The Underdog: Josh Must Win is ready to put a big spin on reality TV as we know it.
In this new E4 series, a group of would-be reality stars have been invited along to a fancy home take part in what they think is the next big reality show which is the popularity contest, The Favourite (think Big Brother).
What they don't know is that four celebrities — Amber Gill, Nick Grimshaw, Pete Wicks and Vicky Pattinson — are hidden on-site, watching their every move and working towards a secret mission: ensuring their underdog contestant, Josh, wins the competition, by any means necessary. If he does, everyone stands to win an impressive amount of cash. Our celebs just have to make sure they aren't rumbled in the process.
Speaking to us and other press ahead of the show's premiere, Vicky, Pete, and Nick revealed how they got on making this new take on reality TV.
Talking about the show's premise (and their unconventional champion), Pete said: “The lovely thing about this is, you’ve got someone who, basically, is just himself, and that is not your stereotypical reality TV star, and that’s a really beautiful thing because it reminds us all that we are all special and unique and beautiful in our own little way”.
Nick admitted that he was worried the series wouldn’t work ahead of time, but after day one (and spending ‘eight or ten hours’ a day watching the housemates), they were hooked. "We were fully invested [but] I was worried, 'What if we just don’t care? What if we don’t care about Josh?' But we all got invested really quickly, and the housemates did as well. They were only in there [for] ten days. And by day three, there are tears and fights, and they don’t want people to leave."
Nick also talked about the intense days the whole team was putting in to make the show and how it helped that the four of them were getting on so well. “I knew we were onto something. When it ended, it’s all we’d talk about. We all moved there; we went to film it, so there was no time at home, no break, we were just in it.
"It was a great gang because we were hanging around in that room together all day from eight in the morning to midnight and we all shared a dressing room. That could have been hell! We never left each other alone.
“We all had separation anxiety after. We’d gone from sitting in this dressing room, being in the Truman Show-style room together, [and] staying in the hotel to all having to lead our separate lives” Nick said.
Vicky went on to highlight how the show’s complexity made shooting more difficult. “The hours were really long”, she said, “obviously, it’s a brand new show format, which is difficult to make anyway, but we weren’t just trying to make one show — Josh Must Win — we were trying to make two because it had to seem really believable for the guys through there; they thought they were making something called The Favourite hosted by TV’s own Nick Grimshaw!
“We were in that windowless, airless room for an awful lot of it, which got really stinky really fast. And I just think, had we not all got on so well, it would have been an absolute nightmare, but everybody was wicked”, Vicky added.
And whilst they all made it clear just how much they all got invested in trying to get Josh to win the entire show, the celebs made it clear they wanted all their stars to have a good time. Despite admitting she got a bit ‘drunk on the power’ of shaping the show from behind the scenes, Vicky said the stars’ backgrounds in reality TV helped them have ‘a level of empathy and compassion’ for the contestants.
“We were never there to make anybody have a bad experience. We wanted everyone to have an amazing time. Because of all my past shows that I’ve done, I know what it feels like when things don’t go your way; I was able to make sure, as best I could, that everyone had a nice time, and I think that was really important to everybody”, she said.
The Underdog: Josh Must Win premiers Monday, March 25 on E4 at 9 pm. New episodes air Monday-Wednesday for the rest of the series. You can also stream the show on Channel 4.
