Seeing red at another silly Ant and Dec showcase

One would expect that game shows which give out millions on top of millions would have at least some level of skill attached. Even if they asked the contestants to engage in the most menial of tasks, it would be something rather than just stand there and pick one of two colours – it doesn’t really get much worse than this.

Apart from looking at one instalment of Red Or Black on UTV (TV3 piggy backed on it as well which further endorses the argument that looking at both TV listings is like viewing the one channel) there have been people glued to this hour and a half long rubbish all of last week during which contestants are asked to pick a colour. How riveting is that?

It is a horrible mixture of Winning Streak (where contestants do not have to engage in any tests of skill), Take It or Leave It (in which those taking part could leave with absolutely nothing) and The X Factor (for the way in which the final group of contestants were presented to the studio audience). And none of these shows have much going for them.

But the fact that the game show was devised by Simon Cowell and presented by the insufferable Ant and Dec is probably why it has attracted a large audience because the manner in which 1,000 people are eventually whittled down to one is gruelling and incredibly boring. In fact it makes Winning Streak looking like rip roaring stuff, which it certainly ain’t.

On the night that I did watch it, it began with a chap diving into a plastic container of water. Beforehand the contestants were asked to choose which tank on either side would get the biggest amount of water from the splash. And this was one of the highlights of the programme which went on for an hour and a half in total.

There was actually one part of the silly programme which involved a dog putting six sheep into a pen – three red sheep and three black ones – with the remaining contestants having to decide which three would be the first to be penned. That is how ridiculous this show was and yet it ended up giving away a million to someone who picked the red segment of a roulette wheel. What judgement!

At least on programmes like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, where there are buckets of money up for grabs, there is a requirement to have a reasonable general knowledge in order to walk away with a sizable stash but as regards this pile of Ant and Dec dross, you only need to be able to identify two colours. I saw red.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.