The Chase & Beat the Chasers

[JAS84]

It’s good they are trying someone new with Anne not being able to film.

Surprised they just didn’t drop a chaser as it wouldn’t out of the ordinary since one series of BTC had Paul Sinha missing.

They had the original five Chasers at first, with Darragh missing out because he hadn't debuted on The Chase itself on air yet despite filming some episodes. Paul was unable to film a series, so Darragh substituted for him, and then they had all six chasers last time, tweaking the format. Unless they want to revert to the original format, they need a sixth Chaser now.

[Ash101]

Yeah seems like it was pure luck that they could sub out Paul for Darragh in that series before any format changes.

Obviously it’ll become more difficult if they ever add anymore Chasers and no one leaves. I guess they film the lot of a block and then decide the episodes content? So they can’t mixed up the Chaser selection each night

[Brekkie]

Although I quite like Darragh I'm not really convinced they needed a 6th Chaser. Yes, it is quite a few years since Jenny was added but the show wasn't really suffering for it and didn't particularly need to do anything to renew interest.

[Jon]

Although I quite like Darragh I'm not really convinced they needed a 6th Chaser. Yes, it is quite a few years since Jenny was added but the show wasn't really suffering for it and didn't particularly need to do anything to renew interest.

I agree it didn’t seem like they needed a 6th Chaser and yes the show probably didn’t need renewed interest, the pandemic felt like a peak point for the shows popularity.

But there are reasons why it was a good idea to bring Darragh in, you had Mark Labett who could have easily ended up relocating to the States if things had gone differently and Paul’s not in the best health. Plus there needs to be some contingency in case any Chaser decides to leave the show. In regards of the second point Darragh has already allowed them to do a series of Beat The Chasers without a depleted line up.

Also if there is any chance of any possible future Irish version you can bet Darragh and Jenny at least would be in the line up.

[UBox]

Looks like they flew Issa out as soon as they found out Anne tested postive and he went to the studio to do 2 shows the day he arrived!

Wonder how that works with visas etc. or maybe he was chosen as he was born here so might have had the right to work in the UK?

https://twitter.com/Issa25/status/150547...C4now&s=19

[Jon]

If he has dual British/Aussie citizenship, he’ll have the right to work here.

If that’s the case it sounds like the producers would have been aware of that and already had it as contingency plan.

[Joe]

The cost of flights from Australia are nothing to the production company - certainly compared to the disruption of NOT filling a gap.

[UBox]

Mark Labbett has been picked up by Game Show Network in the US to be one of the Masterminds on its show 'Master Minds'. It's also hosted by Brooke Burns who he did the first US version of The Chase with.

Clever of GSN to capitalise on his appearances on ABC Chase and bring him into one of their most popular formats.

The Masterminds also have nicknames but I wonder whether they'll be allowed to use 'The Beast' if they'd have to get special permission from ITV or whether they'll have to opt for something else.

There's a preview episode on YouTube if anyone's interested:

https://youtu.be/d3pHuVlabsQ

[XIII]

Master Minds seems like a weird hybrid of Eggheads and Jeopardy!

[eyeTV]

The new series of Beat The Chasers is running over 5 nights from Monday 16th May at 9pm.

[Ash101]

So that's The Games running nightly next week, then Beat the Chasers the week after. Then either the next (or the one after that) BGT Semis?

[Brekkie]

BGT dates still TBC - they're at the Eventim Apollo who have no advertised shows between the 19th May and 6th June - so I would predict it'll be the half term week as usual - probably semi-finals from Mon-Fri and the final on the Sunday, as BBC1 have the Jubilee Concert on the Saturday.


Hopefully all these episodes of Beat the Chasers are regular folk, though with there being just 5 I would guess they've probably filmed a couple of celeb episodes alongside them which will get thrown out on Saturday nights again.

[CameronYoung]

https://twitter.com/tvukzone/status/1521936491370459140
When was the last time The Chase didn't air in the Monday-Friday 5pm slot (barring bank holidays)?

[Brekkie]

Probably when Cash Trapped aired pre-pandemic.

Odd choice here given surely the daytime show surely promotes (and probably outrates) the primetime show, plus surely they've exhausted Lingo repeats in recent weeks.

[Andrew]

Viewers aren’t happy - “The Chase axed in major shakeup”

Accompanied by a picture of Bradley and/or Mark looking annoyed taken from a completely out of context situation