Guest Panellists: Rachel Riley, Baga Chipz, Liza Tarbuck, Rhod Gilbert, Ore Oduba and Scarlett Moffatt.
This new version of Blankety Blank is more tightly edited than the old series, so most of the mistakes seen on screen are suspicious in their nature, often seeming to be Bradley pretending to go wrong/lose it "for a laugh". You'll still get to see him glance off screen when he's forgetting the rules, or glancing down at the names on the contestants' desks just before he says them, but generally it's crafted to be something a bit more, for want of a better word, "slick".
However, it's actually the editing that causes a mistake in this edition. As seen with the screenshot above, there's a wide shot that shows contestant "Jim" (full names were given in the 2020 Christmas Special, rarely, if ever, afterwards) with 5 points. This shot appears before he's even answered a question, clearly spliced in from later in the show when he did, in fact, get 5 points.
Continuing with trivia, Lisa Tarbuck jokes about being on the show when it was hosted by Terry Wogan and Lily Savage, before revealing that she was joking about Terry, and was "a child" when he was doing the show. While Lisa would have only just turned 19 a few days before Terry recorded his final edition, it is possible she attended a few recordings, as her dad Jimmy was, of course, a regular for a brief period.
More significantly, while a teenage Lisa Tarbuck would have been an unknown quantity to get on the panel during Terry's time, she could have legitimately appeared during the Les Dawson era as by then she was one of the secondary cast members of ITV sitcom Watching. Beginning with fairly lacklustre ratings in 1987, this Emma Wray/Paul Bown sitcom suddenly turned into a monster during its second year, and could attract around 16 million at its peak. Over 13 million tuned into its final episode in 1993, though it seems oddly forgotten, perhaps lacking the cult status to keep it in the cultural discussion, when other, less-watched programmes still get referenced and repeated.
Lastly, Lisa wasn't joking about Lily Savage, having appeared on a single 1998 episode when Lily still presented the show on the BBC.
Guest Panellists: Judy Murray, Rickie Haywood-Williams, Shaparak Khorsandi, Rob Beckett, Ellie Taylor and Peter Andre.
Bradley Walsh isn't the only Blankety Blank presenter to have hosted a quiz show before - Terry Wogan had worked on forgotten shows Disco (1975) and Star Town (1978) before finding the right vehicle for himself. However, Bradley has by far the most experience in the field, being primarily known for The Chase, thanks to hosting over a thousand episodes of it, not even counting all the various celebrity/chaser spin-offs of the format.
Other quiz shows he's fronted include Spin Star (2008), Keep It In The Family (2014-2015) and Cash Trapped (2016-2019). In fact, trying to list all the quiz shows that Bradley Walsh has hosted is a hard task, as, particularly in the '90s, he'd regularly sign up for any ropey quiz going, including Midas Touch (1995-1996) and Wheel Of Fortune after Nicky Campbell got tired of it. One of the panellists on this edition is Peter Andre, of whom Bradley Walsh says: "We've worked together many times, Pete." One of the shows they'd worked on together was yet another quiz show, Odd One In (2010-2011), where Andre was a regular team captain opposite Jason Manford.
All of which doesn't mean Bradley Walsh is going to be the best at hosting quizzes, and, for this first series, he does struggle to put his own stamp on the show. Yet the worst that can be said about Bradley Walsh as a host of Blankety Blank is that he's a little bland in the role, relying heavily on his "Bradley pretends to dissolve into hysterics" routine that seemed at least halfway believable in The Chase. You'd be unlikely to remember anything Bradley says, even while you're watching it, but being forgettable and unimposing is probably a better fit for the show than the previous two hosts, with the inappropriate offensiveness of Lily Savage, and the plain awfulness of David Walliams.
Throughout these Blankety Blank articles I've cited fans of the show as being "Blankers", a somewhat childish reference to a popular swearword, and also a self-depreciating dig as I've turned into a full Blankety Blank nerd myself. But with Bradley deciding to call contestants "Blankety Blankers" each week in the new show, it makes it look as if I've just ripped him off. The "sounds a bit like a word for masturbation" theme is here milked (no pun intended) as both Rob Beckett and Shappi Khorsandi do routines around it.
It's always somewhat saddening to see Shappi on TV these days, as it's a sorrowful reminder that she used to be funny around 2012, and Rob Beckett simply tries too hard. But Ellie Taylor is a decent fit, even if she's got little to do, and it's good that they've stocked the panels with comedians again, after the dearth of them on the ITV shows. Not only that, it's a pleasant enough show, and, even if might not genuinely make you laugh, you can at least say they tried.
Guest Panellists: David Haye, Esme Young, Sarah Hadland, Brian Conley, Alex Jones and Jordan North.
With the outbreak of COVID, shows were taken off the air and then eventually began to be made with appropriate spacing guidelines. At the time of writing, quiz and chat shows still tend to be spaced out for safety, though for a show like Blankety Blank, which rested on cramped conditions with panellists getting on each others' nerves, it loses a lot with the physicality removed, even if the situation is unavoidable.
Even having the host being unable to walk among the panel takes away a lot of involvement, an almost complete removal of physical interaction that does mean that some of the panellists tend to miss out in the spotlight, usually only around half getting some real screentime. Not unnaturally, this is usually the two contestants on the left side of the panel, who are the nearest to Bradley Walsh, and so able to interact more freely.
The two "lefties" on this show are David Haye and Brian Conley, two panellists who appeared together in the same series of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! back in 2012. Quite an upsetting viewing experience, with the exuberant David described as a force of nature by fellow contestant Colin Baker, and Brian Conley, stressed and having stopped taking his depression medication, reduced to tears as he was unable to cope with the high energy and intense situation.
It wasn't a pleasant sight seeing Brian crying, but he's back on form here, with no outstanding issues with David, and it's sometimes easy to forget what a good fit Brian was for mainstream Saturday night TV. His humour would never be "edgy" or political, but it fit the ideal "mums and dads" slot (and even the grannies slot, to be frank) and he would have been a decent contestant on the original series. (Although Brian says at the start he was on the Les Dawson version, "when it was good", this is just a joke to tease Bradley Walsh, and not actually true.)
There's some amusement to be had, and a tie-breaker that goes to three separate rounds. Although this probably wouldn't have happened under the original rules where answers were said verbally by the panel, it wasn't unique: although oddly unreferenced in the series one article, it did happen in Episode 1.14, with one of the games seeing the contestants holding up their correct matches at the exact same time. In fact, this one almost resembles a decent episode of Blankety Blank. It has its moments, though the incessant audience laughter, almost certainly canned in many places - note how often the "audience" start to laugh even before the end of a joke - is overpowering, making any genuine amusement be grinded out of the show.
Guest Panellists: Sally Lindsay, Andi Oliver, Chris McCausland, Jimmy Carr, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Melvin Odoom.
An actually quite chucklesome episode, though it could just be that after six weeks of the show being on air, the human brain naturally begins to filter out the dancing and canned laughter, and begins to vegetate into a more receptive state.
One underwhelming element of the show is the questions, which really do seem to think of the programme simply as a "missing word" game, or, when the answers are a bit racier, they tend to be single entendres. The writers involved have credits for similarly lazy panel shows such as 8 Out of 10 Cats, a vehicle which has seen Jimmy Carr, once a decent comedian, descend into little more than lacklustre auto pilot and a goose honk laugh.
Yet Jimmy's darker edges come out a little here, making it a rare edition of the new series with a bit of (very mild) tension. Although said in fun, Jimmy's mocking of blind stand up comedian Chris McCausland with "I'm not going to go with your judgement there because you are blind" threatens to divide the audience before Chris comes back with a riposte. It's a rare moment of something spikier - not so much on the panel, but in the reception it receives - while Bradley implying that a contestant is into bestiality is also a moment to wake you up.
Guest Panellists: Emilia Fox, Amir Khan, Sue Perkins, Jimmy Carr, Anita Rani and Danny Jones.
Unlike the Christmas Specials of the original series, which were there as a kind of a "bonus" show, the initial festive editions of the revivals are essentially "backdoor pilots" in all but name. It worked the first time with Lily Savage in 1997, which led to four runs of the show (series 14-17), two on the BBC, then two on ITV before they pulled the plug.
"Series 18" was a misguided and unsuccessful attempt in 2016 by ITV to relaunch the show with David Walliams as the host. Later described by panellist Joe Lycett as "dog shit", the Walliams Christmas special was dreadful stuff, and thankfully never made it to a series, seeing the show instead enter another four years of limbo.
Which brings us up to the present date, a new third revival kick-started by this 2020 Christmas Special. Unlike the rest of the series, which was slotted in after Strictly Come Dancing, this edition went out on primetime and was 11th in the charts that week with 6.35 million viewers.
The Christmas Special still had the contestants saying their answers verbally, though the hardcore might note the revolving stage turned clockwise, instead of anti-clockwise like in the rest of the show. It lacks the concentrated "irony" of the series proper, and, although Jimmy Carr tries too hard, there's a more muted, less grating feel to events, with some gags even allowed to die a death.
Reputedly filmed in front of a virtual audience (which would explain why Bradley Walsh occasionally moves among the panel) time hasn't really passed long enough on this series in order to give any real post-examination research on it. There were reports in several newspapers that Bradley Walsh dropped the F word a few times during filming, and the BBC apologised, though as such stories were published in the British press, it's a sorry admission that they can't be trusted as being in any way reliable.
One day all involved may say more. Of this edition, the vast majority have written autobiographies, with, it appears, only Emilia Fox, and, oddly, Bradley Walsh yet to release one. While the others may have dedicated entire chapters to Blankety Blank, it seems unlikely at this stage, and such thoughts will be found in the future. But, really, when the show's as disposable as this... does it really matter what anyone thought about it?
Guest Panellists: Angela Rippon, Richard E. Grant, Tom Allen, Sarah Millican, Mel B and Danny Jones.
A pretty amusing festive edition, this time there as a bonus, and airing at a far more sensible time of 7:25pm on Christmas Day. This far more favourable scheduling time saw the series re-enter the Top 30, making 20th place with 4.99 million viewers. Containing a solid panel, it's the most successful of the run, with a few smiles, and I even caught myself making a noise that may have been a laugh, or may have just been post-Christmas dinner indigestion.
During discussion of the Terry Wogan era it was noted that there was a "formula" to where the celebrities sat on the panel. This seating arrangement isn't the same on the new version, but, as it does seem to have a new seating arrangement of its own, is it possible to tie this down? Having seen the guest list beforehand, but with no knowledge of who'd be sitting where, I decided to test out my theory by predicting where they'd be placed, and got 4 of the 6 correct... well, almost.
Top left is generally the sportsperson/second tier actor/actress seat, the most "sensible" chair on the new show. While some "bigger" personalities have occupied it, such as David Haye and Tess Daly, this was a fairly safe bet for newsreader Angela Rippon. Angela had appeared on the show once before in a 1987 Les Dawson episode, and was a correct guess. The other correct guess was Danny Jones from McFly, sat bottom right in the minor pop star/reality show contestant/someone that people over the age of 30 have never heard of chair. A fairly easy pick, given that he'd occupied the exact same spot in the previous Christmas special, this was another correct prediction.
Where it went slightly wrong is the order of the two comedians. It was a given that they'd be in the top right/bottom left position, the "bottom left" now the equilavent of the bottom centre of the old series, the new "noisy maverick position", or, if you're of an unkind nature, the "gobshite who tries too hard" chair. Although Sarah Millican would be more known to the general public than Tom Allen, I thought I'd detected a slight, possibly unconscious bias against female comedians, with Sue Perkins having to defer the spot to every male comedian on the show, only getting to grab that prime spot when Roisin Conaty was the other panellist with a comic background. This slip meant that my total fell to 2 correct guesses, but the "rules" of the formula were tested and stood up.
The most difficult chairs to pick are the centre seats. Both are usually filled by someone not in the other categories, but one tends to be "other guest that you've heard of", contrasted with "other guest that you probably haven't heard of". However, this seems to fluctuate between the two, and, as both Richard E. Grant and Mel B are guests that people very much have heard of, who goes where? Again, the formula held up, but I got them the wrong way round.
All of which seat-based ramblings may be fascinating to hard core Blankers, but an inexplicably tedious way to end an article to those who just wanted to read about the contestants joking that they don't want any of the prizes. This new version of the series wasn't a ratings smash, and it has issues, but it wasn't a flop, either, and it was passable entertainment... sort of. On this basis, it seems very unlikely that Bradley and co. won't be returning in 2022... let's just hope they pull the plug out of the canned laughter machine if and when they do.