TV Review: Don’t Scare the Hare by shoutingatco.ws

As lightweight, knockabout game-shows go, Don’t Scare the Hare should be a fairly anodyne, throwaway way to spend half an hour on a Saturday night. Initially, it seemed like a one-off, Easter-friendly special, but no: there are nine weeks of this. Inevitably, it’ll be cancelled after a single series, to face future belittlement from Kirsten O’Brien on “Cor, the BBC were a bit shit on a Saturday evening in 2011″.

Host Jason Bradbury, complete with 3D glasses, ridiculous hat and knowingly scruffy suit, takes a back seat for most of proceedings. He’s an inoffensive goon, and seems to not realise that the entire scenario is ridiculous.

He’s accompanied by the titular hare, an Aperture Science reject who buzzes around the set purely to show off the robotics. In fact, in between the hare and the sets, the BBC seem to have spent a fair bit of money on this, and as a result, make sure that each round lasts for a mind-destroying seven hours.

When it comes to the games, they’re about as challenging as spelling your own name correctly, or making fun of Don’t Scare the Hare. The first is an egg and spoon race over an obstacle course, which the contestants must repeat over and over until the producers get bored and an arbitrary time-limit runs out. Round two sees them remembering which lily-pads lit up, and standing on them. The third is one of those buzz-wires that crop up at carnivals across the country. Advanced stuff.

The title is a reference to the three lives each player has: Every time they drop the egg, forget the lily pad or buzz the wire, the hare goes mad and runs around. To signify the life being lost, the camera zooms in on its little robotic eye, like some sort of weird woodland ‘Nam flashback.

The final sees a multiple choice question round, with some surprisingly difficult questions about operatic composers, number one hits and definitions of obscure words. Bradbury tries his best to ramp up the tension here, preposterously talking about how a wrong answer will cause the hare to leave the garden. We can’t let this happen!

It’s almost like they designed and built the show for CBBC – the bright lights and giant garden set, simplistic games and uncharacteristically annoying Sue Perkins voiceover make it a perfect fit for a Friday after school. We suspect that once they realised how much it’d cost, they decided to recast it for an unsuspecting Saturday evening crowd.

As a result, it’s adults playing kids games, and just like a family game of Monopoly, it’s no fun for anybody.

Comments

1. Hannah says:

   May 9, 2011 at 11:32 am

   I caught a bit of this on saturday night. The hare was trying to have an art exhibition, and the contestants were blundering around with pictures on their heads. The contempt and malice that the hare felt towards the contestants was palpable through the screen. it’s clearly only a matter of time before it goes on a deadly rampage. Bradbury will be the first to die.

   On a totally unrelated note, when I watch these things I worry I’m turning into Harry Hill. I could hear him in my head, saying ‘Don’t Scare the Hare- it’s alright, but it’s no Bring on the Wall’.
2. Cosmic Navel Lint says:

   May 9, 2011 at 11:45 am

   Dear Sir/Madam,

   Shouldn’t this sort of thing be left to ITV?

   Herrrumph! Not what we pay our license fee for…

   [mutter mutter grumble grumble]

   Yours,

   Lt. General Tarquin Lambspank III, (Ret’d. Late of Queen’s Own Deserters)

   Budley Salterton

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