Weaver's Week 2026-01-11

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Poll of the Year 2025 continues! Your favourite and least fave new show, your favourite broadcast and online shows, the best bits from the world of game shows, and any other business. Bother's Bar are hosting once more, and your votes will count. Lines close on Tuesday.

Covered in chocolate, indulgent fudge, sweet and almost sickly. But enough about The Christmas Wheel, let's look at some of the other shows.

Highlight might actually have been The Festive Finish Line, which went out in the week before Christmas. Most shows become more jolly with jingle bells added to the soundtrack, and The Finish Line went the full nine lessons and carols: a makeover for its sleighs, seasonal questions, and some Christmas jumpers so loud we can hear Tom Daley's needles clacking from here. The whole programme was fun and jolly and light and entertaining, and we'd quite forgotten that 5.15 can be fun and jolly. Perhaps the BBC might run all the new episodes of Pointless and The Finish Line and Bridge of Lies and The Answer Run (and maybe another show) at 5.15, with repeats earlier in the daytime schedule. Watch on the BBC website

The cast of Gladiators got everywhere. Many of them showed up on DIY SOS, making a youth centre with their bare hands. Tom Wilson (who plays Hammer) turned up on Sewing Bee, and proved really very adept at needlework and embroidery, which was a surprise and delight in equal measure. Jodie Ousley (who plays Fury) did a storming turn on Strictly Christmas Dancing, and had earlier given a heartfelt tribute to the brilliance of Nicola Adams.

Fury's high praise came on the Celebrity Gladiators, which went out in the sunset slot on BBC1's Christmas Day. Not really the best display from the Glads, we were disappointed to learn that Legend didn't appear at all, so we couldn't make a crack about the most important speech of the day. Viper managed to get himself disqualified from his Duel before the starting whistle, which added to our suspicion that the character is flawed beyond saving. And at the end of the show, was it fair for Vogue Williams to have a ladder brought on to help her dodge the rope climb? It's a rare misfire from the team: the show would have been fine the following weekend, but didn't scale the heights needed for Christmas Day. Watch at the BBC.

The Weakest Link happened, we think Ross King got to the final, but we may have rested our eyes through most of it. Bake Off brought out some big stars from comedy history. Celebrity husband David Mitchell seems to have been practising, which is most unlike his image. Olivia Colman was a model of consistency, and Isy Suttie gave excellent one-liners throughout the show. In their New Year's episode, Bake Off Pairs tried to prove four hands were better than two, we particularly enjoyed the near-farce of the relay challenge in the technical. Christmas Bake Off

ITV's Christmas night game show block went out later on Christmas night. Bullseye was as good as the rest of the series, which sadly isn't anything like as good as it ought to be. The show remains a 30-minute programme spread out to fill an hour: there's no particular pace or urgency, and although the new charity throw means the celebrity thrower is on for a bit longer, they don't hang around to join in the fun. Careful thought is needed: Bullseye doesn't work as a modern show, and the format isn't strong enough that it can trade on nostalgia in the way Mastermind does, for instance. Watch on the ITV Hub.

The 1% Club was ITV's biggest hit of the night, we noted last week that the format risks being over-exposed. The night was rounded out by Romesh Ranganathan's Parents' Evening, up against Mrs. Brown's Boys on BBC1, a pairing that surely left everyone turning in for an early night.

Most of ITV's big guns went out a little later in the week: The Masked Singer on Boxing Day night. Three Saturday night fixtures aired on the Saturday night. You Bet! On Tour was an experiment they were right to try, but the show turns out to have lost a lot of its novelty in this age when we can see unlikely people doing incredible things on every third video.

Wheel of Fortune also went down the pairs route, which we think made for a more interesting game with a little chat between the pairs. Limitless Win had a pro-celebrity version, surprising people in the studio audience to come up and play with their heroes. We understand that the night's first question – how many words are in "We wish you a merry Christmas" before the first chorus – had to be thrown out for a technical fault, and replaced by one asking about gold rings. Gold rings, that would make a good game show … oh. Limitless Win

BBC2 had another year of Quiz Night Every Night (Except Christmas Day and Snoggletog Saturday). House of Games (3) invited a mixture of new and returning contestants, with the inevitable round of charades and familiar rounds lightly renamed. Celebrity Mastermind had most of its series: we reckon the BBC is currently contractually obliged to order 14 celeb editions on top of the regular series, and maybe this will change when the contract is next renegotiated. We hope it does, as the show rarely rises above background noise, and a mixture of new and repeat episodes would be fine.

New and repeats was the order on Only Connect (2): two new competition episodes (which we'll get to later), the familiar specials themed around Family and Law. Two more unorthodox episodes: a Third Place Play-Off Play-Off featured questions themed around the idea of three. And the Pub Quiz asked the same questions to both teams – right down to the same wall – with Victoria sending one of each team off for drinks part-way through a round. Not something they want to do terribly often, but might be a good format for the next celebrity edition they make. Pub Quiz episode

Christmas University Challenge marked its 15th series in the present format, and invited back a team from each of the past 14 editions. Some of the line-ups had changed, some of the teams were not winners, and a couple were Frankenteams constructed from many years' contributors. In the final, Durham retained the title they'd won last year, strong buzzing and great conferring were the hallmarks of success.

We watched Blankety Blank, though we could not tell you what happened on it, or if there were any jokes. Lucy Beaumont managed to appear on Sewing Bee and Celebrity Mastermind at the same time; she could have returned to University Challenge with Hull but doubtless thought three appearances on one night would have been too many.

On the radio, we heard I Don't Do…, Julian Clary's new panel show, and we're still unsure if it is a game or not. RTÉ 2fm's Christmas Quiz was complete anarchy and nonsense and we loved it to bubbles. And we caught That's Puzzling from CBC Radio 1, where listeners and familiar voices play word games; did we dream about a round of Answer Smash with Jeopardy! ultra-champ Mattea Roach? "That's Puzzling"

And on New Year's Day, the new programmes began. We plan to look at Time Is Money next week, Millionaire Hot Seat in a fortnight, The Traitors in mid-February after the series has ended, The Floor can probably wait till the series ends in March.

Three main series games of Only Connect to cover. Pitchers booked their spot in the semi-finals with a dominant win over the Sorcerers. Words with "train" replaced by "bus", an Only Connect classic merging Penguin books and birds, cities on a Monopoly board, and another dominant performance on Missing Vowels clinched the win. Sorcerers got the first point of the game – on mnemonics with the hands – but looked rather overpowered throughout.

Worker Bees won the last quarter-final, beating the Doctors Matthews by 20-18. Both sides had a bad round: Doctors failed to score at all on the Sequences, while the Bees dropped half the marks on their Wall. As in their heat, the Bees had the best of Missing Vowels, and continue in the contest. Doctors will doubtless return in some festive special. Question of the night was the Amazing Fibonacci Sequence of winners in the men's football premier league. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 seasons won for the seven winners, and nobody else has a sniff of a win. It's almost enough to cheer for Aston Villa, so the sequence (almost) continues.

The first semi-final went to the 5ks, who beat the Metrophiles by 19-16. The match turned on one single clue: "People born in 1722, turned 42 in 1764." One of the Metrophiles then remembered that 2025 was a square number, and tried to work out where the sequence was going. Buzzing for five, they came so close to hitting the mark, but zigged with "Born in 2000, turned 25 in 2025" when the sequence went for 45 in 2025, because 45 squared is 2025. Remember this factoid for the quarter-final of series 111 in 2116!

The 5ks had impressed on their opening question (exports from Venice) but didn't quite get their picture and were nowhere on things said by Jokers. Metrophiles did well on things removed from the Hollywoodland sign, were in the right area for bands named after the place where they lived, and dropped a bonus on conflicts ending with Treaties of Paris.

Sequences fell kindly for 5ks, they picked up a bonus on the square ages question, had three on kits of football clubs from larger settlements, and three on winners of the Sight and Sound critics' poll. Metrophiles picked two on the designs of the world's popular currencies, but neither side spotted translations of phrases involving "qua, que, qui, quo" such as "Rick and Francis's latest wax cylinder". Walls fell unkindly for both sides, and although Metrophiles pulled a point back on Missing Vowels, the 5ks proved masters of Charles Dickens Movies Answer Smashes.

Merton Oxford beat Churchill Cambridge by 180-115 in University Challenge. Statistically, this was an unremarkable game – Merton's score is a little above average, they were 52% on the bonuses and 50% overall which is a little worse than average, and three penalties is one worse than par. Merton are average in most of the question categories we follow, they're strong in Language, Philosophy, and Biology-Chemistry science.

Elliot Cosnett is Merton's star buzzer, a personal total of 92 points is one of the highest in the round. The team also know what they know: very fast answers on Middleton's play "A Game at Chess", and we were baffled by the Thurn und Taxis family because they got the answers before we'd understood the question. Churchill were often beaten to the buzzer, though were able to work out some of the more deducible starters – the one about Geneva in the America's Cup, and the shared regnal name of Alexander. Less impressed with the producers, who offered two starters of the form "Which given name is shared by…" almost next to each other.

If the UC group phase draw follows the second-round transmission order – and it has done most years – we reckon the first matches are:

• Darwin Cambridge vs Sheffield – which feels comfortable for Sheffield
• Imperial vs Warwick – should be close, and could depend on which subjects are set
• Manchester vs Edinburgh – the quickfire buzzers against the bonus wonders in a classic clash of styles
• UCL vs Merton Oxford – two solid teams, Merton might have a slight edge

Who's winning the series? Don't know, but Imperial vs Warwick feels like it could come back as a final.

This week on House of Games (3), it's been the most uneven playing field since Yeovil left the Huish ground. Humphrey Ker was up against three players, and Richard Osman doing his absolute best to allow someone else to win. Humphrey is something to do with Wrexham FC, apparently. Huge Davies, the comedian, ran close a couple of times. Jamie-Lee O'Donnell from Derry Girls showed a remarkable ability to identify songs played backwards, and Amy Dowden from Strictly Come Dancing brought style and stronger quizzing than she let us think.

Viewers of a certain age may remember Prosiect Z, the escape room in your school where you try to avoid the undead and solve puzzles to stay alive. It ran for two series, and spawned an English-language version. And then the pandemic happened and the show shut up shop because it was hitting a bit too close to home.

But, like its resident zeds, Prosiect Z would not be kept down. The drama series Itopia explored how the problem began, and branched down a path of how society coped with most of its members being shambling shuffling husks with no brain. And now we hear that the original Prosiect Z is recruiting for new teams. Pob luc, plant!

New series this week should have included Love Island All Stars (ITV2), but that's been postponed due to wildfires in the area. We do get Ant and Dec with Limitless Win (ITV, Sunday), there's a new run of Landscape Artist of the Year (Artsworld, Wed). Comedians and Jimmy Carr are on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (C4, Friday), and Chris McCausland's sound quiz You Heard It Here First (Radio 4, Wednesday) is also back. Next Saturday brings us Gladiators (BBC1).

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