Oh Dermot what have you done? Saturday night Light
Entertainment formats are notoriously difficult to get right. For every Gladiators,
House Party or Take Away there are a dozen Hole in the Wall, Families at War or I Love my Country. In recent years the BBC has probably had more
hits than misses (not that ITV is completely blameless. Splash
anyone?). This latest attempt to hit
that early evening/tea time/getting ready to go out slot is The Getaway Car.
The producers have actually drawn on a lot of previous
programmes to create a mash up.It uses
a physical assault course in a hot country, South Africa (like Total Wipeout did in Argentina);
revolves around how well couples get on (like Mr and Mrs); and have thrown in a bit of cross fertilisation from Top Gear with the addition of the Stig
(like....well actually I can’t think of any other programme that has done this
in quite this manner.It could start a
trend though.Perhaps the Chasers from The Chase could appear as a pub quiz
team in Midsommer Murders or the
Goggleboxers will get their own panel show.I blame 8 out of 10 cats does
Countdown for all this).
The game consists of 3 rounds and a final chase.The first round looks like the unholy
offspring of the Wipeout course and most of the games from It’s A Knockout. (The Jeux
sans Frontiers version where we got play against the Belgians in giant foam
costumes.Not the UK heats which
appeared to take place on a school playing field between a team of chartered
accountants from Tunbridge Wells vs a team of medical secretaries from
Littlehampton.) Round 2 consisted of driving off road buggies very quickly
around a course and round 3 was a bit like Runaround
where you had to choose an answer but carried out in a 90 hp car and without Mike Reid shouting
“Runaround...Naaahhhhhhh”.It all
culminated the final couple being chased around a course by the Stig picking up
money as they went.Oh and I forgot, the
Race Off where the co-pilot gets driven around a track by the Stig’s nephews
whilst trying to answer questions.Rumour has it that the idea was stolen from interrogators at Guantanamo
Bay.
Presiding over all this madness if the ever personable
Dermot O’Leary.Dermot appears to be
stuck between a rock and hard place at the moment (or BBC and ITV in this
case).Some celebs are on what are
referred to as “Golden Handcuffs” i.e. they are on big money contracts to stay
with a channel.So Graham Norton is
handcuffed to the BBC, Ant and Dec to ITV and Jeremy Clarkson was handcuffed to
the BBC but found himself handcuffed to a police officer so is now handcuffed
to Amazon.Dermot doesn’t appear to be
handcuffed to anyone.He left ITV and
the X Factor (just in time judging by the ratings for last season) but still
pops up on ITV to present the NTA’s (more on which later in the week), but has presented
a BBC Radio 2 programme since 2004 and is a regular on Comic and Sports Relief.He really is keeping his options open.I’d love to have heard the phone call from
his agent.I imagine it started with the
fee and the prospect of filming in the Southern hemisphere in autumn before
moving onto the fact that it is a live action version of Wacky Races.Bless him
thoug, he really is giving his all on this.He greets the couples in his ever so slightly
too tight shirt with the same enthusiasm as he does The X Factor hopefuls even though these contestants are clearly mad
as they have voluntarily entered a competition to slide a VW Polo down a
waterfall. All said and done I was left
a bit bemused by it all.The really
worrying thing though is that I have set it on series link.
