Note the UK version of Jeopardy will be in the Fall.
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Stephen Fry to Host ‘Jeopardy!’ for ITV in U.K.
- Thread starter Y2kTheNewOldies
- Start date
Note the UK version of Jeopardy will be in the Fall.
I've always enjoyed Jeopardy when I've been in the US. It's not the first time it's been on the air with a local version in the UK - it seems to come around every so often with limited success and fairly quickly gets canceled. There were seasons in the mid-80s (Channel 4), the early 90s (ITV, who are doing this new reboot) and the mid 90s (Sky), although it hasn't been seen since 1996 perhaps because commissioners thought three goes at the same thing was enough. Now that pretty much everyone involved in TV in 1996 has retired, the idea is back. Fourth time lucky?
Very interesting. Have there been any British versions of American game shows that have been highly successful, or are the cultural differences too great?
Both the UK and Australia had successful long runs of Wheel of Fortune from the 80’s to the mid-00’s or so.
This launched a few weeks ago and it's terrible. It's in an hour-long slot (about 47 minutes with commercial breaks) but has the same number of rounds and questions as the US version. Consequently, it's padded out with inane comments and over-explaining from the host after every... single... question... it's so slow and ponderous compared to the version I'm used to. It's the wrong choice of host and it's over-long, and the questions also seem a lot easier which makes it less interesting. If it makes a second season (and it's a dog, so I have my doubts) they need to chop it down to 20-25 minutes plus ads and possibly get a quiz show host to do it rather than a raconteur.
Stephen Fry did a UK game show called QI and he was a great host for that.
QI isn't Jeopardy, though. It's a panel show, mostly consisting of comedians and well-known people chatting and being funny, very loosely based around a few questions to give them a hook to hang the jokes on.
See also "8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown" and "Would I Lie To You".
"8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown" was my introduction to the warped mind of Jimmy Carr.
Jimmy Carr is great
Someone has been posting the UK Jeopardy on YouTube and I'm amazed at how dull it is. At least the contestants don't get confused by the wording of the answers the way they do on our show. I don't know whether that's because the answers are more straightforward or that your show is getting higher quality contestants.
As for Stephen Fry, I've been a big fan of the BBC radio show "Just a Minute" for many years and always found Fry an excellent, and funny, player of that word game. Not of the caliber of my personal JAM favorites, Paul Merton and Clement Freud, but capable of holding on to a topic for quite a while without hesitation, repetition or deviation, and being entertaining while doing so.
I get the feeling he chose himself, because he's a fan of the US version (and the US in general) rather than because he's the best choice for a Jeopardy! host.