What To Watch on TV This Week: 28th April-4th May
Genius Game
Wednesday
ITV1, 9.00pm
David Tennant (Doctor Who) has assembled Britain’s biggest brainboxes for a battle of wits like no other.
David Tennant (Doctor Who) has assembled Britain’s biggest brainboxes for a battle of wits like no other.
Gary Lineker (Match of the Day), David Tennant (Doctor Who), Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall and Danny Dyer (Rivals) have all enjoyed glittering careers in showbusiness. Between them, they’ve sat down for hundreds of interviews, and racked up hours and hours of media training. Now, they need to take everything they’ve learnt – including any expectation of special treatment – and throw it out the window.
The announcement came in the form of an Instagram reel of scenes and quotes from the first series. According to Alex Hassell's local lothario and MP Rupert Campbell-Black, the second helping is "guaranteed to be even more pleasurable."
Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Laura Wade led the writers' room who adapted the first half of Jilly Cooper's 'bonkbuster', bringing to riotous life the heady days and TV franchise battles of Cooper's heightened 1980s.
Meet Barrington Jedidiah Walker (Lennie James, The Walking Dead). You can call him Barry.
The vastly influential showrunner Shonda Rhimes may be American, but she knows a lot about the British way of life. You need only watch her TV blockbuster Bridgerton to prove that point.
As for Britain’s creative edge – the theme of this year’s RTS London Convention – Rhimes puts it down to a mysterious “secret sauce”.
The show will select players based on both their brains and social intelligence. Those looking to get ahead in the programme’s all-new game formats will need to use their heads in more ways than one.
As well as mental acuity, contestants will need to use the dark art of manipulation to cheat each other out of the cash prize.
Yesterday, ITV tweeted out a brain teaser hinting that Tennant was the host.
If the original 2021 dystopian drama wasn’t enough for you, good news: now it’s real. Well, sort of.
You probably know the basics. The Doctor is an alien who appears human, but is in fact a Time Lord. This means they have two hearts and can cheat death by regenerating, a process which involves changing their body and personality.
The Doctor travels around in the TARDIS, a spaceship whose name stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. This enables the Doctor to travel anywhere in the universe, including – you guessed it – across time.
The three hour-long programmes will air on BBC One on 25 November, 2 December and 9 December, respectively, and will also be available on iPlayer. The episode titles have previously been revealed as ‘The Star Beast’, ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ and ‘The Giggle’.
After ‘The Star Beast’ airs, 30-minute behind-the-scenes programme Doctor Who: Unleashed will be broadcast on BBC Three, and will also be available on iPlayer. Doctor Who Confidential aired from 2005-11, and provided a similar peak behind the curtain of the show’s production.
Fresh from the second series of Good Omens, David Tennant will be returning to Doctor Who after a decade away from the role.
Also returning under Russell T. Davis’ new management is Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, with Heartstopper’s Yasmin Finney joining the cast as Donna’s daughter, Rose. Doctor Who’s official Instagram page revealed this long-speculated news with the caption: “When we last saw Donna, the Doctor had to wipe her memory. So the question is, what happens when Rose meets one of her mum’s oldest friends?”