ‘G-O-L-F’ and that’s that Lingo solved.

I never even made it to first base. There were 4 lingos. I got nowhere with any of them.

Then it was the turn of the ‘puzzleword’. The clue is: ‘this answer is wrapped up in itself.’

A ‘C’ appears, then a ‘G’, an ‘I’ and an ‘M’. I think -

‘Clingfilm!’ shouts Lucille as she presses a button. They’ve just won another £180 and their turn is over and I have discovered I’m as useless at puzzleword as I am at Lingo. There is a big difference between playing at home, when you can do your Wordles and puzzles at a leisurely pace with cups of coffee and a bun, and being in a studio, with cameras peering at you, an expectant audience and a clock ticking off the seconds as if it’s the end of the world.

I’d thought, in this sort of game, I’d be a shark. But I’m not. I’m a tadpole, left behind in a muddy footprint.

But then the twins give way to a couple from Woking, and I think, well, y’know … twins … maybe they had a lingo synergy, or something.

So I try again, and get flattened, again. And the third couple scarpered so far ahead I needed a telescope to keep up.

Before coming on, the players must have been asked for amusing anecdotes about themselves. Inbetween rounds or games, Adil would get some chat going, always, tediously, in the form of a leading question. ‘I understand you’re something of a rock chick’ he says to Wendy, who is probably old enough to be his mum.

Wendy smiles and says she likes Britpop, and names a band I’ve never heard of.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I think, wouldn’t it be great if one of them had fabricated something only just believable, but - y’know - could be true. For instance, ‘I was sitting on a park bench in Huddersfield once when Joan Collins gave me a hamburger.’

Nope, nothing like that. It was all pretty routine.

But, strangely, I didn’t mind these nearly pre-scripted chats. Usually, I’d have been reaching for the off-switch well before now, but ... (Sigh) oh, I don’t know. Everything in this program just ambles along, like an old carthorse wandering around looking for a bit of hay. There’s the illusion of movement, but nothing much really happens.

So I suppose I just tuned out. I watched it yesterday, and - unless I watch the recording - I’ve no idea who won or how much.

It was all filler vanilla, to coin a phrase.

Series record? Nope.

Moving on at last to the last - hooray! - in this game show themed episode, we have:

Deal or No Deal (S1 E10) on ITV2, Tuesday 15 October, 2:00pm

Of course, ‘Deal or No Deal’ has been around for a while, but I’ve always avoided it because it was hosted by that preening git Noel Edmonds. Not a decision I’ve ever regretted.

The current host - Stephen Mulhern - seems pleasant, has a good gurn on him but is otherwise entirely forgettable. If you met him in Tescos you wouldn’t even think, I know that face.

Now I’ll say straight away, up front, I enjoyed ‘Deal or No Deal’ far more than either The Boss or Lingo.

The game is simplicity itself and requires little skill. There are 22 numbered boxes, each containing a sum of money, ranging from 1P to £100,000. Each box - unopened - is picked at random by the contestants.

There is one player per show, selected at random from the contestants, who - with their boxes - stay on the stage. In a series of rounds, the player selects a box, the contestant with that box opens it and the money inside removed from that game. A board keeps tabs on the amounts left.

Obviously, the more the lower sums are eliminated, the higher the end prize is likely to be.

After each round of 5 guesses or so, a ‘banker’ offers a cash sum for the player to bail out, who then needs to accept or reject this offer by saying ‘Deal’ or ‘No Deal’.

It’s basically spoof on steroids.

In this episode, the player is Stevie, fetchingly attired in Hawaiian shirt and shorts. He’s a large jovial lorry driver from Scotland, and he’s brought along his granddaughter’s favourite fluffy toy sheep, for luck.

He and the host chat for about the length of time it takes a boil a couple of eggs.

He pulls out a crumpled bit of paper, and smoothes it down. ‘I got my granddaughter,’ he says, ‘to pick five numbers.’

And the game begins. Stevie says ‘Number 3.’

Box number 3 belongs to Toni. She says a couple of nice things about Stevie and opens the box. Inside the lid we see ‘£3,000.’ From the leader board, the £3,000 label vanishes. It’s a middling number, so Stevie’s not too put out.

His next number is 14, belonging to Joseph. More nice things are said, and the box is opened. 10P!

There is a great burst of applause and Stevie bounds over to give Joseph a hug.

And that’s the pattern. If a large number is eliminated, Stevie clutches his head and bends over in disappointment. But then he straightens up and bounces around again, like a prizefighter recovering after a knockdown.

After 5 guesses, the telephone rings. A hush descends. Supposedly this is ‘The Banker’, who’s never seen and probably doesn’t exist. The host pretends to have a conversation with him, but I expect he just makes up a number depending on what he had for breakfast.

I’d be astonished if anyone ever accepts the first offer. And Stevie does indeed reject the paltry £1,000, and the game continues.

Huh! ‘Deal or No Deal’ is so wily. With minimal skill involved, you don’t have to pretend to yourself you’d have correctly answered a series of questions, or done anything exceptional at all. Nor does it matter if you keep your cool or not. A goat randomly eating bunches of spinach is just as likely to win big as a large brained smartarse from Cambridge.

And as the boxes are opened, the tension builds. ‘The Banker’s’ offers become more tempting.

Stevie gets pretty lucky, and he’s offered £12,300. Easily enough for the holiday he wants. He looks at his partner, sitting in the audience, but she’s no help. ‘Do what you want to do,’ she says.

I must admit, I’m now hooked. Compared with this, The Boss and Lingo fade into insignificance. If I suddenly died, my last thought, before going into oblivion would be the entirely prosaic ‘I wonder what Stevie did?’

The music becomes a heartbeat, thumping away. ‘No Deal’ he says. There is a collective gasp, then applause. His partner looks like she’s just laid an egg, then claps enthusiastically.

There’s one more tense round which goes well for him, so he’s now offered £24,600. And after much stomping, head scratching, hawing and humming, Stevie accepts.

Then, cruelly, he’s made to play to the end. He would have netted £75,000. Oh no!

But it’s all relative. He’s going home with dosh for his family holiday and enough left over to buy them all bicycles and ice cream for Christmas.

As I said, I was hooked. But this is possibly more to do with Stevie, unashamedly bouncing around than with the actual game itself.

Have I put in on series record? Nope. I’ve seen it once, and that will do.

And now for that quick comparison!

As I have indicated, between ‘Deal or No Deal’, ‘The Boss’ and ‘Lingo’ I found ‘Deal or No Deal’ easily the most enjoyable.

It’s a good, tense game, but I’m pretty sure this is because the potential winnings are so large. If they were playing for - say - a maximum prize of £15,000 (as in Lingo) I don’t think it would generate nearly the same level of tension. 15 grand is very nice, but it’s hard to think of it as life changing. But £100,000? Oh, you could do things with that.

As a rule, I’d say the dumber the game, the higher the prize needs to be to build the tension and maintain the interest. After all, there’s little else going for it.

Take, for instance ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire?’ Because of the knowledge and skill required, it’d still work - more or less - rebranded as ‘Who wants a thousand quid?’

But ‘Deal or No Deal?’ Nah, that wouldn’t survive 5 minutes. Imagine if a player eliminated all the high numbers in the first couple of rounds. The switching of channels would bring down the network.

But really, does this reliance on large prizes matter? TV game-shows have but one purpose: to entertain. True, there might be educational side effects and/or a showcasing of some special skill or talent. But if they don’t entertain and hold the audience, they might as well not be there.

And on that metric, ‘Deal or No deal’ comes out on top. But, possibly, if ‘The Boss’ or ‘Lingo’ were given snazzier sets and vast prizes, who knows?

After all, the love of money is the root of all game shows.

And that biblical misquote concludes the reviews for this episode of ‘I Review Freeview.’

Next time, I will review:

Cowboys & Aliens (2011) on Film4, Monday 21 October, 6:45pm
Tony Robinson’s History of Britain on 5SELECT, Monday 21 October, 8:00pm and
The Great Erection Deception: The Stiff Nights Story on ITV1, Monday 21 October, 10:45pm

I’m running a bit late with getting this episode out. Blame events dear boy, events. So these have been picked rapidly, primarily because the titles caught my eye. There’s a Viagra scam, cowboys fighting creatures from another planet and Baldrick from Blackadder being a history buff. (Ha!) Themed episodes, who needs them?

As ever, you can contact me via email to contact@IReviewFreeview.com or through the website IReviewFreeview.com, or from where you normally get your podcasts. Let me know what you think and - of course - if you want me to cast my beady eye on a particular program: film, documentary, whatever, then tell me.

And if you want to know what I’ll be reviewing next time, click on the page ‘What’s up next.’

Thank you for listening, and goodbye for now.