Very, very nice update.  Looks like the old set but updated well for modern times.  They even used the 80s board and graphics which is pretty cool.  Hey, if you’re trying to bring in your core audience to watch a game show revival, you may as well go with what they like.  Why go too far out to change what isn’t broken?  Again, I hate to harp on this but just from this American’s perspective, doesn’t it make sense for a network that specifically airs game shows to revive fan favorites with built in audiences?  Challenge is very, very smart for doing this.

Jeremy cruised through the first round with $67,600 in his bank.  He managed to retain one Jump the Question lifeline and Ask the Audience.  His $100,000 question asked, “What media magnate claims he was the USS Enterprise’s radar operator when it tracked John Glenn’s space capsule in 1962?”  He elected to Jump the Question and face the $250,000 question…

In October 2008, the Chicago-based Internet company Groupon sold its first discount deal, a two-for-one offer on what?
A: Teeth cleanings
B: Pizza
C: Yoga classes
D: Movie tickets

After realizing that the word “Chicago” in the question would most likely be a clue, Jeremy made B, Pizza, his final answer and scored the $250,000 prize. His $500,000 question was…

In the famous painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” what future U.S. President is depicted holding the flag?
A: John Quincy Adams
B: Thomas Jefferson
C: James Monroe
D: James Madison

Though he had a hunch that it was D, the audience thought the answer was B. Jeremy wisely decided to leave with $250,000. If he went for it he would have lost $225,000 and dropped back to the $25,000 level. The correct answer was C.

This win makes Jeremy Blais the third $250,000 winner this season, following celebrity Anthony Anderson and Noam Osband. Jeremy is the seventh person to win $250,000 since Millionaire switched to the current Super Mix format. No one has won higher yet. Keep checking the show out in the next few weeks. You never know when someone may.

Did you miss Jeremy’s amazing game? Here are a few highlights of his run. It was a great moment. I haven’t seen a reaction like his family’s in a while. It looked like they were about to pass out. Photo and video courtesy Valleycrest Productions Ltd.

Scott and Jane, as we said before, played nearly a perfect game save for one Panic Room.  The couple traveled through ten rooms, including the jackpot £100,000 room, and never missed a question.  One of the rooms was a Panic Room, and the the Coupers only missed one item resulting in a Panic Code of just the number two.  Jane was selected to recite the Exit List and make her way out of the Memory Maze with £137,000.  Scott was offered £55,000 by the Maze to end the game, but he trusted in his wife and the team collected the prize.  The Coupers are the second couple to leave with six figures and became the biggest winners. Jenny and David Bentley, on the first episode, won £100,000.

Check out the episode below.  We’re looking forward to seeing the ratings.  The Exit List deserves a lot more than it’s getting.  I can see why High Stakes was moved to Tuesdays, but I’ve got no clue why The Exit List was.  The set is awesome, the music is amazing, and the game has great play-along and I’ve yet to see an episode that wasn’t pretty exciting.  I don’t get it.  Image and video courtesy ITV and Gogglebox Entertainment.

Here’s a clip courtesy of CBS from the 2009 ACM special.

Check out some of the show from last series.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video and photo courtesy Channel 4 and Endemol.  Video will be removed one week after original air date.

What do you think?  Spoilers in the comments so read at your own risk before watching, but wow.  What an amazing, tense game.  The reactions from the audience are going to be equally hard to forget.

“Blockbusters is the ultimate cult TV quiz, and we think that Simon Mayo is the perfect host to bring it back to our screens,” commented Barbara Gibbon, director of Challenge TV. “We hope that it will be popular not only with those of us who loved it the first time around but also with a brand new generation of fans. We might even bring back the hand-jive!”

Simon Mayo, Blockbusters presenter said: “Blockbusters is an iconic show and a winning format. I feel very honoured and excited.”

Suzy Lamb, Head of Entertainment, Thames added: “It’s testament to the huge popularity of Blockbusters, that Challenge TV have commissioned a new series.”

Here’s a bit of Simon hosting Winning Lines.  We’re looking forward to the new series of Blockbusters and, personally, I feel it’s an incredibly smart move, if you’re a Game Show Network, to look at past popular game shows that are usually in the top ranking of your lineup, and attempt to find a way to revive them.

Here are the exact viewing figures for each day.  The stats include the ratings position for the week compared to all the other shows on the network, the time slot, the number of viewers, and then we throw in the average for the day, the percentage lost from last week, and what percentage of its lead-in Dancing With the Stars lost.

Friday, January 27th
176: 6:00PM to 8:00PM : 150,000 viewers
062: 8:00PM to 10:00PM : 264,000 viewers
119: 10:00PM to 11:00PM : 211,000 viewers
163: 11:00PM to 1:00AM : 163,000 viewers
178: 1:00AM to 3:00AM : 149,000 viewers
202 : 3:00AM to 4:00AM : 84,000 viewers
Friday Average: 170,000 viewers (First Friday the show appeared on, replacing Flashback Friday)
Lead In: Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, 230,000 viewers; Loss of 35%.

Saturday, January 28th
161: 6:00PM to 7:30PM : 167,000
070: 7:30PM to 8:30PM : 254,000
086: 8:30PM to 10:00PM : 240,000
105: 10:00PM to 11:00PM : 228,000
142: 11:00PM to 12:30AM : 187,000
162: 12:30AM to 1:30AM : 166,000
195: 1:30AM to 3:00AM : 99,000
198: 3:00AM to 4:00AM : 88,000
Saturday Average: 179,000 viewers; Down 26% from previous Saturday’s debut weekend
Lead In: The Newlywed Game, 315,000 viewers; Loss of 47%

Sunday, January 29th
199: 1:00PM to 2:30PM : 85,000
204 : 2:30PM to 3:30PM : 76,000
187: 3:30PM to 5:00PM : 122,000
169: 5:00PM to 6:00PM : 156,000
Sunday Average: 110,000 viewers; Down 37% from previous Sunday’s debut weekend
Lead In; 1 VS 100, 218,000 viewers; Loss of 60%

So it’s pretty clear it’s not going well at all. I’d have to imagine we’d see some pretty drastic cutbacks since the show has no positive outlook, but we’ll see. I don’t think anyone expected it to do out-of-this-world numbers, but I don’t think anyone expected numbers this bad.

According to the Mirror, celebrities taking part include, Bill Oddie with fellow wildlife presenter Chris Packham, TV favourites Claire Sweeney and Anthea Turner, Formula 1 host Jake Humphrey and David Coulthard and Arlene Phillips and her daughter Alana.

Host Alexander Armstrong, said: “It’s going to be fun. Including the usual version we’ll be on six days out of seven – blimey.” His co-host, Richard Osmond, also said, “We haven’t changed the show at all for Saturdays, so we’ll still be our normal, bumbling, amateur selves.”

Looking forward to the new shows?  Pointless still remains one of the more entertaining game shows out there so it’s glad to see it getting a big order and promotion like this.

“Military Spouses Week is not just about the men and women serving,” said Pat Sajak, Wheel of Fortune Host. “It’s about the wives, husbands and kids behind the scenes, who are making sacrifices as well. It’s a way to honor them and to remind all of America that there are a lot of people behind this effort. ”

Be sure to check out the week starting February 6th. You may even get to see a special reunion of a couple…

Let’s start with the positives, though.  With the meteoric rise of Family Feud, Who Wants to be a Millionaire has accidentally been pushed to the side for a bit.  However, they had some great news for the week ending January 22nd.  The long running syndicated quiz show hosted by Meredith Vieira hit a new season high of 2.7.  It’s been doing very well the past few weeks and it’s good to see some numbers close to where the show used to be.  It’s been a little frozen over the past few months.  Fun fact: we’re almost approaching ten years without a $1,000,000 winner (through actual game play).  It would be really nice to even just see a million dollar question.  We haven’t had one of those in about four years.  I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the 11th season then to, you know, prove what the title of the show actually means.

Speaking of Family Feud, this past week it froze at 3.2 which, again, is unbelievably good.  Remember: next season the show will switch to HD.  Steve Harvey’s talk show is taping in Chicago so could we be seeing another location change?  The top two as always are Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! with 7.7 and 6.4, respectively.

Broadcast ratings weren’t anything to scream about, but not that terrible either.  The series finale of NBC’s Who’s Still Standing? scored a fourth place 1.7/5 in the key demographic and a fourth place viewing total of 6.48 million viewers.  An unbelievable number of things were wrong with the show so I’m frankly amazed it managed to basically stay at the same exact place week in and week out.  I appreciate the effort at trying to make a fast paced quiz show, but the Minute to Win It-ization of the format made it practically unwatchable.

In England, the viewing figures for ITV’s quiz show The Exit List are depressingly low.  Last night’s very tense episode, which saw a team bail out with £17,000 after believing they could not escape the Memory Maze with £115,000, only scored 1.8 million viewers.  This is a show that really should be far, far more popular than it is and I’m not quite sure why numbers are dipping even lower than High Stakes.  Frankly, as I’m watching, I’m not even sure why this isn’t airing on the weekends like planned.  It’s got it all and I’ve yet to see a show that didn’t feature some exciting moment.  Massive shame.

Photo courtesy Valleycrest Productions Ltd

Here’s a list of the people competing and their information, courtesy Sony.

Again, first place will get $100,000 and an automatic seat into the Tournament of Champions. Second place receives $50,000 and third gets $25,000. Each semi-finalist wins $10,000 and contestants knocked out in the first rounds get $5,000. Over 12,000 students applied and these are the only fifteen taht made it, so congratulations to them.

Here’s the rundown of the highly advertised debut episodes for January 21st and January 22nd in order from most watched to least watched, identified by their rankings for the week.

17: Saturday, January 21st; 6PM to 8PM; 325K viewers
32: Saturday, January 21st; 8PM to 10PM; 304K viewers
53: Saturday, January 21st; 10PM to 11PM; 283K viewers
125: Saturday, January 21st; 11PM to 1AM; 213K viewers
147: Saturday, January 21st; 1AM to 3AM; 192K viewers
154: Sunday, January 22nd; 1AM to 3AM; 185K viewers
166: Sunday, January 22nd; 5PM to 6PM; 174K viewers
181: Sunday, January 22nd; 3PM to 5PM; 165K viewers
200: Saturday, January 21st; 3AM to 4AM; 136K viewers

The full day average for Dancing With the Stars on its debut date of January 21st was 242,000 viewers.  Not counting the same-day reruns after that, from 6PM to 11PM, the average was 304,000 viewers.  This tumbled to 174,000 average on Sunday, January 22nd.

Needless to say this can not have gone the way they wanted or expected, and it’s probably the way many of you were hoping.  For the record, as I originally said months ago, I still don’t think it was that horrible of a gamble given that it does fit in their target demographic and, on paper, the acquisition made sense.  It made a lot more sense than The Amazing Race did.  However, as we’ve also repeatedly stated, this stuff never works for them and people watch GSN for, shockingly, game shows.  Who would have thought?

So what now?  I expect to see the unbelievable rerun schedule it’s under right now if it doesn’t perk up in the next cycle of reruns.  Given how it lost over 100,000 viewers from Saturday to Sunday I wouldn’t count on it.  It really probably would behoove them to actually renew things the people are watching like Newlywed Game and Baggage and Catch 21 which, for reasons I still don’t understand, they seem to want to ignore despite it being consistently popular.  The fact that The $100,000 Pyramid is also consistently a top performer for GSN I’d be looking at possibly bringing that back, but there we are.  Victory for game show fans.

Here’s a Backstage Pass video with the Hillstrand Brothers getting prepared to play Millionaire.  Photo and video courtesy Valleycrest Productions Ltd.