Welcome to the first Mastermind semi final, dearly beloved. Only a few more shows to go now, and judging from what other people say to me, that man Myrie has been a resounding success. Good on you, Clive.
First up was Lucy Westall. Lucy won at a canter in Heat 18,
scoring a very healthy 25, 6 points ahead of the chasing pack. Then, she
answered on the films of Pedro Almodovar, scoring an excellent 13. Last night
she was offering the short stories of Daphne Du Maurier. Now, I’ve never read
any of her short stories. Come to think of it I haven’t read any of her long
ones either. But then she never read any of mine, so fair’s fair So I can’t say
how difficult the questions were. But I can say that Lucy was equal to the
task. 14 is really good going in the current era of the show, and that’s what
she scored. Gauntlet duly laid down.
Back at the end of August we saw Ian Wang – former skipper of
Corpus Christi on UC – win the second heat by 2 points with a total of 24. Back
then he scored 12 on the music of Beyonce. Last night he was answering on the
films of Studio Ghibli. As with Daphne Du Maurier, I can’t claim any great
familiarity with their work. Ian can, though. I thought he’d have to be on his
mettle to match Lucy’s score, and indeed he was, in fact he was just that tiny
smidgeon faster, which enabled him to get in another correct answer to post a
highly impressive 15.
Kit Lane narrowly lost in her first attempt at Mastermind in
one of the higher scoring heats of the 2019 series. In her second bite of the
cherry she won heat 13, answering on Nell Gwyn, who was only the orange seller,
though she certainly had appeal (see what I did there?) Last night she took on
Scott Pilgrim, who is no more known to me than either of the previous
specialists. Wonderfully she too got into the teens, and achieved her own very
fine total of 14.
If Ranvir Singh Kalare was feeling at all daunted by the
pyrotechnics we’d already witnessed he didn’t show it. Ranvir had scored 9 on
Bruce Springsteen back in the very first heat. In that show he’d also gone last
in the specialist round – and he won that, so could this possibly be a good
omen? Well, he did very well to get 12, but the sobering thought remained that
this meant he was 3 off the lead, and would be first to return for GK.
I have to pay trbute to the 4 semi finalists in this show. I
always think that if you take the queen’s shilling and accept an invitation to
take part in Mastermind, then you take on the responsibility of thoroughly
learning all of your subjects. What each of these contenders did in the way of
preparation is what quality contenders do. I take my hat off to all 4 of you.
Back in the first heat Ranvir scored 11 on GK which enabled
him to overhaul the half time leader. He was going to need at least as good a
performance in this semi to give himself a fighter’s chance. He got it too. What
with the others having a two or three point head start, it looked unlikely that
he was going to be able to hang on, but nonetheless, this was a fine
performance overall, which he can be proud of.
Lucy scored an impressive 12 on General Knowledge in her own
heat, and I reckoned that if she could put in a similar performance last night,
then we could have a very interesting finish to this show. Well, she went
close, and with a couple of questions left I felt she could get there. A couple
of answers went begging, and she too finished with 11 for the round. This
meant, though, that she had gone into the lead, with 25 overall.
Of all last night’s contenders, Kit had the lowest GK score
in her heat. 9’s a pretty decent score, mind you, but it wasn’t going to be
enough in this show. Well, she equalled her GK score from the first round, but
didn’t seem to upset to end up with 23. Quite right too – Kit, you’re a
Mastermind semi finalist! Pride is merited.
In his first round heat Ian Wang scored 12 on GK, and that
would be enough. More than enough, in fact, since that one point half time lead
gave him the luxury of only having to equal Lucy’s 11 to win. He missed a few
along the way, but was never behind the clock, and had his 26 before the line
of death had started to encircle the score. Very well done, sir!
Ian’s piece to camera at the end of the show paid just
tribute to the quality of all the contenders in this show. I also liked the
reference he made to flashcards. Ian did over 600 for the subject. I swore by
flashcards in my own Mastermind days. I ranged between 800 and 1500 for each of
my subjects, so Ian, you have the Clark seal of approval for your methods. Will
he emulate youngest ever Mastermind champion Jonathan Gibson? He’s in the final
and that’s a pretty good start. Best of luck to you.
The Details
|
Lucy Westall |
The Short Stories of Daphne Du Maurier |
14 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
25 |
0 |
|
Ian Wang |
The Films of Studio Ghibli |
15 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
26 |
0 |
|
Kit Lane |
Scott Pilgrim |
14 |
0 |
9 |
0 |
23 |
0 |
|
Ranvir Singh Kalare |
Formula One 2010 - present |
12 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
23 |
0 |
4 comments:
The first semi final was an absolute joy to watch, partly because we were treated to such a brilliant demonstration of specialist subject knowledge, making the general knowledge round genuinely exciting. My sympathy goes to Lucy who I suspect will rue those wasted opportunities in her general knowledge round.
My principal observation is that the maximum number of potential specialist subject questions has increased to 15 (compared to 13 in the heats). I'm not sure why Lucy managed to secure only 14 questions in her specialist subject round. She seemed pretty quick to me (in common with Ian and Kit) and that 'lost' question (which I feel sure she would have answered correctly) would have been pretty important.
The general knowledge scores were respectable but far from stellar, presumably as a result of the pressurised situation. Ranvir really impressed me, going first in what was a gritty display which earned him the top general knowledge mark of the night. Whilst Ian was undoubtedly a worthy winner, he will surely need to record a higher score in his next general knowledge round if he is to secure the title.
I came away feeling really pleased that all four contestants had notched up scores in the 20s.
Yes, the questions in this semi seemed a lot less wordy than they have been of late. Much less time listening to questions being read out, and more time watching contenders being challenged and answering. It just seemed ridiculous that a well-versed contender, who answered everything quickly and accurately was only getting 12 points when I'd been able to score 18 in my heats. Six extra questions means a lot of time was being wasted.
Hi both,
I thoroughly enjoyed this semi, as I hope came through what I wrote. Yes, I think that there is still some fat to be cut off the joint in terms of the length of questions, but I don't think that it's now quite as ridiculous as it was in the last years of John Humphrys. As regards to Ian's chances, well, last year, Jonathan was clearly better than anybody else on GK in the final. I somehow don't see that being the case with Ian. Which doesn't mean that he can't win. Anyone can have the night of their lives in the final. However, time will tell whether this has come a little too early in his quiz career or not.
Only just watched this episode! Been too caught up on University Challenge and the celebrity Masterminds...
I may be wrong, but I think that Ian's questions were slightly shorter than Lucy's. The main reason I think this were that there were at least two occasions where his answers were only borderline correct and Clive had to clarify the full correct answer before moving on to the next question. This, whilst bearing in mind he got one additional point, seems a bit concerning. (That said, I'm not 100% sure that there weren't any questions with Clive clarifying the answer like that in Lucy's round either - I don't recall there being, but I wasn't really noticing it until Ian's round. Not rewatching it now!)
One more thing... I normally really like Clive Myrie, but he pronounced Martin Offiah's surname in quite a strange way. I'm not even entirely sure that Clive's pronunciation was incorrect (I can't seem to find much of a reliable source for how it's meant to be pronounced) but it caused the question to make little sense, as it was about his nickname, Chariots Offiah - the pun only works when pronounced a certain way.
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