Mastermind Semi Final Four

Yes, sorry about this. I did promise I would be on my way to Riga today, but I got my days mixed up. I’ll be on my way tomorrow. So with regards to tonight’s semi, what did the stats tell us?

Well, if nothing else, the stats show that these four heat winners seemed closely matched in terms of General Knowledge. They all had double figures in their first-round heats but they all produced good rather than outstanding rounds. If nothing else this did at least suggest that we might be in for quite a close match.

Stewart McNicol scored 8 in his first-round specialist on Hyenas. Tonight he was answering on Frank Zappa. I was surprised to even manage to get 1 point on this as my familiarity with the man and his work is extremely limited. Stewart had obviously prepared his round well, but as we’ve seen so many times in this set of semi-finals, it is so tight that if you allow even a few wrong answers to start creeping in you can really give yourself an uphill struggle in the GK round. As in the heat, Stewart scored 8.

Holly Franklin scored a fine 13 on the BBC sitcom Ghosts in her first-round heat. Tonight she was going for a now for something completely different round on the Life and Works of Siegfried Sassoon. I did think that I might get one or possibly two on this round, but no, not a sausage. Sadly, I wasn’t the only one to find this round a bit tricky. Holly had one of those nights which we’ve all had from time to time. She managed five and as I said it’s five more points than I managed but to all intents and purposes that was the end of her chances of reaching the final.

Jonathan Evans took 11 on James Parkinson in his heat. Tonight, he was answering on British and Irish Pioneering female aviators, which just might be the longest description of a specialist subject this series. Maybe not. I thought at one point that he might be about to deliver us a perfect round, but one pass put paid to this. Nonetheless this was a great performance on what appeared to be a difficult round and the sore of 11 that he gained was no less than he deserved. Me? 2, thank you very much and I was delighted to take the points and run with that.

Finally, James Beeby. Tonight, he offered us Eurovision Song Contest Winners. I don’t know enough about the Mitford sisters to suggest how closely his first-round heat subject relates to this semi final subject, but I suspect ‘not very’ would be a fair answer. Again, like Stewart’s round earlier this seemed like a good round which the contender had prepared well for, and yet just a few wrong answers meant that Jonathan had daylight between himself and the chasing pack as the half time oranges were being distributed. I always thought that this would be my own banker subject for the night and indeed a handy four points gave me a total aggregate of 7.

So, Holly was the first to return to face the two and a half minutes GK round. It was a pretty good demonstration of the way that sometimes when it’s not your night, it’s really not your night. The questions just wouldn’t let her build up any kind of momentum whatsoever and by the end of the round she had raised her total to 12. Okay, it wasn’t going to win. But before anyone casts any aspersions, just think that she is a Mastermind heat winner and a semi-finalist, and nothing can take that away.

Essentially then a three-horse race remained, Actually, thinking about it with each contender going after the previous it was more of a time trial than a straight race. In a time trial all you can do is go like billy-o and give it some stick. That’s what Stewart McNicol tried to do and for most of the round that’s what he achieved. 12 points et the target at 20. Did it look a likely winning score? Maybe not, but at least it was going to force the remaining two contenders to have to cross the corridor of doubt.

James, to be fair, did not seem overly concerned with this particular requirement. He kept finding answers, and his score crept nicely upwards, past 20, past 21 and coming to a close on 22. 13 is a pretty good return even on a 2 and a half minute round and to put it into perspective Jonathan would need to score 12 to pass the total and win outright.

He had a go and at the end of the day that’s really what you’re looking for. But he didn’t have the kind of round he would have liked and he didn’t have the kind of round that he needed. It started well enough, but as the round progressed he found the wrong answers mounting up and the finishing line not seemingly coming much closer. 8 is nothing to be ashamed of – well, reaching the semi finals in the first place is something to be proud of – but it wasn’t enough, and he finished in 3^rd place with 19.

Congratulations to James. He said in his filmed insert that he was going to have a little break before cracking on with his next specialist subject for the final.  My semi-final was filmed in Manchester, and believe it or not my revision for the final started within an hour of walking into the house after the  and a bit hour drive home to Port Talbot. Maybe not the most effective way of doing it but I didn’t want to be in the position of thinking that I could have worked harder if things hadn’t gone my way.

Stewart McNicol	Frank Zappa	8	0	12	0	20	0
Holly Franklin	The Life and Works of Siegfried Sassoon	5	0	7	0	12	0
Jonathan Evans	Pioneering British and Irish female aviators	11	1	8	1	19	2
James Beeby	Winners of the Eurovision Song Conest	9	0	13	0	22	0