University Challenge (also featuring Only Connect and other BBC quiz shows)

You’re not the fucking captain, Brandon. But damn, you’re good. And I kinda dig the “not here to make friends” badge you always wear.

Not much of a match this week but hopefully the finals will be a good one. Two very good teams.

anyone watching the extremely hammy Quiz on itv? I want insider info about The Syndicate...

dont want brandon to win this because he seems like a dick

but otoh rotten cheating delay tactics from christi so gooooo inperial

anyone over oxbridge.

I sympathize id certainly be the same about trinners

Imperial way the better and more likeable team, Brandon's OK, he just wants it

Fuck you Corpus Christi and your new found sense of urgency

lolll otm

youre not stalling anymore

jaysus wang

its almost as if working on not jumping around the place might have made you a little quicker to the button, buck

lol boys now delaying like fuck, you love to see it

Totally outclassed

i have like gunasekera tho

He likes music so I'm more sympathetic than the rest of his lot

Wang raging at being beaten to the buzzer by Rich.

Totally deserved. Really resent the three minutes of questions we lose for this shit at the end.

that was a stunning performance and very much a team one

Wang shat it

Brandon's OK, he just wants it

Yep, pretty much. Was a brilliant team performance, putting aside all attempts by the media to make it a one v one Brandon v Wang thing in a team competition.

It did help that he wasn't the team captain.

tbh i think rich stepped up in a way i hadnt noticed anyone else in that team doing until now

He was never going to be the captain. He'd have been terrible at it. I thought Rich was excellent, but no-one will have noticed that because it's all Brandon until next year when they find someone else to fixate on like Monkman, Seagull, Leo (none of whom, incidentally, actually won their series, because it's a team game not a personality cult)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-queens-yankee-takes-the-u-k-quiz-crown-11587765498

Mr. Blackwell ... trained under “Jeopardy!” all-timer Roger Craig to learn “how to solve game shows and optimize studying.” He even listened to dozens of old episodes of “BBC Newsnight,” formerly hosted by Mr. Paxman, to learn the nuances of the host’s accent.

Right before the final aired, the Daily Mail reported that Mr. Blackwell had already won more than $450,000 in prize money from three game shows, including “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” Mr. Blackwell tells me he has appeared on seven programs, including a reality show. He got his start on “Jeopardy! Teen Tournament” 12 years ago, and says he chose a British university for his master’s in computer science because of the country’s superior “quiz infrastructure.” He started studying for “University Challenge” in 2016.

Aww now I don't like him

He chose a UK university because of its quiz infrastructure.

Astounding.

We're going to need more applicants like this in the near future.

Songs where the title is only sung once, as the last line of the song

Just sayin.....

Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 65

Was also a tea time theme time a couple of weekends ago.

The clash...

Who had the most slow speaking 4th member? It was close.

Second mention today of Heaviside having never heard of him before (the other being a lecture on Laplace transform on hackaday)

Stop, stop, they're already dead

nb nobody was actually killed that would be bad

Only Connect starts again on monday

Someone I know has somehow managed to assemble a *very* interesting team in this forthcoming series of Only Connect.

Mmmmmm OK

OC was a stinker today

Creepy mascot on UC

Got the gendy tartakovsky question...

Seem to be a lot of very asymmetric competitions this series. Is it just this one? One team romping home with all the points and another not getting started.
Ending with a score somewhere around 50.
Or does this being 2nd round mean it's a different series. So presumably RCM did previously beat someone.
Just seems to have happened several times when I caught it recently. I mean surely it's a little greedy to take all the points, like.

Answers last night included:

FINNEGANS WAKE. NOSTROMO. THE TRIP.

UC is first round still - not seen those people before (plus that was episode 11 of 30 odd)

always thought the scoring was unbalanced in UC because if you don't get the starter question then you don't even get the chance of the additional points.

Genndy with two n's.

I thought I heard Paxman say something about this being a 2nd round or something to that effect which was what I was basing that on.
I haven't had a episode listing, so I thought I'd missed their previous appearance. Not surehow many I had missed, just know that I had missed some.

Oh & is this a new thing the severe imbalance. Though comment about unbalanced scoring would suggest it was older.
& i think something I had noticed/noted myself.
THough did think who got the starter question right might be a bit more balanced.

Seem to be a lot of very asymmetric competitions this series. Is it just this one? One team romping home with all the points and another not getting started.

Last night's team from Royal Academy of Music and the guys who were on the other week from... maybe Imperial?.. seemed very much of the "nobody else is fielding a team, come on, let's do it, it'll be a laugh" variety. I noticed that both of the recent steamrolled teams had an American on, who possibly just wanted to have the University Challenge experience while they were in the UK.

Anyway, I got two five-pointers on OC last night, so I don't need to answer anything else correctly for the rest of the series.

oh, i've just rememberer. lol at the 'secondary characters in the thor films' answer in OC wall. i guess that's one way of getting there.

I forget what it was, but last night had the easiest question ever to be on UC.

identifying seinfeld from a picture of him and kramer and george?

(slightly biassed but the 'how many bits in a byte?' question they asked a few years ago was quite something)

((although it hasn't always been 8))

I've not watched yesterday's yet but I always seem to get the first question right. Last week was first 2 for 2 (then went steadily downhill)

I don't think it was the Seinfeld question, but

Is Seinfeld a generational thing yet?
Do these young whippersnappers remember our old time funnies?

They clearly don't, took a good few seconds before someone buzzed in (same dude also identified Curb Your Enthusiasm when the rest of the team seemed clueless).