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

Feel for Fix, at least she's trying.

Fox dang autocorrect

Gotta hand it to Monty, you wait all episode for him to buzz in, but when he does he's wrong

catching up on OC now. is she going to wear that hat all show?

ah...

> God I'm embarrassed on behalf of Loughborough

Watching this now and neither team are doing well but the monomania of the sports stars is showing, Fox seems to be the only one that has any general knowledge.

Having two cricketers on the team all well and good, but if you don't get the questions...

Paul Sinha has been the answer twice tonight.

Monty's contribution over the two shows was -5 points.

And he wants to be a broadcaster! Not only did he not answer any questions correctly, he barely opened his mouth. At least the other two were trying to join in, even if they didn't know anything.

This lad on OC is gloriously rubbish

Even if I didn't already know they were tossers

That bit of conferring that ended in "marine environments" was truly painful

Poor Big O mistaken for Tammy Wynette.

Durham captain Parkinson did very well last night.

One of my better personal performances too -- scored 13 (canard, Minister of Education, Newtons / m², Green Bay Packers, jackdaw, rook, raven*, Elgar, TT Race, Turin, Willy Brandt, Clyde Tombaugh, HP Lovecraft).

* always like it when ornithology comes up.

was she the one that fumbled Jarrow March?

I felt so bad for her, because she was afraid of every answer she took from the team after that.

i don't undertand why they don't nominate more

I'd like to know how she worked out the half life, none of the online calculators i can find have the size of decay product as a factor.

oh i guess it's that if there's 7 times more y than x after t, then there's one eighth of x remaining - so half life = t/3 (1/8 life = t, 1/4 life = t/2, 1/2 life = t/3). only took me about half an hour compared to her 2 seconds!

What is nominating for?

Have i asked this already?

2^3 is 8 is how i figured it. if it's an eighth of what it was after a day, that's 3 half lives

nominating just means the person who knows the answer speaks rather than telling the captain (with the potential information loss that can cause).

Ok, but do the answers otherwise have to come through the captain? Hadnt noticed any pattern there i must say

starter questions (no conferring) are answered by whoever buzzes, but the 3 follow-up questions are normally answered via the captain.

2^3 is 8 is how i figured it. if it's an eighth of what it was after a day, that's 3 half lives

yeah it was the 7 that threw me.

Apart from being incredibly badly designed as an audience participation show I can't watch Mastermind cos I hate watching all these saddoes looking sad when they realise they're rubbish

And yet esterhase's interrogation is a masterwork youd watch again and again

I can't watch pointless (or many other shows) because of the constant wrestling with a question i cannot answer: why people who clearly don't know anything would apply to go on a quiz show.

Some Mastermind contestants always seem to look particularly broken, lol ffs

why people who clearly don't know anything would apply to go on a quiz show.

You get to be on telly! You can meet Richard and Xander! Some people are into that.

i am reminded of half man, half biscuit.

tuned it of UC last night, was trying to make pixels jump.

got the ar- set on the OC wall though (cade kind of gave that away) and a three pointer they didn't see in the first round.

People do apply for quiz shows as a nice day out, be on telly, meet Ben or Bradley or whoever.

And why not?

The downside is you get people going up to you in the street saying "I knew that Myanmar answer" for six months afterwards, plus repeats.

I auditioned for a quiz quite a few years ago, there was a 'runthrough' in an office with a couple of researchers and four potential contestants, and I got bumped because I was doing too well.

Then again, the prog was a disaster and got cancelled after three episodes.

surely no one wants to meet John Humphrys

is UC more complicated this year? Teams having to come back twice and win etc. If so is this a Covid-related change?

Those country border triple points were hard! Only managed one (Bulgaria/Romania/Serbia).

Generally last night's was good for me. Scored 22 - the above plus Dalmatia, Venice, English Channel, Boston, in silico, Golgi, or & argent, South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago, WZ, Ionian, fennec fox, Monkey, Tang Dynasty, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Monet, myelin sheath, The Tin Drum, Tipperary, Tromsø, Bergen.

Not surprising no modern day students have seen the Japanese TV show "Monkey" but still amusing seeing Rout fromm Warwick work the Journet to the West q. out "The main character's a monkey, so..."

Those country border triple points were hard! Only managed one (Bulgaria/Romania/Serbia).

I managed to get two out of three countries for all four of those questions :-/

There are about a million refilmings of Journey to the West since the Japanese TV show tbf

Also I don't enjoy watching Rout or Warwick do anything

Quarter final rules have been like this for years now = more eps per season

I have also been on a TV quiz, and have been a guest of someone else who was on a TV quiz, and it is fun and exciting. I suppose it kind of has to be: you're not getting paid, so they better at least give you some nice sandwiches and a mug and take some souvenir photos and be nice to you.

I had a good OC but a terrible UC last night. I tend to phase out early when they start with the maths and physics questions, and then I can't get back into it.

It's unfortunate for Rout that his "shake it off and move on" gestures look so like "who gives a shit about this trivial subject" gestures.

> in silico

the question gave two 'in...' examples and yet the first answer was something entirely unconnected (and wrong)

surely no one wants to meet John Humphrys

You don't really get to. He doesn't sully himself with contestant interaction. Other hosts I've met nor heard tale of will have a bit of icebreakery chat before and after and between rounds and stuff. Not him.

TV quiz auditions are weird. I've given up on them.

I did an online audition for Mastermind a couple years ago, and got through one round but not the second.

I also had a few conversations with a researcher about specialist subject ideas. Oddly enough my chosen subject - Penelope Fitzgerald novels - ended up being another contestant’s specialist subject that year. World’s least essential conspiracy.

Most of mine got laughed at, all but one of them have been done since.

Yeah, times have changed...

There's a new production team, but same old Humphrys and his interference with question process, so I won't be going back any time soon.

The quiz shows wot I have done, all the hosts were reasonably friendly and chatty afterwards (beyond the perfunctory, anyway).

The 'audition' I related above, the host wasn't involved obviously. I wasn't bothered about meeting RKS, to say the least.

That new one with Zoe Lyons is a bit odd. I like the questions, but I'm not sure about the whole lightning conceit, and I wish ZL would relax a little and be more like herself.

I quite like it despite thick contestants and they do get eliminated quickly. I think Zoe will eventually get more comfortable in her role. It is very similar to weakest link though.

It is similar to Weakest Link and what's with the stupid games they get the contestants to play? Definitely a quiz show designed by committee.

Zoe's sparkly suit is nice though, a nod to shows past.

It's an excellent suit, for sure.

I also quite like the final round. It reminds me of Trivial Pursuit, with a little bit of being your own chaser thrown in. But the insistence on being able to spell is, frankly, ableist as well as being unnecessarily convoluted.

Fuck me not these dark enlightenment cunts again what have I done to deserve this?

Humphreys is gone...who will be next??? Nobody will beat Magnussson's stint anyways.

Somehow I missed that Clive Anderson and Peter Snow had ever presented MM. I am beginning to think I was asleep through most of the Nineties.

Anyway, UC I got 16 tonight.
Invisibilty, ether, Crick & Watson, El Salvador & Honduras, kingfisher, kookaburra, Jack London, Jump, cyclops, Cooperative Society, Suomi & Kronos, duckbilled platypus, Vanuatu, Mary Quant, Cathy Come Home, Tamar

The French round killed me. In common with Fairfax & Carstairs, I don't speak a word of the language.