Weaver's Week 2026-03-15

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It's a solid thing, you walk all over it, put your shoes on it, if you fall it'll catch you, it's generally thick and made of concrete. Name that thing!

New year's 2023 brought a new programme to RTL4 in the Netherlands. The Floor was a simple amusement programme, where contestants duelled to name things in a category. Whoever lost the duel was out of the show, and that rule is simple enough for anyone to follow.

The genius bit was that contestants controlled squares on a giant LED floor. Whoever won the duel would take control of their opponent's square. And they'd be allowed to challenge one of their new neighbours, or go back to the floor and perhaps be challenged later. Whoever ends the series controlling the whole floor is the winner.

All of the duels are prompted by pictures. Identify that tourist attraction, this musical group, the flag. Name the place shown on the map, fill in the blank in a song title. The Floor is the original Name That Thing quiz. Each player gets 45 seconds for each duel, and the challenger starts – a double disadvantage, because the defender has brought that subject to the table and might be expected to know more about it.

There are a few other rules to note. Incorrect guesses cost time but incur no further penalty, and a pass will chew three seconds off the clock. Players who win three duels in a row can claim a Time Boost, an extra 5 seconds to play in any duel – but they cannot start collecting for another Boost until the last one has been used.

There's a prize at the end of each episode, £5000 for the player who has the most squares (split if two or more players share that honour). Every episode (except the final) has exactly eight duels. Series jackpot is £50,000; at the time of writing, £50,000 is about 18 months' average post-tax wage.

They have an elegant way to ensure all the categories are played exactly once. The topic of each duel – the pictures to identify – are the subject chosen by the defender. Afterwards, the winner will have the attacker's original topic. Suppose that Alice is selected by the floor, she's brought "Children's Literature" to the game. She attacks Bob, whose category is "Road signs". Bob wins, and he can go back to the floor and defend "Children's Literature" at a later date. Or he can attack Charlie on "Garden Herbs", and so the game continues.

The Floor had 81 contestants, bringing 81 very different subjects. It's the right length for a ten-episode series, with eight duels per show – that's two between every ad break, a very rare case of three internal breaks per hour improving a programme. With a brief discussion of the options open to the player who's just won a duel, and chats with contestants as they stepped up, The Floor was never rushed and never too slow.

All 81 contestants had at least one trip to the podium, the only way to be eliminated was to lose your duel. There were no group eliminations, no teams formed from other players; clearly the network had learned something from 99 to Beat.

For this introductory series, they kept the rules as simple as possible. Straightforward duels, the only slight complications were the weekly prize and the time boost. Later series in the Netherlands have introduced ideas such as "Category swap" (someone who wins lots of duels can swap their category with someone else's), or "Golden square" (one of the squares hides a bonus prize, given to the winner of the first duel involving the square). We'd expect to see at least one of these ideas in the next ITV series, but they were absolutely right to establish the format first.

We were less impressed that every single question was to see a picture and respond to it: the publicity blurb had promised multiple-choice questions and sound clips, but we didn't see any of that this time round. Again, we can understand that they want to establish the format before varying it, but why did they publicise the other types only to disappoint us?

"Establish the format before varying it" was something they notably didn't do on Destination X, the BBC's travel series from last year. Rob Brydon hosted that show, he also hosted The Floor. When it comes to making a good show from a halfway decent format, Rob knows a lot – some would say the lot – so let's just say that he knows a lot about the lot. And here, Rob is given the rare luxury of a format that has been tested and proven in many markets. He's able to rely on a studio team who have done this many times before. He's able to watch and learn from great hosts like Edson da Graça, Lise Rønne, Cyril Féraud, and others.

We could tell this because Rob hosted the show with ease, he made it look absolutely effortless. Rob was able to relax contestants, put them at their ease in a stressful environment. Crack jokes, make awkward faces to the camera, explain where we were in the episode and the competition, and keep the tone as light as possible given the increasingly high stakes.

Contestant casting was also good – all the players were outgoing, many had interesting stories to tell. Some were familiar faces, we recognised Zi the hero from The Mole back in the Week's earliest editions. Others became familiar faces, Mackenzie defended the largest section of floor against all-comers, then Kate used it to go on the attack.

As the series progressed, we began to see more and more strategy. The contestants with large chunks of territory were rewarded with a bonus each episode, and that made them targets to be taken out each episode. Would it be advisable for Edward to attack "Flowers" (which he didn't know, and was being defended by Flora the horticulturalist) to get a shot at grandmother Goldie and her inherited category of "Pre-school children's telly" and the nineteen squares she won defending "Knitting"? Or should Edward look in another direction, try for Derek with his "Dominoes" and go back to the floor?

The questions got more meaningful as the series went on. Splodges of territory merged, someone declared a side-to-side Blockbusters around show five, a top-to-bottom Bustblockers the following week. By the penultimate episode, the largest territory could attack literally anyone they wanted to, but did they want to attack anyone? If the category swap were in effect, or if time boosts stacked, we may well have had a different winner.

In the event, the series ended in a slight anti-climax. First we finally had someone play "Potatoes!", the category offered by Roly had been marked out in the opening minutes, remained resolutely unplayed until the last week, and turned out to be "name that dish made of, or with, potatoes". Then we had lots of people return to the floor, the massive territory changed hands a few times, and nobody seemed to want to win. The final two each brought their subject to the table, each won their duel, and the series was decided by playing an 82nd category – tourist landmarks. It's not a bad ending, but it's not as full of story as it could have been.

Almost inevitably, the judging occasionally appeared less than perfect. From time to time, an apparently correct answer would not be accepted – "swan" might be rejected if the answer was "mute swan". There didn't appear to be a way for a contestant to be told "more required", only that their answer hadn't been marked right. Given the volume of prompts, and the speed with which adjudication is required, this sort of discrepancy was almost inevitable, and it's a pleasant surprise that they managed to keep the quibbles to about one per episode. Not perfect, but tolerable.

With ITV being ITV, we have to wonder about The Inevitable Celebrity Series. The Dutch original has commissioned some one-off specials, which work for that market. We wonder if ITV might take 25 famous faces, and strip the programme across three nights after Christmas one year.

We also wonder if weekly episodes are the best way to present this show. ITV could have stripped The Floor each weeknight at 7.30 for a month, established it as a clear rival to The East Enders for casual viewers. They chose not to do that, it was a choice.

The Floor is about the fourth show asking contestants to Name That Thing. It's different from ITV's earlier effort In With a Shout because that had a limited time to name things and the game would move on whether you got it right or not. It's different from BBC1's The Finish Line because Roman's show dots right around categories and Name That Thing is only one round in a larger show. And it's different from BBC1's primetime Picture Slam because Rob Brydon allows the show to be about the contestants and the game, we're not really watching for the host.

Yes, The Floor is coming back for a second series. Applications are open through the ITV website, where one can also watch the series.

We're glad to see the show coming back. Viewing figures support it, other people's reaction has been positive, it is the first iteration of a wholly "Name That Thing" show we've chosen to watch, and the format still has a lot to offer us.

Mastermind is heating up with the first semi-final. Lorna Frankel was the first to punch her ticket to the final, the medical secretary presented a Perfect Round on the scientist Michael Faraday, and put in a strong general knowledge round. One of her few errors was not remembering David Lammy, a milquetoast politician who failed to prepare when he did Celebrity Mastermind some years ago and that made him something of a laughing stock for a week or two.

Elis Matthews was strong on the comedy Fleabag, though fell into a pass spiral at the start of his general knowledge round. Peter Glanvill (marine invertebrates) passed to get more questions, which would have been a great tactic for many other shows. Teddy Fogel turned in a great general knowledge round, but the researchers found bits of Ronald Reagan's biography that the young contender had missed.

Imperial brought their jar of Kimchi to the University Challenge repêchage final, and came away with a 160-120 victory. Sheffield got off to the better start, at one point stretching into a 60-20 lead, and answering the night's only perfect bonus set on cow-herds. Slowly but surely, Imperial's buzzer Oscar O'Flanagan took control – he'd answer seven starters correctly, pick up three incorrect penalties, and make speculative guesses on a couple more. The strong buzzing was Imperial's winning tactic, particularly in the minutes after the music round.

Imperial were pretty much average: 160 is a middle-of-the-road score, 46% of questions right and 3 penalties a little below average, hearing 30 bonus questions is above average. Sheffield were right in 58% of their bonuses, which is typical of the team and very much the sort of figure that can bring success. Presuming they play Manchester next, Sheffield are stronger on Literature, Languages, Geography, and Philosophy & Social Sciences; Manchester has a slight advantage on Bio-Chem Science but neither side is particularly good.

House of Games (3) had a very close Champions' Week. Claire Richards From Steps continued to demonstrate that she's smarter than the average pop star, while Chris McCausland demonstrated his knowledge of Queen songs. Olly Smith was a delight throughout the week, and Adele Roberts remained the most sassy and savvy contender. All were involved in tie-breaks at least once, and the final score was almost immaterial: we won't remember whose luggage was weighed down by the trophy, we will remember how our hearts were lightened by the fun.

RTS Programme Awards loom, and the nominations list is published. This award is voted by active television practitioners for programmes broadcast in the year to December 2025, it's the best programmes amongst the industry's peers. Game shows and folk nominated are:

• Comedy Entertainment – Last One Laughing, Taskmaster, Would I Lie to You?
• Entertainment and Reality – Married at First Sight, Race Across the World, The Celebrity Traitors
• Entertainment Performance – Claudia Winkleman (The Celebrity Traitors) (and two non-game performances by Romesh Ranganathan)

Winners will be named at the ceremony on 24 March.

The Traitors has been renewed for three more years after the current contract, and will be on our screens until 2030. Three more sets of celebrities making the same old mistakes. Three more sets of normal people making glorious new mistakes. Three more years of high fashions. Three more years to perfect the Claudia fringe!

Bad news for fans of I Kissed a Girl or Boy, as the queer dating show will not be renewed beyond the fourth series already in the can. Good news for fans of milquetoast social deduction games, as The Inner Circle will be coming back for a second series; we reckon there's a good show to be had, but we didn't see it last autumn.

Journey to the End of the Night is back next month, on 18 April. It's the one where you try to get from point to point, completing silly tasks along the way. This year, you might earn your fairy wings. We wrote about the event last year, during the site's hiatus. Owing to an existing commitment, this blog won't be able to attend the event, which really is a shame. Sign-ups are now open, and good luck to everyone taking part.

A new run of vocabulary show Unspeakable (Radio 4, Mon) begins this week. Finals tonight for Dancing With the Stars (RTÉ1); on Tuesday there are simultaneous finishes for The Summit (ITV), Handcuffed to Jonathan Ross (C4), and RuPaul's Drag Race Against the World (BBC3). Comic Relief brings a special of The Weakest Link (BBC2, Fri). Next Saturday has the much-awaited return of Celebrity Catchphrase (ITV), and the prank show Celebrity Sabotage (ITV).

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