After two great weeks when my skeleton crew of a team won the quiz in the rugby club, last Thursday it was my turn to be question master again.I made a connections quiz ( all new connections, none taken from my Connections Quiz Book just in case. Not that I'm discouraging any of the players from the club from buying it, you understand. 100 rounds, all for just over the price of a pint - available on the Kindle from Amazon, just click on the link on the left , thanks for asking.) It seemed to go down OK. I was having a little chat with Terry from the victorious Lemurs team , and he mentioned that the BBC are currently repeating Mastermind episodes, under the title Classic Mastermind, on weekdays. "Oh frabjous day!" I exclaimed, or words to that effect.
In response to further questions Terry told me that far from being shows from the Magnus Magnusson era - which if I'm honest would be my definition of 'classic' Masterminds - they were in fact from Andy's 2003 series. Not that I'm trying to imply that these weren't as good, not at all. But I don't know, the word 'classic' seemed to imply something a little more - how should one say - old.
Not that I'm really complaining. I'm all for repeats of the show. In fact I was so excited that rather than go straight to bed when I got in as I would normally do on a Thursday I went straight to the iplayer. Only to find out that not only are the shows being broadcast in the middle of the afternoon when I'm at work, but they are also unavailable on the iplayer. Which is a real pain, since it means that I'm going to have to buy something to record the shows on now - whatever it is today that does the job that video recorders used to do back in the day.
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The Magnusson era predates me so I would have to agree that "Classic" Mastermind should either be seriously good episodes plucked at random from the archives, or the series of years long past. Ten years back is at best a delayed repeat.
I think they were playing 2003 episodes -- so I was surprised to see 2006 winner Geoff Thomas playing in an episode earlier this week. I guess they've allowed players to enter multiple times for a while now then. I remember his 2006 final with awe. Such speed of recall! I can maybe just about match that but only on a far narrower knowledge base.
Hi jim
Geoff was the runner up to Andy in the 2003 series. Everything you say about him is correct. I was stand-in for his semi-final in 2006, and all I could say to him after it was "You were awesome!" - and I meant it too. He is a real gentleman as well.
As regards reappearences, the 1995 series was the first in which former contenders could reappear. That series was won by a certain Mr. Kevin Ashman, who had been a semifinalist in 1987.As regards rules about how long it must be bwteeen appearences - well, I think that the production team tend to play it by ear. For example - Geoff was runner up in 2003, and came back to win 3 series later. Ian Bayley was runner up in 2009, and came back to win only 2 years later. I was knocked out in the first round in 2006, and came back to win the next series. Not that I'm bragging, but I'm the only person so far to be knocked out in the first round in one year, and come back to win the very next series.
Prior to 1995 a lady called Sheila Altree did once appear twice. She was originally called Sheila Denyer, but she divorced and remarried, then reapplied. The production team of the day did not notice, but a former contender did, and contacted the office after Sheila's first round win was broadcast, asking if the policy had changed. Thus alerted the producer decided that there was no option other than to disqualify Sheila. She has reappeared properly since - the last time being my semi final in 2007!
It's half term from this coming Friday, so I shall be making a date to watch them during that week - providing that they're still on.
Full agree about the iplayer situation. I cannot understand why either but there must be a reason.
I don't want to start a "dumbing down" debate but....
I missed the first few episodes but interestingly enough in the 3 I have seen this far my scores are much lower than the last few series.
All I can think of is that the 2003 series was filmed before the iplayer was created. So maybe there is a problem because perhaps BBC contracts didn't give them the right to show the contenders from these days on the iplayer. I don't know. It's such a shame though. A repeat of The Weakest Link was on before Classic Mastermind on Friday. Now that's available on the iplayer for sure. There ain't no justice.
Oh - and they have my permission to broadcast my 2007 final every day of the week if they want to!
Well I do hope the ratings are good and they show your series so I can finally see it!
"I missed the first few episodes but interestingly enough in the 3 I have seen this far my scores are much lower than the last few series."
I'm also scoring a bit lower in this compared to the present series, but bear in mind that the older episodes have 2 minute GK rounds (compared to 2 1/2 minutes in the current heats) and there are a number of "topical" questions that were undoubtedly fresher in the memory in 2003 than they are now. Overall I think the standard is much the same. Glad to see the back of John Humphrys' excruciating mid-contest chats with the contestants though...
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