Mastermind Going out to Tender

I read in yesterday’s Weaver’s Week that Mastermind is being put out to tender by the BBC again. Well, let’s start by saying that Hindsight and Hat Trick have by no means done a bad job with the show over the last few years. But in a spirit of helpfulness, I will try to add a little advice for any prospective production company who might be interested in taking on the show.

Don’t force the question setters to write such needlessly long questions any more. This will speed the show up and make it more exciting. It will also allow the scores to rise a bit. I don’t wish to be mean, but one of the first round heats of this current series was won by a total of 15. Give the stars a chance to shine.

Consider bringing back semi final slots for the highest scoring runners up. Last year’s semi final line up was weakened by excluding one of the strongest performers in the first round who was beaten by an exceptional performance in a freak heat. As it is, I think that the talent is spread too thinly to accommodate 24 heats. Cut it down to 22 heats, with the last 2 semi final slots going to the two highest scoring runners up of the first round. That would cut the series down to 29 shows. If you absolutely have to do 31 shows, then bookend the series with a couple of specials. Only Connect does this sort of thing very well. For example you could have a one-off special on, for example, kings and queens with each of the 4 contenders answering on a specific monarch, with general questions about the lot of them for the second round. Or a football special. Or a sitcoms special. (If you want more ideas about this sort of thing then just comment at the bottom and we’ll get it on.)

I’m a little bit of a traditionalist and I would like to see the format reverting to 2 minutes on specialist and 2 minutes on general knowledge as well.

Don’t be tempted to try to ‘jazz’ the show up a bit. We had that silly business a few years ago making the contenders only enter the set when it was their turn in the chair and not being told who was in which position to the end, which was pointless and unnecessary and thankfully died the death.

There it is. Drop me a line if you’d like to pick my brains a bit more on this. You know it makes sense.