For more on this BBC100 series of posts, read this introduction.
So as these BBC centenary pieces reach a climax, and we wander blinking into the 2010s, it seems obvious what I’m supposed to do. To support the fact that the BBC is still relevant in a Netflix-obsessed world, I should grab some big, obvious piece of “prestige” drama. I May Destroy You, for instance, or Bodyguard. The BBC can still play with the big boys, aren’t they great, job done.
Sure, we need those programmes. Of course we do. But television can’t be those kind of shows alone. Forget the fact that the BBC couldn’t afford it; my brain couldn’t cope either. The idea of watching something of the intensity of I May Destroy You every evening brings me out in a rash. Television needs its quieter moments too.
And let’s be clear: getting those quieter moments right is hard. To call those kind of programmes “schedule-fillers” misses the point; they are vital parts of that schedule. It’s one thing to create good television by making an impact; to make good television by being a little quieter is a skill all of its own. And too many productions manage to fall foul of that old cliche: turning television into moving wallpaper. It’s all too easy, in the scramble for a cheap show which still entertains, to end up with nothing.
At first, House of Games looks like a straightforward show, and that’s because it is. We have our host Richard Osman, fresh from Pointless, and four celebrities. They play five rounds of games – often word-based, but not always – each episode. At the end of each episode, the celebrity with the most points wins a terrible prize. (Think: any household object you can imagine, with Richard Osman’s face plastered over it.) The same celebrities play through five episodes, Monday – Friday, and the person at the top of leaderboard at the end of the week wins a trophy. That, in a nutshell, is it.
The beauty of House of Games is exactly how well it does the above format. For a start, it would be incredibly easy to get locked into doing the same rounds all the time. House of Games has literally dozens. (A particular favourite of mine is Highbrow/Lowbrow – an academic question and a pop culture question, both with the same answer.) Not only does this mean you can’t get easily bored of the games, but there are so many that it gives the feeling of a show bursting at the seams with ideas.
Secondly, the range of celebrities is extraordinary. It’s extremely generous in the kind of people it will have on. Steve Pemberton and Fern Britton don’t appear on many TV shows together. Much like the variety of rounds, the variety of guests means that what could be a programme with the same old faces each week never gets boring. It also means that the comedians of my childhood can make a reappearance on television, and I get a warm, fuzzy feeling. (Hello, Simon Hickson.)
Thirdly, it has a brilliant host. Being a good quiz show host is an incredibly hard thing, and British television currently has a dearth of them. This is obvious from the parade of actors and presenters who awkwardly squint their way through a series of afternoon quizzes across all channels. Including plenty of people who I otherwise like, when they’re in their usual habitat. Richard Osman makes it look easy, and that’s all you could ever want with this kind of show.
What’s more, it does all of this despite being shot on an extremely fast schedule: five episodes per day. This kind of shooting schedule is usual on daytime quiz shows, but the beauty of this schedule for this particular programme is that you only need to book each celebrity for a single day’s recording, and you get a full week of shows out of them. Of course, none of this matters for the audience watching at home, but it’s difficult not to admire a show that takes a budget limitation, and makes a virtue of it. If more programmes managed that as well as House of Games does, maybe cheap television would look a little less cheap.
At the beginning of this piece, I made a comparison of the BBC’s output with that of Netflix. This was not an idle comment. It’s worth remembering that making a show like House of Games is something that Netflix really does struggle to achieve. Take their brilliant Floor is Lava, a game show involving people who are less clever than they think, an obstacle course, and… lava. (Well, orange gunge, anyway.) Over the past two years, the show has managed to produce a grand total of 20 episodes across three seasons. House of Games manages to shoot more episodes than that in a week, and a grand total of 280 episodes over just the last two years.
Now, sure, Floor is Lava is a far more complicated show to shoot than House of Games, I grant you. It’s certainly a louder one, and a more expensive one too. But I think the comparison holds. Floor is Lava should surely be about having endless contestants falling into endless lava in endless different ways. I would suggest that 20 episodes over two years is a vaguely prissy way of approaching that aim. What that show needs is a real production line mentality.
Does that sound a terrible thing? Shouldn’t we be promoting a more artisanal way of making television? Tough: sometimes, a production line is exactly what you need. Making lots of good television quickly is not an embarrassing thing. It’s a deeply necessary one. The BBC needs its splashy, expensive shows. But it’s also vital that it can still make shows like House of Games.
So here’s to making all kinds of television, and doing it well. Whether it’s one-off plays, sitcoms, live entertainment spectaculars, or quiz shows. Or the many kinds of TV that I haven’t had the chance to cover in these articles, but are just as important. There may be more column inches in doing certain “important” kinds of shows, but it’s the BBC’s job to get all kinds of programming right.
It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. And hey, they’ve had 100 years practice.
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