12-04-2023, 06:20 PM
The fact that everything seems more controlled totally neuters the appeal of it being live. Yes, most of the games necessitate the need for the show to be live, but you don't get the fun that NTV used to provide; either the participants are prepared for the fact that they'll be taking part, or they appear so briefly (Happiest Minute) that there's no opportunity for A&D to have any fun with them. IIRC the End of the Show Shows prior to the most recent series were mostly pre-recorded. Yes, a layperson will hardly notice the difference, but it still leaves you questioning why they make the show live in the first place.
You don't have to go back too far to see how much fun it was when A&D lost control or didn't know what was going to happen. They're both at their very best when they react naturally to each other and what happens around them, not when they're trying to come across as consummate professionals who follow the script to the letter.
There's also the matter, in my opinion, of how much of the show is intertwined with winning Places on a Plane, which is all just one big product placement for whatever attraction the final episode is being shown from. Yes, it's exciting if you actually win a ticket and go there, but the end of the series showed that it's monumentally boring for those who are simply watching at home. But I can't see that changing, simply because it probably makes far too much money for ITV.
Nor can I see A&D relinquishing control and knowledge of what goes on in the show, as much as I'd like to see it. They're pretty much the faces of ITV and I imagine there's a lot of responsibility involved in that, so I wouldn't be too surprised if they didn't want them both not looking like a safe pair of hands - even if it's at the expense of being too safe. It's just a shame they're growing less and less like the free-spirited but still entirely capable 2000s-era of A&D.
You don't have to go back too far to see how much fun it was when A&D lost control or didn't know what was going to happen. They're both at their very best when they react naturally to each other and what happens around them, not when they're trying to come across as consummate professionals who follow the script to the letter.
There's also the matter, in my opinion, of how much of the show is intertwined with winning Places on a Plane, which is all just one big product placement for whatever attraction the final episode is being shown from. Yes, it's exciting if you actually win a ticket and go there, but the end of the series showed that it's monumentally boring for those who are simply watching at home. But I can't see that changing, simply because it probably makes far too much money for ITV.
Nor can I see A&D relinquishing control and knowledge of what goes on in the show, as much as I'd like to see it. They're pretty much the faces of ITV and I imagine there's a lot of responsibility involved in that, so I wouldn't be too surprised if they didn't want them both not looking like a safe pair of hands - even if it's at the expense of being too safe. It's just a shame they're growing less and less like the free-spirited but still entirely capable 2000s-era of A&D.