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

These are not TV people. All it takes is one floor manager to say "maybe turn your head the other direction now and then" or something. Or say to both team captains "be sure to look at all your team members from time to time, it comes over a lot better on television".

It wasn't UC, but the quiz/team based I was on, we didn't get any 'direction' and I'm assuming if one player was "making good telly" they'd keep on with it.

I only thought about it recently, after the Reading guy kept jumping in early and losing five points - eventually he calmed down and they did win. I did something similar, mainly because one team-mate would absolutely buzz pronto (and be right, the git) so if you didn't buzz within half a second you would not be on the show, effectively. (So, I end up buzzing in the intros round for Mud "Oh Boy" after about .2 seconds..)

I do find it disconcerting, troubling, whatever, seeing a UC captain only conferring with one colleague. It's happened before, recently, and was bad last night, and I saw the Twitter attacks too.

But I think Trish and Ailsa's comments are probably wise - the situation may not actually be as bad as it looks. Zeng, for instance, DID get every relevant question, so it's not like he was excluded in practice. I think it's possible that the team actually have an arrangement that they're happy with, even though it looks bad to us. They won by about 200 points anyway, didn't they?!

The only time I thought he could've reined it in was when he said "there's no three-word psi" or whatever his exact words were. I'd have bashed the perspex into his "I think you'll find" forehead, if it were me. But I bet he was sorry afterwards.

I've only ever been on one thing, and we were directed to within an inch of our lives so as not to waste time, because they were making three shows that day and they could NOT be arsed dealing with mistakes. Stand exactly here. When the host says this, you say this. When this happens, you step to the left. Let me see you do it so I know you're not going to make a mess of it. etc. Mind you, that was a game rather than a quiz, so you didn't have to be bright to get on it.

wonder if nerves gave Mays blinkers to his right or something. If i wanted to conjecture wildly I could see soemthing like a nervous spasm giving him a stiff neck or just having more of a bond with the guy to his left. THink I have that layout right anyway.
But yeah difficult to say what is actually going on in the guy's head or whatever.
& not seeing outside of the camera frame and so on.
They did leave with marks to spare anyway.

I guess if you got onto a team because you had a friend involved or started hanging out at practise games cos your mate did it would be something to watch out for in terms of audience gaze.
Not that people are training for best look or anything.
Like no stylists involved etc.

Love to log on after getting a terrific score only to see that my favourite people are being insulted for *checks notes* conferring on bonuses they know more about #UniversityChallenge https://t.co/7hAXV3jVa6

— Fatima (@reaffirmsfaith) January 18, 2022

They walked away with points to spare anyway. Think that's been noted.
Was just thinking about what contributes to not a good look or whatever its being looked at as.
& a lot of people will have habitual movements that look different on camera because accentuated than they are aware of.
She was pretty dynamic too.

When I was on Only Connect I got a *lot* of shit about how much Dave was conferring with me rather than his wife on the other side of him from me. Him and Lindsay need a lot less verbal communication to know when to talk, and I need to focus and concentrate (and was fecking terrified!) and both of them know that, but to outsiders me and him were having private wee chats to the exclusion of his wife who would surely rumble our affair when she clocked how obvious it looked on telly. Absolute bollocks, but really hurtful to everyone, based on how things look in a freakily unnatural environment

Christ, really? I know you mentioned something about it before but thought it was jokes.
Would hate to be on TV.

Sayin it again, so glad no social media back in 1975. Being in school was bad enough, but hey I discovered I didn't care what they thought.

Yes, was just thinking the same as Mark G: It's bizarre that performance on UC is now not merely a matter of what score you get, but how you're judged by a load of strangers who see you in an artificial environment for half an hour.

As is any tv that isnt acting, really?

Once Fatima tweeted I accept her take but otherwise there's a lot of reaching the last couple days

They (the pile-on hordes) did it last week to the Birmingham captain and I'm sure will do it again to others. And I will roundly tell them all to fuck off. Last week I was blocked for suggesting to someone that replying to the actual opinion of the supposedly-slighted team mate in order to tell her that she was wrong and her captain was ignoring her was exactly what she was accusing the captain of to start with.

A couple years ago, two UC contestants got to make one of those "go to places in the UK and point at things" type documentaries. But, they had no onscreen presence, really. Or, the subject(s) were somewhat dull.

HI, I'M ERIC MONKMAN

bobby seagull was on the christmas lectures and is slightly better (does teaching, which i guess means he has some people skills)

That was very much an attempt to create a thing out of assuming Twitter chat about contestants would translate into anyone giving a shit about them outside of University Challenge. That it didn't really work should be no surprise to anyone.

Though I did really like Answer Trap, which had Bobby as one of the brains, along with Frank Paul who was on a team that won Only Connect back in the day.

purple patch on UC last night with napthalene, proscenium, and 9 i think it was, a random bag of things in quick succession. and that was obv kandinsky and not miro although i'd be hard pressed to be able to explain how i can tell the difference.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that University Challenge and Only Connect (and QI and everything else's) 2021 season is nominated in the ILX TV poll, with voting ending this weekend:

ILX's Best Television of 2021 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 31, 2022

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Elder Scrolls questions made my night

Norwegian dude nailed those

Paxman shrivelling up and turning into a corncob while asking those qs was p funny too

The Edinburgh team are very good, but they need to learn to chill out just a little bit or they are going to be screaming at each other by the end of the first semi-final.

Kevin and I kept scores last night, which we've never done before, and I won by 11 points to 7. We didn't count any answers which the TV teams gave before us, so I couldn't claim a point for Kraftwerk.

Paxo didn't arf give Trinity Cambridge a good kicking at the end of the show, dinnee?

I mean, often it's a "well you never got going" or a "bad luck" or whatever, but I've not heard a "you'd better buck your ideas up or you're going OUT" so much..

jesus just watching back now and these lads are sharp as tacks

This fella that presents Mastermind is terrible

Unless the show has an audience of toddlers I was previously unaware of

And ffs I know it's a terrible show and you have to pad it but I dgaf about hearing how the winner feels

I wondered if they had put that bit in to bring the show up to 30 minutes of quizzing with a commercial break. If you watch the show on BBC America or on Challenge, maybe that bit's not in it?

I think you're probably right

Like the 10 minutes of shit about cameramen at the end of Attenborough shows

Yeah, Humphrys was so shit that everyone has suddenly decided that Myrie is the reincarnation of Magnus Magnusson, but he's basically shit as well.

Was about to say Beard looks like an alt right motherfucker then he says he did an MA in War, assumption proved

When you're shouting DE LA SOUL at the tv and some buffoon says Beastie Boys

If I was Jeremy Paxman I would simply buy glasses that fit

I won 15-4 tonight; obviously the Funky Drummer round was kind.

It was, a bit

Why or how is Clive Myrie bad?

RIP Bamber:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/08/bamber-gascoigne-former-university-challenge-quizmaster-dies-at-87

Got 21 this week.

Panama, Panorama, pangolin, Venice, invisibility, Rwanda, Sigourney Weaver, shadows, meiosis, Urban, patina, Tennessine, Nina Simone, Sly Stone, BB King, Sylvia Plath, Caerphilly, boron, bowler hat, in vitro, New York Dolls .

I made the same mistake as Imperial in the description of the poet which mentioned the librarian.

didn't keep score but think I did ok.
THought geezer might have been a bit more self conscious about seeming to be mainly in conversation with the guy to his left after comment o last appearance but do think he may have consciously stopped himself after a while. They did leave with points to spare again after seeming to get off to a slow start. Did look like the other team were going to keep beating them to the buzzer at teh start.
I was waiting for Zeng to zing in like. & he did seem to start at one point.

Did occur to me over the last few weeks how much information any one memeber of a team had to have circulating in their brains for some of this stuff. Or do people get a basic field of questions taht may come up. Like everybody can't actually have knowledge in all totally random areas can they?
Do wonder what info on potential questions one gets if one is being brought in for this. Otherwise like wow like.

The Reading team got most of the Music Round questions right, but oh the deliberations…

Ok, thinking Sly was Little Richard, I’ll allow.

“Oh, I’m just gonna say BB King” well, that’s wise.
But here’s a picture of Gladys Knight and the Pips. There’s a few acts that could be. But the Jackson Five are not one of them. Nor Martha and the Vandellas. Guess again. Oh, you did.

The question specifically asked 'which frontman?' and Little Richard was only ever a solo artist, AFAIK.

it seems like they didn't watch the film which I would hope was way out of step with the cultural moment or something.

THought geezer might have been a bit more self conscious about seeming to be mainly in conversation with the guy to his left after comment o last appearance but do think he may have consciously stopped himself after a while

These would all have been recorded a while back so he wouldn't have seen any comments when this was recorded.

In terms of knowing stuff, there's kind of a syllabus of stuff that gets asked in these kinds of quizzes. It's nuts. There's a whole circuit of quizbowl which is basically hothousing knowledge of the sort of stuff that comes up in quizbowl. If you've dipped your toes in those waters, it's fairly obvious which teams and players take part in it.

What a finish, Jones from villain to hero.

We had a good week: a collective score of 22 (best so far), the week after a collective score of 15 (worst so far). I’m 3-1 ahead of him.

Excellent episode, questions pitched just right too

xposts yeah, if you weren't prepared to bone up on Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, gonna have to wait.

I did find for a few years, any reference to a Canadian Rapper had me shouting "Drake" before the question finished, to Amber's eternal amusement.

And then, last year, Paxo made reference to a north-american rapper, and I shouted "Drake" for probably the last time.