Arkoff

Almost every hobby has been televised as a competitive game show over the last few years. There's Bakeoff (baking), Glowup (make-up), The Big Fish Off (fishing), Castoff (knitting), Buzz Off (chain-saw sculpture) and Legoff (Lego construction). No doubt Channel 4 will launch Fuckoff sooner or later.

Ark-building, though, has not yet had its moment in the spotlight and is, in fact, a rather neglected hobby of late. It could do with an injection of televisualization. It's also notable that animal programmes are always popular, whilst nature conservancy groups are invariably short of funds. MaxVision (the entertainment battalion of MaxCo.) has therefore hit upon the perfect win-win programme - Arkoff. It will bring ark-building out of the shadows and perhaps renew interest in the hobby, whilst also drawing attention to the plight of endangered species in the face of rising seal evels.

Each episode will feature two teams of ark-builders, with each team consisting of one person, a saw, a chisel and a set- square. Also a large pile of felled trees. The teams work side by side on top of an artificial hill in an enclosed space which is slowly filled with water. With them on the hill are multiple cages containing pairs of endangered land animals - orangutans, Amur leopards, Sumatran elephants, tendecks, black-footed ferrets etc. Each cage has a number on it, representing the conservational value of the species it contains. Black-footed ferrets, for instance, might only be worth two points (because, I mean, they're ferrets), whereas Sumatran elephants might be worth 15 points. The audience can phone in for their favourite animals, potentially boosting their rating and making them more valuable.

Each one-person team must work as fast as they can to construct their ark. A larger ark can carry more species, but runs the risk of not being ready in time. Vice versa a smaller ark.

As the waters rise, the ark-builders will race to complete their arks, and must then bring as many high-scoring species aboard as possible before they are engulfed. Any animals not taken onto an ark will, sadly, perish. Finally, the arks must float and remain afloat for at least 60 seconds without capsizing or sinking under their burden of wildlife (Sumatran elephants don't look so good now, do they?).

In the event that both arks prove to be seaworthy, the floodwaters are drained away, and a tally is made of the total points represented by the surviving animals on each ark.

After the initial rounds of Arkoff, the quarter- semi- and finals are played, featuring species which have survived previous episodes, supplemented with some more challenging ones such as a hippos and venomous snakes.