Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

They've had plenty of time during lock down to re-edit the sequence of shows to put that one towards the end of the run.
[/cynicism]

These episodes were filmed in July.

Weren't virtually all the episodes last time self contained?

Yep, in every episode last series - although the last episode was extended by 10 minutes.

According to TV Zone on Twitter it’s being stripped across w/c 7th September.

Confirmed via TV Zone:
https://www.tvzoneuk.com/post/confirmed-dates-05-11-september

I'm guessing no supervisor for the phone a friends. Surprised they haven't switched them to video calls really, even before Covid.

From what I have seen so far.

The set has nice lighting effects within the audience seats. It has perspex glass placed in-between the 6 contestants. They have not made any modifications to the seats to make them comply with social distancing as we are in Covid times.

When the contestant gets picked from the fastest finger first; there is only one music theme heard when they go to the hotseat.

Then there is the 4 lifelines with 2 of them for Phone a Friend included.

When Ask the Host is requested by the contestant; the lighting looks gorgeous with the yellow and blue effects on it.

They even have a big thin red X in place over the crossed out the used lifelines.

Video calls are probably more likely to be problematic in terms of the line breaking up. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were watching the phone a friend over the video call. Although I’d say allowing the phone a friend to use Google would be a fair compromise for them having to lose Ask The Audience which usually gives guaranteed progression when used early on or on popular culture.

I think that is dubious anyway. Surely all the phone a friends are in the studios somewhere, would they really send up to 30 crew members up and down the country?

There is usually two phone a friends per contestant on the Clarkson version, which would need 12 security guards assuming they send one to each potential phone-a-friend.

I also find it odd though especially given they’d record more than one show a day. That said, there is a poster on here who’s been a contestant on this version and I think we’d have heard if the phone a friends were at the studio.