Tuesday 9 January 2024

TV

Jeopardy!
1x01 (1/1/24 edition)

I was curious about this ever since they announced it, because Jeopardy is an enduringly popular show in the US (as described in this episode, it's the TV show equivalent of a "national treasure") but no UK version has ever stuck long-term. So here we go trying again, with the wonderful Stephen Fry as host. But then I heard it wasn’t actually any good, plus I’m not sure I actually want to watch any game show every single day, hence why it’s taken me over a week to watch it.

They’ve obviously decided to copy the US version as closely as possible, which feels a bit weird on UK TV — we don’t do things the same as the yanks, after all. Part of that is it feels dated and dreadfully slow. You could easily condense the same content into 30 minutes and it wouldn’t feel like it was taking forever. Of course, it doesn’t help that watching it on catchup means unskippable ad breaks.

[Watch it (again) on ITVX.]