Weaver's Week 2025-11-09
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Well, this is unfortunate. This column has had to do a massive amount of life administration this week, and an ill-timed migraine meant we didn't have time to complete our review. Our notes on Channel 4's Worlds Apart are still scattered and disjoint, and you deserve a cogent and coherent review – one using sentences and paragraphs. A finished review next week.
Television's biggest game show, The Celebrity Traitors, finished this week. As is traditional, this column will eschew the "hot takes" offered by other commentators, and present a "frozen take" in a couple of weeks' time. It also gives you a chance to catch up on the win by – aiiee, no, don't push use your badminton racket to push us into the rosebush of doom!
News from the Eurovision Song Contest. Four broadcasters have announced plans to return: BNT (which broadcasts to Bulgaria), who last took part in 2022; TVR (Romania), who last competed in 2023; and TVM (Moldova) and RTBF (Belgium), both were last amongst us in 2024. Welcome back, all of you, and we look forward to hearing brilliant tunes from everyone.
We were surprised to hear that the Canadian government wants to get into the contest; this week's federal budget carved out a clear intention that CBC/Radio-Canada take part in Eurovision's international song contest. Previous successful Canadians at Eurovision include Céline Dion, (er), Natasha St-Pier, (er) (um), and possibly some others. CBC/R-C has also taken part in Eurovision Young Dancers, and Eurradio's choir competition Let the Peoples Sing, winning sections in the latter contest on three occasions.
Quizzy Mondays
A charming week on House of Games; Ashley Storrie is the comedian, and clearly knows a lot about a lot. Adam Woodyat – you know, Ian Beale from The East Enders – plays hard and has his moments. Megan McCubbin approaches rounds with an individual way of playing, and Krishnan Guru Murthy proves you don't have to be Number One to impress on this show.
We've not had many Perfect Rounds on Mastermind this year, so Paul Richardson caught our eye when he went twelve-for-twelve on questions about the pop group Roxy Music. He added a baker's dozen of correct general knowledge answers to rack up a formidable score. The other contestants were well behind on specialist, and didn't quite snap as well in the second phase.
Doctors Matthews became the fourth team through to the Only Connect quarter-finals, beating the Sorcerers by 23-17. Sorcerers got the better start, a single point advantage after Connections, turned into a lead of five after Sequences. Spot of the night was the configuration of dots on a dice, even though that's the Sorcerers' home category. But a poor wall gave the Doctors a chance to get back in the game, and the Docs pulled away on Missing Vowels, the second poor performance in that round from the Sorcerers. They do get a second chance, and from here on Only Connect is straight elimination.
Darwin Cambridge made it through University Challenge, eliminating Magdalen Oxford by 190-80. Darwin were stronger on the buzzers, winning the starter battle 11-5. Only the one full set of bonuses – on video game characters voiced by Jennifer Hale – and they managed not to know who wrote the "Sarabande", they didn't know his Handel. Magdalen's strongest moments came with the aboriginal history of Newfoundland, and tapestries about biblical scenes.
Both sides had won through Oxbridge battles to get here, and Darwin progress with two very average performances: 52% right tonight, 44% in their heat, and their strongest points are entertainment and cross-subject questions, which UC seems not to emphasise in later rounds. Five penalties for incorrect interruptions in this match take the total for the series so far to 67, very nearly two per team; last series averaged barely 1.3 penalties per team.
Non-stop jokes and japery as Bullseye returns (ITV, Sun). The laughter continues with a new series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio 4, Mon). Who has won the current series of Taskmaster? We'll find out, C4 on Thursday. Teenagers from Manchester play Come Dine with Me (E4, weeknights).
Roo and David kick off a new series of Antiques Road Trip (BBC1, weekdays). Children in Need brings us the annual Bargain Hunt special (BBC1, Fri), and a new Gladiators Epic Pranks (CBBC, Fri). Masterchef Us comes to the Watch channel (weeknights). Next Saturday has the return of Alan Carr's Picture Slam (BBC1): is it too soon to ask for The Inner Circle to come back?
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