[JMT1985]

Nice to see a decent recration of Broadcasting House Studio V tonight. Michael said it was the exact set, but you could see the sofas were a bit smaller. That type of feature you could ossibly clamour to have more often, though it must be a lot of effort to undertake.

Moving the Unexpected Star to be celebrity based is really not working for me. It feels a bit fake, that they do go into their singing almost without breaking stride. Even if the civillian Unexpected Star does work out what is happening, you still have the novelty of them peforming in front of the large crowd for the first time, and often a lovely backstory.
I wonder why they do it? It can't be a lack of applicants.

I agree with you about the celebrity unexpected star - It seems Michael is falling down the trap that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire went down, when they started celebrity specials, it seems the public doesn't like too many of them. I remember the great Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It saying when you bring out celebrities you really do know you are desperate.

I always remember Noel Edmonds saying that he forbid any celebrity specials of Deal or No Deal for many years, and he had to relent in 2012 when Channel 4 forced him to agree to do specials with celebrities, he said he knew the show was on a downward slide when that happens, and I feel Michael's Big Show is going that way too.

Michael has ditched a lot from this show - he rarely bothers to venture into the audience to have a bit of fun with them - all stand up comedy has been axed from the show including his opening monologue - surely if you have a few writers, you could create a 5 minute opening routine each week, it is only what 6 shows a year he does with The Big Show.

Also do you notice, they don't bother using the show as a Christmas special. Why? This would be a perfect show for a Christmas special, they used to do it, last Christmas special of the Big Show was in 2019.