“The Exit List” Debuts January 10th on ITV
Interesting scheduling news coming from ITV. Their new quiz show, The Exit List, had a quick turn-around and is debuting January 10th. The bad news? That’s a Tuesday. For ITV that’s essentially a burn-off day. Their big ticket shows like The Cube or anything else they felt remotely positive about has gone on Saturdays or Sundays. The Exit List was bound for Sunday but something happened and ITV decided no. The current show in the slot is ITV’s burn-off High Stakes which has been seeing small audiences of less than two million viewers.
What could have happened? We saw the pilot and we heard audience reports. The game works and isn’t bad. It’s just boring. It’s pretty evident if a team is going to win or lose so you don’t get a sense of unpredictability that even standard shows like Millionaire offer. It’s a show that should be a lot better than it is. It’s the typical blue-colors-on-metal look that we’re used to and given the maze atmosphere they are trying to do they could have done so much more. An early description I heard was a quiz show version of Indiana Jones. That could have been an interesting theme to try. However, it’s still really not a bad show and I’ll be looking forward to it.
ABC ordered a pilot for the show recently but ITV’s scuttling of The Exit List doesn’t bode well for it.
Tuesday night doesn’t seem a good choice for ITV. I’ve been watching High Stakes and sometimes the ITV Player website goes for 2-3 weeks before displaying a new High Stakes episode, so that can’t bode well for the series, especially if it’s only on sporadically. It’s better than the Jeremy Kyle show though. No one’s ever going to win $100k or $500k on that game show…
I’ll just look forward to NBC’s Who’s Still Standing? game show instead.
“Exit List” recruited pretty heavily from our public trivia nights in NYC for contestants. Who’s the host?
I do pub trivia in NYC, how come I was never recruited?
And I think the Indiana Jones motif was done before on Legends of the Hidden Temple.
I heard ABC was also piloting this?
The description begins with the words “Matt Allwright” presents and it’s no surprise it ends up on a Tuesday. He’s a third tier BBC name, never mind someone ITV would give a weekend show too.