Keeping it local, Behave Yourself!

It’s press release time!

A major investment in locally produced, prime-time programming.

(20 February 2017) Channel Seven will begin work on three locally produced programs, two of which are original formats.

“The quality of the work coming out of our development team is exceptional,” says Seven’s Director of Network Programming Angus Ross. “The three commissions we are announcing today include two original formats. Australian audiences love Australian produced content, making this investment in local shows very straightforward.

Sure, whatever… here’s the bit that interests us:

Rounding out Seven’s new entertainment productions is Behave Yourself!, a comedy panel program featuring Australia’s best-loved comedians and celebrities competing in fun physical games that reveal the hilarious, shocking and fascinating facts behind why we do the things we do.

Co-developed by Seven and Eureka Productions and produced by Eureka Productions, Behave Yourself! is hosted by Darren McMullen and based on the experiments of world renowned behavioural expert and New York Times bestselling author Dan Ariely.

Given that this is a panel show based on the legit academic work of an actual professor, it’s astounding that this isn’t being made by Andrew Denton. Also, is this the most intellectual-sounding Seven show since their 90’s reboot of Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals? A show which also involved Australia’s best-loved comedians and celebrities (well, Lisa McCune) but didn’t involve Geoffrey getting them to run obstacle courses. Which is possibly what will happen in Behave Yourself! Maybe they can buy whatever it was that made the set tip in that show where the set tipped. Everyone remembers that show, right?

Either way, behavioural experiments plus, we dunno, swimming pools full of goo, plus celebrities of the calibre of, we dunno…Akmal Saleh, doesn’t feel like a must-watch. Still, nice of Seven to give something that isn’t reality a try. Real nice.