JUST three months ago, the only time I wanted to see another “celebrity line-up” on a TV show was one where they were lined up and shot.
That was when Strictly unveiled its “famous” contestants for this year’s series, featuring too many of the gristly showbiz offcuts from reality telly and other contests.
You know the ones. For years they’ve been packed into these mushy celeb roll-calls that are incessantly rotated like the TV equivalent of a doner kebab.
Then, finally, last month, The Celebrity Traitors served up some prime beef stars.
And what happened? The Beeb was duly rewarded with a whopping 12million tuning in for last week’s final. I wonder if the execs spotted the correlation between this and ditching the factory seconds from the industrial conveyer belt of wannabes?
The penny certainly seems to have dropped for ITV, judging by the decent line-up on this year’s I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!, which starts on Sunday.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that jungle bosses started signing up their campmates just as news of The Celebrity Traitors stars was leaking out earlier this year.
Sure, there are a few non-household names on I’m A Celeb. Though thankfully there are none of the usual suspects from the Real Housewives Of Made In Essex Island who have been making unwanted encores like the contents of a weak-flushing toilet.
Claudia and her castle may have been a proper game-changer — and there’s a trio of important takeaways for telly execs which they should have learned years ago.
Lesson number one, which seems to have been heeded for now, is to completely abandon anyone who still requires a name badge with a link to their Wikipedia page printed underneath.
The second lesson is bolder: stop creating more TV shows which RELY on celebrities to make them work.
We already have too many. And simply shoehorning “names” into formats just produces shows as lousy as they are lazy. (Lest we forget Celebrity Fit Club, Celebs On The Farm and Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters.)
‘Dirty secret’
Instead, build a brilliant standalone concept with ordinary people and, if it’s a good enough show, then genuine stars will want to do it, too.
The Traitors works because it hooks you when it’s played by anyone, famous or otherwise.
Sticking celebs into the mix only enhances the experience.
It’s a shared experience for viewers, too — the third and perhaps biggest lesson broadcasters AND streamers should learn: we still love appointment-to-view telly.
Sadly it’s a notion the BBC, in particular, now views as a dirty secret because (ssssh, whisper it behind cupped hands) it turns out people still want to sit down and watch a show together.
Who knew? Well, we all knew. We’ve just been waiting for years for them to deliver something worth congregating for.
No one’s saying that the swing to streaming and catch-up — the enemy of the shared experience — isn’t real or important.
But the Beeb has increasingly been saying that these online viewing figures are all that really matter in this day and age (until, of course, they have a huge hit on their hands which bucks the trend).
The reality is that all programme- makers have been using the muddied waters of online ratings to mask the fact that they just aren’t consistently delivering great shows like they used to.
The Celebrity Traitors proved that they can still do it. Now it’s over to this year’s jungle to keep up the momentum.
No pressure, ITV.
BULLY’S STILL ON POINT
IF you wired together the brains of every contestant on Bullseye, they wouldn’t illuminate the standby light on your telly.
And that’s the way I like it. It’s just one of the great traditions which ITV have, rather shrewdly, brought back as part of the reboot, which started on Sunday.
Sounds harsh? Well, consider the debut episode of the full series.
Contestant number one was Jo Jo, who admitted she got zero in an intelligence and logic test after managing to incorrectly write down her own name.
So she left it to partner Gail to answer the questions from host Freddie Flintoff, seamlessly filling Jim Bowen’s shoes.
When asked what Jilly Cooper book had been adapted for Disney+ our Gail replied: “Harry Potter?”
Seconds earlier, rival contestant Luke had suggested the answer to the same question was “Doctor Who.”
Then when he was later asked a question about pop artist Andy Warhol he suggested his mate, “thrower” Jordan, answer because he: “knew all about music.”
Meanwhile one of the other “knowers” (I use the term in the loosest possible sense) struggled to spell the word “miniature.”
But these lovable turnips were just the icing on a cake which hadn’t been tinkered with, thankfully, by ITV execs.
We had a Lancastrian host telling dad gags, toothbrushes for prizes and contestants whose IQ never exceeds the highest score for a single dart throw.
After all these years, it turns out you still can’t beat a bit of bully.
THOUGH they have not gone entirely, have you noticed how telly chiefs seem to have eased off on churning out travelogues featuring famous duos?
Previous celebrities who’ve fronted these shows have included Giovanni Pernice and Wynne Evans.
DRAMA DELUGE AT BBC
RUMOUR has it the BBC is chomping at the bit to reveal the new series of cop show Line Of Duty.
Everything’s set up for season seven of the jewel in their drama crown to start filming this spring.
If that happens, the latest adventures of AC-12 – ironically an anti-corruption unit – might just end up on our screens by the end of 2026.
The trouble is, they want to herald its return at a time when the limelight isn’t being hogged by a scandal at the corporation.
Good luck with that one.
A TV pal had me in fits this week when they told me how filming on a big drama had to be halted, at great expense, for a snowflake crew member.
Apparently, they felt triggered by some of the explosions carefully carried out on set while making the thriller.
The section they were working in?: The explosions department.
FREDDIE PUP’S A KNITWIT
IN the course of a normal, happy life, no one should have to witness a greyhound dressed up as Freddie Mercury.
Yet that’s just the obscene spectacle we got in the second instalment of Channel 4’s new challenge show, Game Of Wool.
Bat-s**t is the only way to describe how crazy this programme is.
This week the contestants were charged with making “iconic dog outfits” (their description not mine, obviously).
That saw the humiliated pooches trotted out dressed as Chelsea pensioners, Italian jesters and the aforementioned Queen singer.
Yet host Tom Daley – wearing glittery pink eyeshadow and lipstick – was still the most absurd-looking creature there.
EYE CANDY AIDEN USHERS IN UNLIKELY HEAD-TURNERS
AIDAN TURNER, with his topless scything in Poldark, has much to answer for.
These days, it’s virtually impossible to watch a period drama without them jamming in some bit of semi-naked guy candy.
I understand this is just the pendulum of objectification swinging back the other way after lots of bosom-heaving by actresses over the years.
But it’s getting a tad ridiculous, with some of the male cast members looking like gaggles of Calvin Klein models who’ve just rocked up in a time machine.
The Forsytes on Channel 5, for example, currently includes two flesh-flashing specimens who, I’d suggest, wouldn’t possibly be that ripped in Victorian times.
Even last week we had annoyingly handsome Jacob Elordi (who has actually modelled Calvin Klein underwear) playing the monster in Netflix’s adaptation of Frankenstein.
It’s an incredible drama, but there’s a particularly bizarre moment of random homoeroticism between the baron and his rippling creation.
Though, as a bloke who secretly sewed together body parts to create the perfect man, there’s always been suspicions about Victor.
