Wipeout

SCU: Serious Crash Unit, Seven, 7.30pm
The Serious Crash Unit investigates where a vehicle has slammed into a palm tree along Te Irirangi Drive. The force of the crash has left the twisted wreck wrapped around the trunk and the outcome for the 23-year-old male driver looks grim.

The Glades, Ten, 8.30pm
Sort of a mix of Burn Notice and your typical crime procedural – set in Florida. Pilot – free to air first. Longworth’s golf game is interrupted after a decapitated, unidentifiable woman is found in a creek. He does everything he can think of to try and identify the victim and un-cover the killer.

Air Crash Investigations, Seven, 9.30pm
Panic on the Runway. Investigators try to uncover how a British Airtours flight with 137 people on board, never even left the ground, yet turned into one of the worst disasters in British aviation history.

Wipeout, GO!, 6.30pm
New episodes of Wipeout return to GO!, 6.30 Monday to Thursdays.

Gossip Girl, FOX8 8.35pm AEDT
Season premiere. Yes Then Zero. Serena loves her new job in Hollywood, but makes a costly misstep when she tries to impress her boss. Chuck and Nate arrive in Los Angeles as the last stop of their Lost Summer trip, joining Serena at a glamorous Hollywood Hills party, where Nate meets a sexy older woman. Blair and Louis return from Monaco and begin planning their royal wedding, but when Louis refuses to stand up to his family and support Blair’s choices, his weakness threatens their relationship. A magazine is planning to run an excerpt of Dan’s book until an unlikely ally steps in to help him kill the story.

Wipeout, GO!, 7.30pm
Winter Wipeout: This Little Piggy Went to Wipe out. Twenty-four thrill seekers must endure the Wipeout obstacle course with a winter theme. This time obstacles will include the Spinning Ski Lift, Snowplow Sweeper and Big Balls with a new twist, the Snow-tivator.

Baby Planet, GEM, 7.30pm
Focusing on the important work of zoos, animal parks and conservation groups, this program uncovers the amazing stories of nature’s maternity ward.

RUSH, Ten, 8.30pm.
Second last episode. Lawson and TR take part in a cat-and-mouse chase when a Russian fugitive plans to unleash terrorist-like chaos across the Melbourne cityscape. Also a rumour exists of a proposal between Shannon and Lawson.

America’s Got Talent. FOX8, 7.35pm AEDT
Las Vegas Boot Camp 1. The Las Vegas auditions begin as contestants compete to go to Hollywood and battle for a top spot.

Glee, FOX8, 9.35pm AEDT
The Lady Gaga episode – Born This Way. New to FOX8. Will teaches the kids a valuable lesson about self-acceptance through the music of Lady Gaga. Lauren and Quinn go toe-to-toe for the prom queen crown, as Rachel struggles with a life-altering decision.

The Situation panned for Roast jokes

Jersey Shore’s The Situation has been criticised for his performance on the Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump that screened last night in the US. Many of his jokes were cut from the final edit due to the racist nature of them, including this one aimed at fellow roaster Snoop Dogg: “Yo Snoop, what up dawg … you know you have so much in common with Donald Trump? Trump’s ancestors were into real estate … and your ancestors were considered property.”

Wipeout Xbox game on the way

A video game based on the TV series Wipeout has been announced for the Xbox 360 Kinect platform. The game will feature the obstacle courses seen on the show such as Big Balls and the Smack Wall Sweeper.

BBC denies plagiarism of Aussie series

The BBC has denied allegations of plagiarism relating to its comedy series Twenty Twelve which many have suggested was based on an idea by Australian network ABC. Writers of The Games in Australia have claimed that the BBC series was based on their series which initially ran before the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Philip Seymour Hoffman developing series

Philip Seymour Hoffman has started developing a new drama project for HBO in the US. The actor is working with Hung writer Brett C. Leonard on the project that centres on a recently unemployed man.

More Wipeout coming to GO. So far, GO has aired both the US and Australian versions of Wipeout, now here comes the UK version – called Total Wipeout UK.

From Monday April 19, at 6pm weeknights, Total Wipeout UK will air instead of the Flintstones and Jetsons. Season 1 of Total Wipeout UK consists of 9 episodes only. The UK is currently airing season 3.

And of course – there is a Top Gear link. Total Wipeout UK is hosted by Top Gear’s Richard Hammond.

At this stage, the US version of Wipeout remains on Sunday nights at 5.30pm on GO, while Top Gear can be seen on GO at 6.30 Sunday and 7.30 Thursday as well as 7.30 Tuesday on Nine and even 7.30 Friday in the AFL states (as the NRL states have NRL on 7.30 Fridays).

Ten has made the first programming change of the non ratings season with Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader taken out of the schedule and replaced by Don’t Forget the Lyrics for Sunday at 6.30pm. Don’t Forget the Lyrics also is scheduled to air Saturday nights at 6.30pm.

On Sunday night, the US version of Fifth Grader was outrated by Wipeout on GO – quite a feat considering that only 53% of the population have access to GO while 99.99% can get Ten (based on the 5 cities). If it was a level access for both channels, Wipeout would have more than doubled the figures for Fifth Grader. Based on previous airings of Don’t Forget the Lyrics, the show will most likley suffer the same fate as Fifth Grader in terms of ratings.

At 7.30 on Sunday, there are just two more new episodes of Glee to go before the show has an extended break, not returning in the US until April. Now we can see why they chose to play out the three episodes in non ratings rather than waiting for next year.

Looks like Ten’s decision to stick with the 7pm Project may pay off, with the show rating better than it has during previous weeks. While ABC News was top for the 7pm timeslot, 7pm Project was 3^rd when usually it had been in a distant fourth. How I Met Your Mother on Seven rated lower than 7pm, while the daily edition of Australia’s Funniest Home Videos pulled more viewers than 7pm. This may be a result of people trying the new daily show to see what it is like? We won’t know the full picture until later in the week when viewing habits are more likely to have settled.

Programming info: Tv Tonight.

[updated] Nine have released their summer line up for the week commencing Sunday November 29 2009.

At 7pm weeknights, Two and a Half Men will finally get a bit of a break with a 30 minute daily Australia’s Funniest Home Videos airing at 7pm weekdays. 7.30 – 9.30 Monday looks the same as it does now except the shows are repeats. Flashpoint returns at 9.30 Monday (let’s hope they play them in order).

On Tuesday at 7.30, Survivor returns to Nine with Survivor Samoa after having the last two series played on GO. Double episodes of Cold Case fill Wednesday nights while Thursday sees the first series of Rescue Special Ops played out in repeats, followed by CSI New York and ER at 10.30pm (thankfully they are continuing with ER).

Wipeout fills the Video Shows Saturday time slot – which prompts the question – with at least four GO shows now in Nine, will these shows continue on both channels or just migrate to Nine leaving different shows on GO? Perhaps not, if the GO schedule for this week remains unchanged.

Here is the programming summary:

Sunday Nov 29
6.30 20 to 1 repeats
7.30 David Attenborough’s Life in Cold Blood repeat.
8.30 Movies: Firewall, followed by Suspect Zero.

Monday Nov 30
6.30 ACA
7.00 Australia’s Funniest Home Videos – daily edition
7.30 Two and a Half Men repeat
8.00 Big Bang Theory repeat
8.30 The Mentalist Repeat
9.30 Flashpoint – new episodes
10.30 Burying Brian
11.30 Nine Late News

Tuesday Dec 1
7.30 Survivor: Samoa
8.30 Movie: Oceans Thirteen rpt
11:00 Secret Diary of a Call Girl rpt 2 eps

Wednesday Dec 2
7.30 Two and a Half Men rpt
8.00 What’s Good For You
8.30 Cold Case
9.30 Cold Case rpt
10.30 True CSI
11.30 Nine Late News

Thursday Dec 3
7.30 Getaway
8,30 Rescue: Special Ops rpt
9.30 CSI New York
10.30 ER
11.30 Nine Late News

Friday Dec 4
7.30 Motorway Patrol
8.00 Rapid Response
8.30 Movie: The Last Samurai
11.45 Nine’s Late News

Saturday Dec 5
6.30 Wipeout
7.30 Crusoe
9.30 Special: The Making of Avatar
10.00 Movie: Jammed

Programming information from Tv Tonight.

Human cannonballs! Human pinballs! Crashes, smashes and mud splashes!
Twenty-four thrillseekers will compete on the world’s largest extreme obstacle in WIPEOUT, a painfully funny new reality series that premieres on Channel Nine, Tuesday July 8 at 7.30pm.

WIPEOUT is designed to provide the most spills, face plants and wipeouts ever seen on television. The program premiered this week in the United States on the ABC Network, with over 10 million viewers, making it the highest rating debut of the US 2008 summer season. The show was ABC’s best premiere for a summer show since 2005, and took the network to a strong victory on Tuesday night.

Each week 24 daring new contestants of all ages, shapes and sizes go head-to-head through four rounds of gruelling and physically demanding, but wildly hilarious, obstacle courses to win the title of Wipeout Champion and the grand prize of $50,000.

The contestants and the courses change every week, with an arsenal of 60 stunts and over-the-top obstacles. Some, such as Big Balls, where contestants try to run across a row of giant, bouncy red balls without falling off, prove to be so entertaining that they become show fixtures.

Others include:
•The Sweeper – Perched on a pole, contestants must jump over a rotating arm that gets faster and higher until it knocks them over.
•Dizzy Dummy – Six people get strapped to a spinning mechanism and then run a short course.
•The Dreadmill – Contestants run on a 40-foot-long treadmill, which goes up to 15 mph, while leaping over inner tubes and opening up doors in their path.
•Sucker Punch – it’s like Whack-a-Mole if the mole were doing the whacking: Contestants run along a wall from which fists pop out and sucker-punch them.
In the end, only one contestant will win, while everyone else will wipeout.

“We are really excited to bring WIPEOUT to the Australian audience, its a really fun show for the whole family to watch together, said Nine’s Head Of Programming Michael Healy, “Its good, clean fun – except for the mud!”

WIPEOUT is hosted by John Henson (E! Entertainment’s Talk Soup) and John Anderson (ESPN’s SportsCenter), with Jill Wagner as co-host.