And thus ended all credibility this show had within 30 seconds.
In 1994, ITV wanted a piece of the adventure game show pie and, in association with 20th Century Fox, came up with a show that had the working title "Aliens: The Game Show". Ridley Scott got wind of the idea and told them in no uncertain terms: "No." Thus Scavengers was born.
With a set built at Pinewood Studios for around £2.5 million. ITV were aiming high. It had a plum Saturday night slot as a summer replacement for the hugely successful 'Gladiators' and, as producer Julian Grant said, "If people like it, it could go for years". It didn't.
Set on the derelict ship Cyclops, Commander John Leslie (at the time known for hosting Blue Peter, and not being a commander) led two duos of scavengers in extracting salvage from the ship in a series of games. With Android, played by Anna Galvin, offering advice from the Vulture, once they set foot on the ship they had an oddly specific 51 minute time limit before the Vulture left with or without them. There was a range of games designed for the show with a different selection used for each episode. Two games were used for every episode as signature games for the show. The first signature was the Crusher, imagine the trash compactor from Star Wars but with the wall taking a run-up. Both teams climbed in and would have to root around in all the junk for specific rods worth salvage points, or SP.
Other games included Bomb Disposal, a steady hand game removing detonator plates from bombs without making contact with the large metal pins holding them in place. Solar Tower, where the female contestants abseiled down a tower to collect cells worth SP from the bottom, and the male contestants would then have to race to winch their partner back to the top. And Rupture, where flasks worth SP had to be collected from a water tank by redirecting water flow.
There were several others but the end game was the grand finale, the Final Abyss. With a 6-minute time limit, the teams had to build themselves a crane to rope swing across a large water tank and gather whatever last salvage they could for some extra points. Commander John Leslie would zipline across and wait for the in the Vulture, anyone not in their seats at the end of the 6 minutes was left to the aliens on board and, perhaps worse than the terrible fate that awaited them, got a score of 0. Ultra Nerd detail: the sound effect for the onscreen "Vulture Countdown" clock is the same sound used for the Futuristic timers from Ed Tudor Pole's TCM stint. Pointless info but if I don't mark it down on the internet forever, who will?
So far, so gameshowey. So what was so bad about it? They were going for a sci-fi action movie feel for the show, it was after all initially pitched as a game show entry of the Alien universe, which didn't happen. They kept up the pretence of a narrative however with evil alien species trying to kill the Commander. There were plot lines such as intergalactic assassins and clones (two John Leslies, sorry to put that thought in your head), there were shootouts, there was Leslie acting, and it was all cringeworthy.
Whilst a good idea in theory, in practice it came across as cheap and hammy, despite the expensive set. It really takes you out of it when you can see other bits of the set in the background showing them going back on themselves, or when you can see steelworkers in a bit of stock footage which has the contestants running through a corridor superimposed in the background. Worse still we missed out on civil servants from Cheltenham being eviscerated by Xenomorphs for losing a game show. However, you can understand why Ridley Scott said "No." It soon lost its Saturday night slot and lived out it's run almost a year later at 9:25 on a Monday morning. Much like Fort Boyard and now TCM, the set was used for international versions broadcast in Spain, Japan, Italy and Scandinavia. Here's the intro of the Spanish edition. All that cost for a product that ended up in the post-GMTV slot, at least they'll have made a bit of it back through selling the format.
Set on the derelict ship Cyclops, Commander John Leslie (at the time known for hosting Blue Peter, and not being a commander) led two duos of scavengers in extracting salvage from the ship in a series of games. With Android, played by Anna Galvin, offering advice from the Vulture, once they set foot on the ship they had an oddly specific 51 minute time limit before the Vulture left with or without them. There was a range of games designed for the show with a different selection used for each episode. Two games were used for every episode as signature games for the show. The first signature was the Crusher, imagine the trash compactor from Star Wars but with the wall taking a run-up. Both teams climbed in and would have to root around in all the junk for specific rods worth salvage points, or SP.
Other games included Bomb Disposal, a steady hand game removing detonator plates from bombs without making contact with the large metal pins holding them in place. Solar Tower, where the female contestants abseiled down a tower to collect cells worth SP from the bottom, and the male contestants would then have to race to winch their partner back to the top. And Rupture, where flasks worth SP had to be collected from a water tank by redirecting water flow.
There were several others but the end game was the grand finale, the Final Abyss. With a 6-minute time limit, the teams had to build themselves a crane to rope swing across a large water tank and gather whatever last salvage they could for some extra points. Commander John Leslie would zipline across and wait for the in the Vulture, anyone not in their seats at the end of the 6 minutes was left to the aliens on board and, perhaps worse than the terrible fate that awaited them, got a score of 0. Ultra Nerd detail: the sound effect for the onscreen "Vulture Countdown" clock is the same sound used for the Futuristic timers from Ed Tudor Pole's TCM stint. Pointless info but if I don't mark it down on the internet forever, who will?
So far, so gameshowey. So what was so bad about it? They were going for a sci-fi action movie feel for the show, it was after all initially pitched as a game show entry of the Alien universe, which didn't happen. They kept up the pretence of a narrative however with evil alien species trying to kill the Commander. There were plot lines such as intergalactic assassins and clones (two John Leslies, sorry to put that thought in your head), there were shootouts, there was Leslie acting, and it was all cringeworthy.
Whilst a good idea in theory, in practice it came across as cheap and hammy, despite the expensive set. It really takes you out of it when you can see other bits of the set in the background showing them going back on themselves, or when you can see steelworkers in a bit of stock footage which has the contestants running through a corridor superimposed in the background. Worse still we missed out on civil servants from Cheltenham being eviscerated by Xenomorphs for losing a game show. However, you can understand why Ridley Scott said "No." It soon lost its Saturday night slot and lived out it's run almost a year later at 9:25 on a Monday morning. Much like Fort Boyard and now TCM, the set was used for international versions broadcast in Spain, Japan, Italy and Scandinavia. Here's the intro of the Spanish edition. All that cost for a product that ended up in the post-GMTV slot, at least they'll have made a bit of it back through selling the format.
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