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

Will Sussex be lowest ever scoring team?

Do they always have this many Shakespeare/ olde literary questions?

Both of my brothers' Universities vying against each other or not as the case may be. Birmingham vied, not sure what Sussex did .
THought they might take off but never did. Was trying to remember what the scores in previous heavily imbalanced scores were. I do remember thinking do you need all the points on a couple of occasions in i think this series previously but yeah not a good score for Sussex at all.

If Sussex had buzzed and answered the question Jeremy had asked when the gong went, they'd have doubled their score.

...or lost 5 points

trying to think what i got last night, and it wasn't much, but more than i can remember now

tunguska (thanks x-files), 36

Man, that was a real ass-kicking. Go Birmingham!

I went to Birmingham for one year of study abroad, and I think that was honestly the first time I've ever felt any Brummie school pride whatsoever.

Apparently Sussex is joint lowest scoring team ever tied with themselves in 1971-72, says wikipedia. Also Royal Northern College of Music will be back next week or the week after in the highest scoring loser playoff. Last time they were here they managed to get to the quarterfinals.

Lol at those dweebs getting a hip hop round

Was like playing Public Enemy to a row of cats.

"Bass, how low can you go..."

<deathly silence>

If they'd guessed that one right, they'd have won this week.

I like the new BBC1 daytime quiz, The Tournament. The generic name suits it because it's 45 minutes of quickfire head-to-head rounds with no gimmicks.

Oh, I like the sound of that. Might record a few.

To be fair I didn't get the Lil Wayne or Ariana Grande (although neither did they)

Is it me, or does it seem like the UC always put teams with better gender splits against each other in the second? Because teams are routinely 4 guys or 3 guys, any team with a different ratio seems to stick out. And then those teams always seem to get pitted against each other.

*in the second round

How do we feel about Paxman throwing in the Oxbridge nicknames during a game ("Cat's", "Eddie's"). I know he's been doing that forever and I like him but it still makes me throw up a bit in my mouth.

I thought the second round opponents were based on first round scores? The biggest scorers vs. the lowest scorers and 2nd biggest scorers vs 2nd lowest scorers and so on? or have I got it wrong?

I like the new BBC1 daytime quiz, The Tournament. The generic name suits it because it's 45 minutes of quickfire head-to-head rounds with no gimmicks

If you don't count the gimmick of the terrible battle cries, which are in no way just there so that they can pre-script all of Alex Scott's contestant interaction so she doesn't have to adlib at all, oh no (I was involved in the run-throughs, which were quite painful to do, as she is also terrible at pronunciation of key words in questions which is really off-putting). The questions and the format are decent though.

lol yeah they're cringey, but not that much worse than the chaser introductions in The Chase.

I don't mind the Chaser introductions on the Chase; if you're watching for high comedy it's probably not the show for you. It's Bradley Walsh, ffs.

Have to check out this Tournament. I quite like Alex Scott despite her presenting limitations, though I can imagine the annoyance is 1000x if you're actually *on* the show.

Anyway, it was great to see a 75% female team on UC from a mixed college (St. Catharine's, Cantab). I see that as real progress though we need a few 100%s to make up for all the completely male ones.

Got 20 this week: Wagner, Titian, Gaugin, black, Paternoster, Phobos, Camelia, Joseph Priestley, Hindu Kush, Public Enemy, d-e-l-a, Thessaloniki, Ursa Major/Ursa Minor, Canis Major/Canis Minor, 3, circumflex, tilde, Idris, redshank, redwing.

Forgot there was a LEO Minor...d'oh!

lol yeah they're cringey, but not that much worse than the chaser introductions in The Chase.

Oh god. I always fast-forward through those. I was watching it with my mam one day and was impressed to see that she not only fast forwards the chaser intros, but also the contestant chat. "Harsh, Mam," I said.
"Well, they always want to go to America or Australia to see their sister or something. Who cares."
I actually think the contestant chat on The Chase is well above any of the BBC ones, partly because you actually could do something interesting with the money if you won it.

How do we feel about Paxman throwing in the Oxbridge nicknames during a game ("Cat's", "Eddie's"). I know he's been doing that forever and I like him but it still makes me throw up a bit in my mouth.

― Sam Weller

I hate this so much.

I give Bradley Walsh all due respect for coming up with fresh ‘comments’ about all the chasers every episode.

“Always different, always the same” !

Also, if you ever want to be on “The Chase”, you have to have an interesting occupation, hobby, or ‘something you need the money for’ otherwise you won’t make it past the pre-vetting. (So, that’s me out…)

I like Omid Djalili, but each contestant has slotty-in “remind me of your occupation/something interesting about you” bits that go…There.

(Ref: “Winning Combination”)

Spoilers: Bradley doesn't come up with the quips.

It's entirely possible to make up stories to get past the vetting. I told the Fifteen to One team I wanted to go to watch Andy Murray at the US Open then spent the whole time shitting myself that I was going to get a piss-easy tennis question wrong and they'd bring it up.

It's interesting how much worse Bradley is on Blankety Blank than he is on The Chase. I wonder why that is? Any insights, Ailsa?

My understanding is that he genuinely loves the Chase. It's his thing and he's made it his own (watch old ones to see how much better he's got at it over the years) - I'm pretty sure if he left, it would finish. I suspect Blankety Blank is just for the money, but I don't actually know. I should be meeting up with some people with proper insight in the pub tomorrow so shall casually slip it into the conversation, if I can bluff it without having actually watched Blankety Blank.

i did laugh when blankety blank came up in an internal video of new attractions. that's like its 4th reboot?

the christmas bloopers edition of The Chase is often a highlight of my time at home for the holidays (the only time when i watch it as part of the interminable daytime tv schedule imposed by parents)

rachel's been on mastermind before, hasn't she? i remember her winning last time. (and 15-1 and a couple of other things. i know of her through indiepop circles)

Yeah, think this is her third or fourth time.

Forgot to get any Bradley gossip at the weekend, sorry!

That was the funniest bit she's ever done on this show.

And wearing a vintage tee from her dad’s old mag.

love to see a team from Oxford losing 200-0, god damn

"Plenty of time to get going, St Hilda's", lied jeremy.

they had 20 at one point

Did they get higher and lose even more points. I wasn't paying attention to their score, I thought they actually started off well. But may have been distracted. I did see them go down from low to zero by jumping the gun re questions.

yeah, there was a bit of a recovery at the very end (in the bit i hadn't seen when i posted) had 45 i think at the end.

I don't think I would have been as much vying for a loss between Oxbridge teams as I would have between a non one and one. They were at least both ethnically and gender mixed which is a positive. So i think I would have actually liked the losers to do a great deal better.
Oh my. Seemed to have a number of passes at inopportune times.

Funny had watched Mastermind earlier where a contestant got 3 points on her first round on Goodness Gracious Me. The choice of subject matter and the low score kind of rankled. Possibly even more ironic since everybody else tied at 13 on the first round. I was trying to think what the maximum score one could get would be but haven't looked it up yet.

Not so much end recovery. I thought they had done the direct opposite earlier. Not sure how many times they got docked 5 points by giving wrong answers to incomplete questions.

This was a good episode. Cambridge team almost playing against themselves.

Yeats, Didion, Joni Mitchell on one round.

2 of the contestants got really screwed on Mastermind last night. They really should bring back the repechage slots.

Not sure how many times they got docked 5 points by giving wrong answers to incomplete questions.

I have to confess to not really understanding the interruption rule. Sometimes he'll dock them five points, but then there's no more of the question? So how did they interrupt him?

Usually it's just that they've buzzed in on the last word of the sentence in that case. I've noticed recently that if there are two parts to a question, Paxman's pauses are getting longer to an extent where it is reasonable to assume that the question is over, and that irks me to no end. For example, if the question is about a book, the first sentence might give date/theme/setting, then a massive pause like that's a complete question (and indeed it could be a complete question)... then a sentence about a notable review. If you're going to do two-sentence questions and penalise an interruption, make it clear when there's more coming FFS.

Yes, Emil.y, that annoys me too. Not sure he's got worse in recent times though.

that was the toughest ep I've seen this series. For a lot of those questions I couldn't even guess.
A measly 14 for me. Anthology, barrow, noisome, fulsome, pirouette, The Way, William III, Joni Mitchell, Seville, centromere Edward VI, Offa's Dyke, Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood.

Always get Corpse Bride muddled up with The Nightmare Before Christmas, grrr!

Yes, emil.y, I was saying the exact same thing last night.

Whereas you are sort of allowed to interrupt the music round music

The lady who got 3 on Goodness Gracious me was a beaten finalist on Only Connect the season I was on it. And Andrew, one of the shafted runners up, won Only Connect last year with his wife who was in last year's Mastermind final.