becrystalamazed

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Not gonna lie, I hate the Ultimatum mechanic. I get why it exists, but the incessant recruitment drives me crazy, and it makes the traitor strategy way harder. I think they need an alternative the last traitor could potentially choose. A ‘Will’ perhaps, to dictate kills even after the last traitor dies.

They also do not need to do it now when this is the last murder!!!!!

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I have been predicting a ‘magnifying glass’ investigator-type power since series 1, so I’m curious to see how accurate that will be.

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Random Gladiators thoughts

• While I don’t hate Viper’s cartoon villain shtick, I think the silence worked better. And it probably would have been more funny if he’d just snatched the microphone to cut him off and just left.

• Love how Sabre is a human cat even when she’s not trying. ‘the trick is to climb up the atlaspheres’ yeah sure it is.

• Speaking of Atlaspheres, it looks like a brutal game. I’m not 100% sold right now, but I have a feeling it’s going to grow on me.

• I am so excited to see Cyclone in action. I love her brace/gauntlet things, and I think the glimpse of the spinning thing she does looks cool. I also really want to see that running challenge in action.

• Also:

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I realise I'm probably meant to be rooting for the contestants, but 🤷🏻‍♀️ how am I not meant to cheer for the Gladiators?

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I love it when game shows get a little bit scary. Sometimes people just need to get chased around in the dark by something that looks like it came straight out of some internet horror, while still knowing if they get caught nothing will hurt them. It’s enrichment.

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!!!The Traitors UK Spoilers!!!

Gutted by Dan being banished. I liked the way he approached the missions. And he was so close to identifying Minah. Then again, I am still hoping Minah makes it to the end.

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read the whole story> here by @clarionglass :)

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Hey, hate to bother you, just saw your post on Last Commanders (woo!) and you mentioned having access to the S2 episodes, is there any chance you could dump them onto archive or a google drive? I've been searching for ages but I haven't really found anything as of now. Perfectly fine if not, hope all is well! I hope I'm not being stupid and in my excitement misread, but with either outcome that's such a cool find.

My friend, I wish I could help you, but those episodes were stored on a recording box, one which has since broken and is resisting repair. If I manage to get it working again - and if I can figure out how to get those episodes off the box and on to another device, I don’t actually know how to do that currently - I’ll send you a google drive link. In the meantime, there are a couple of series 2 episodes on dailymotion if you haven’t found them already.

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Sacrilege. You can't bring Osman to this cathedral.

bonus 😅

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Did you see the challenge flash-forward! The longship! The creepy circus! The demon chess! (actually, there were a lot of cloaked demons, Claudia still is not beating the auditioning-for-Raven allegations) Cages and treasure chests and doll heads and river crossings! I’m very excited!

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The Week of the Year 2024

Everything you need to know about game shows on Britain during 2024.

Some shows were very good (Gladiators, Style It Out, Josh Must Win, Wing It!).

Some shows needed work (Jeopardy!, The Fortune Hotel, Battle in the Box).

Some should have been rejected before lunch (Wheel of Fortune, Password, One Person Found This Helpful).

Some shows had good years, some had very bad ones.

All the new shows, a few old ones, as much ratings information as we can get away with in public, and all of the winners we know.

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Which game shows have had the most episodes? Part 21: the finale

All the episodes are counted.

The 21st and final part of my review of every UK game show, to determine what has had more episodes than any other show.

Countdown being number one shouldn't surprise anyone - but some of the other big hitters have raised a few eyebrows. More Bamber Boozle than Bamber Gascoigne? More Davina McCall than Stephen Mulhern?

In prime time, Big Brother is the runaway winner, with Strictly Come Dancing moving second thanks to its daily spin-off show.

Plus! The Countdown finals week, and a big preview of some thrills for the festive season.

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So! Itopia series 3 has emotionally ruined me. There better be a series 4 or I will never recover.

I’ll put my thoughts under the cut to avoid spoilers, except for this one - Alys Hunter is canonically bisexual.

Firstly they don’t have English subtitles for episode 6 yet, but there are Welsh subtitles on Clic, so I went through and google-translated it line by line.

I love how Lwsi’s central desire in all the  series is to be normal. Series one: get a Z to be normal. Series two: help out around the shelter to be normal. Series 3: hide her identity to be normal.

Gutted they didn’t tell us which course Lwsi was doing. It looked like some kind of maths or science by Izzy's coursework

I am very sure that the set for Lwsi’s accommodation is the same set they used for the Hunter house but repainted.

I love how the second Alys doesn’t have to be responsible for anyone she immediately vanishes off to the middle of nowhere and stays there.

Also, Alys and Sara as a couple recontextualises a lot of their actions in series 2. Of course Alys immediately latched onto Sara, she had a crush. Of course Sara followed Alys all the way into Itopia and back to the school, she also had a crush. Sara didn’t decide to stay after watching Alys and Lwsi’s sisterly bond, she stayed after watching Alys. Although, dating the girl who reminds you of your dead best friend has got to be rough. Brian Hunter seems to approve though.

As much as I hate to admit it, Zac getting the illegal Amber treatment is also very him. He’s always been very insecure, especially with what he can bring to a relationship, and with the long-distance strain something was going to give. At least he had the sense to immediately download the patch. That being said if I was Lwsi I would have dumped him on the spot. Also, why does he spend so much time crouching in shady alleyways?

As for the teens, I thought they were cool. Nansi has hypersensitive hearing she needs an aid for, she’s just like me for real for real. And I don’t normally like characters like Freddie, but somehow he managed to be my favourite. It really seems like he just wants to be friends with the others but they're not getting it. Also every time Mr Rhys told Ash he was disappointed in him specifically I wanted to throttle him. Can’t you see that boy’s self esteem is hanging on by a thread and that thread is meeting others too-high expectations?

I thought the Nansi-Ash-Eli love triangle was a bit silly, although it makes a nice juxtaposition to the borderline eugenic-y and eventually eco-fascist conflicts in the wider narrative.

It’s also nothing that a bit of polyamory can’t fix. Freddie should join too.

I also wish that we could have had flashbacks to Ash and Nansi being infected, to reinforce the idea that Ambers never really get over their past as Zeds.

Also - if your fusebox blows that many times in a row, you’ve got a fire hazard somewhere. You don’t just keep switching it on again.

Also Mums! We had a mother and a child running away from some Zeds, we have Freddie who’s a caregiver for his mum and we even got what I think is a picture of Zac with his mum. Do we have any mums with names or speaking roles? Still no. But it’s progress(!)

I love Itopia’s commitment to naming the background characters. All the classmates get names, even though only one of them is actually named in dialogue. And they get full names too! Ems was Emyr Miller, Izzy is Isobelle Grant.

The prime minister being an Amber is a nice call back to the news indents of Prosiect Z saying there were rumours that the prime minister is a Zed.

The Zero movie was a fun touch. Of course Zac, zombie movie fan and Zero's actual boyfriend, keeps a poster above his bed even though Lwsi doesn't want to see it.

I loved the parallels between Freddie trying to talk Ash into getting the patch and Eli trying to talk Nansi out of it. They really are the angels and devils on the shoulders.

I liked the little touch of Jen’s blog - Lwsi Hunter was my best friend. Nice callback to her.

The Alys and Lwsi dynamics this series were spectacular. Alys almost drops everything to get to Lwsi when she hears about the Zeds, but Sara talks her out of it, point out that Lwsi has proven herself capable many times over. Meanwhile Lwsi nearly drops everything to warn Alys and spends most of the time wishing Alys was with her. And the pep talk Alys gave Lwsi was wonderful.

I don’t want to talk about it but I have to. Alys got infected. Her plot armour finally ran out. She wasn’t even sacrificing herself for someone. And then Sara had to walk away with that heartbroken - heartbreaking - look on her face (which honestly did the most to sell me on their relationship). And she was the one in the white van to save the kids in Alys’ place. How could they do this to me!?! The infection music into the Prosiect Z theme was just salt in the wound.

Also, the little detail of Sara carefully stopping the car before answering the phone. She’s not losing anyone else today. Not after Heledd. Not after Alys.

My knee jerk reaction to the evil, all powerful eco-fascist AI Aliza was dislike. But with the whispering in the Amber’s heads thing - oh she has great potential. I’m so excited to see how she’s used. She’s the product of the remnants of the Itopia network. And you know who was the second to last person to have access to the Itopia network? Nina. She’s still out there, somewhere, and I refuse to let my guard down.

But, fun fact! Aliza is called Aliza in the subtitles and Eliza in the credits! We once again have a character with two ways to spell their name! Zayn/Zane lives!

In conclusion, I loved this series, it broke my heart and I desperately want a series 4. Not just to resolve the Alys cliffhanger, but because they’ve started some legitimately interesting plot threads.

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Itopia Characters Explained Badly

Lwsi Hunter (S1-3): Normal teenage girl desperately tries to be a normal teenage girl, accidentally ends up as the chosen one.

Alys Hunter (S1-3): People keep sacrificing themselves for this bisexual scientist and it’s not making her atlas personality any better.

Brian Hunter (S1-2): Grieving dad trying to be there for his daughters by being nice to their partners, mean to their exes and providing a getaway vehicle to escape from zombies.

Zac Evans (S1-3): Zombie movie enthusiast finds himself in a zombie apocalypse not as the hero but as the love interest. He does a lot of crime.

Macs Woodward (S1-2): Heartbreaking! Your conspiracy theorist tabloid journalist ex might actually be right about something!

Mari Thomas (S1-2): Rocks up late to the series, gets incredibly traumatised, sacrifices herself, gets her happy ending, leaves.

Dr Ed Thomas (S1-2): Tries to prevent the zombie apocalypse from the inside, fails, his daughter and his favourite employee need to pick up the pieces.

Dr Megan Crane (S1): Her reports are being changed so no one believes what she says, her co-workers who know the truth are being kidnapped and infected, she’s living in a one person horror movie and it’s technically her fault.

Nina (S1-2): Scientist wants the recognition she deserves! (note: does not actually deserve any recognition)

FN Stine (S1-2): Straight white male billionaire believes his point of view is the most unbiased, gets shocked when he discovers that consequences can happen to him.

Emyr ‘Ems’ Miller (S2): Shady bastard. Massive simp.

Ceri Stine (S2): Lwsi Hunter Bad Ending AU

Sara (S2-3): Local lone wolf won’t stay that way if Alys has anything to do about it!

Isobelle ‘Izzy’ Grant (S3): “God, I wish I’d had an evil supercomputer in my head that turned me into a zombie, life would be so much better” she says to flatmate, who had an evil supercomputer in her head which left her forever alienated from the rest of humanity.

Ash (S3): Boy’s self esteem is directly tied to meeting people’s expectations of him, please stop telling him he’s a disappointment.

Nansi (S3): Hypersensitive girl is betrayed by the people she trusts most, and now there are voices.

Eli (S3): Girl loves the fact there are people with superpowers even though she isn’t one of them herself.

Freddie (S3): Young carer just wants to be curious and cause chaos, why is he now the most sensible person in the room?

Mr Rhys (S3): Really regretting chaperoning this residential.

Aliza (S3): oh no.

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Itopia series 3 trailer! I'm so excited!

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I think it’s a great plan.

Also, I found it a fun film to rewatch.

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Somewhere in my head is a snarky comment linking Junior Taskmaster with Project Z after the zombie apocalypse task, but I just can’t find it so have this as a placeholder.

I did immediately try to devise an episode of Project Z taking place in the Junior Taskmaster house, only to come to the conclusion it’s too small of an area for it to be feasible. Which is devastating to me.