Friday 16 December 2016

Mastermind: Round One: Heat 23

Nearly there for the first round now, brethren – only one more and we’ll know who all of the semi finalists are.

So let’s begin this round up with Gerald Chong. It’s only fair, since he was the first to go, after all, and he was answering on Steve Jobs. I actually haad my best specialist round of the night on these questions. When I tell you that I managed two of them it should also give you a good idea of just how well I fared on the other rounds. Gerald, on the other hand, made rather a decent fist of it, ending up with a good 11, and importantly no passes either.

I can’t begin to tell you whether Esther Lisk-Carew’s questions on the TV series Farscape were hard, fair or easy, since I never watched the series. For me Esther’s round illustrated the pitfalls of picking a TV series as a specialist subject. Going by Esther’s 5 correct answers I would hazard the guess that she is a big fan, and knows the series well, as a fan. However that is not usually enough for a Mastermind specialist, for the setters will sniff out the kind of stuff that you wouldn’t remember specifically . . . unless you were trying to. Which is what makes a TV round a much harder prospect than many people who have never sat in the chair seem to think that it is. Sadly this put Esther out of contention at the halfway mark.

The History of Hungary brought me my other specialist point – singular – from tonight’s show. Retired army officer Jonathan Frere produced a fine display, as he equalled Gerald’s score of 11 and no passes. I think that it’s fair to say that in the majority of the heats we’ve seen in this series, a score of 11 on specialist has often been enough to make sure that you are at least still in contention at the halfway mark.

Back in the early 80s when I was young and stupid, and didn’t have my hair cut for about 2 years, (all photographs have been hunted down and destroyed since) I was quite partial to a bit of heavy metal. I was into the mainstream stuff, though, and so I can’t claim any familiarity with Black Metal, which John helpfully explained was particularly associated with the occult. Fair enough. Jim Longhurst, our last contender for this evening obviously knew his stuff, and just one slight momentary recall failure prevented him from equalling Gerald’s and Jonathan’s scores of 11. On 10 though, and only one point behind, all things were still possible.

There isn’t a great deal positive that one can say about Esther’s GK round. I don’t think that she’s probably a quizzer, and in those circumstances you need the questions to fall for you. The questions didn’t fall for her, and when that happens all you can do is guess and hope. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it don’t. Esther finished with a total score of 9, but genuinely looked as if she was thoroughly enjoying her time on the show. I can salute that.

Next up was Jim, and he was in the positions we see so often – just a short head behind the leaders, and with the chance to set a score which would place the two of them on the threshold of the corridor of doubt. Certainly for the first minute or so this looked like a distinct possibility. However it was one of those rounds which became bogged down in the second minute, and although he never ground to a halt entirely, it was rather a grim old struggle which saw Jim add 9 to his score to raise the bar to 19.

There are certain signs – none of them infallible, mind you – that a contender is a bit of a quizzer. Now, I don’t know if Gerald Chong regularly plays in quizzes or not. But the breadth of his answers, and his dedication to ignoring his wrong answers and just getting on with the next questions were for me pretty good signs that he may well be. He added 14 to take his total to 25. “Now that’s a corridor of doubt score” I opined to my mother and step dad (pre-Christmas visit to Worthing this weekend), who both gave me a ‘what the hell are you waffling on about?’ look before going back to sleep on the sofa.

Not that you could see any doubt on the face of Jonathan Frere as he worked his way manfully through his round. Still, he was dropping questions that you felt Gerald would probably have answered correctly, and even when he picked up some more momentum in the last 30 seconds you couldn’t help thinking that he had conceded too much ground in the first minute and a half. In the end his 11 and no passes was a perfect mirror image of his specialist round.

So well played Gerald – pick of the contenders tonight and a worthy winner. Best of luck in the semis.   

The Details

Gerald Chong
Steve Jobs
11
0
14
3
25
3
Esther Lisk-Carew
Farscape
6
3
3
5
9
8
Jonathan Frere
History of Hungary 850 - 1920
11
0
11
0
22
0
Jim Longhurst
Black Metal
10
1
9
6
19
7

3 comments:

Skiffle.cat said...

I'm a fan of Farscape and considered it as a subject. I'd previously done Blakes 7, which is four seasons of 13 episodes each. Farscape is four seasons of 26 episodes, plus a tv movie. Given the sheer number of planets, characters, facts and events in those 100+ episodes, I thought it would be too big a task to learn all the details that could possibly be asked.
Esther's first question was a gentle one but most were reasonably challenging. I've not watched any of the series in a couple of years and scored about three points myself. I came close on a couple of others but sci-fi can be tricky. As you're dealing with imaginary places and things, it can be hard to make an intelligent guess for say, the name of an animal species. Esther's answer of 'chocolate' when asked what Crichton missed in outer space wasn't as wild as it seemed. He does complain about the lack of chocolate in one episode, just not in the particular instance asked for. She may also have been distracted at one point when John mispronounced Chiana's name. He did that with Dayna's name during my Blakes 7 round and it threw me for a few moments.
Overall, I don't think Esther prepared in the depth that she needed to. I also thought she had one of the tougher sets of GK questions. As you say, she did seem to enjoy herself. I always found the crew very supportive and keem to ensure that everyone had a lovely day out. The friends who came with me certainly did, but then they didn't have to go sit in the black chair...

Londinius said...

Hi Gillian,
Agreed, I don't think Esther prepared as thoroughly as she could have done, but as I said in the review it is easy to underestimate the amount of work involved in preparing for such a subject. Bearing in mind Esther's performance on GK I dare say she probably didn't expect to be in contention, but wanted to test herself on Farscape and to experience being on the show.

Londinius said...

I've just had a lovely email from Heather Heath. She can't post on the blog so I said that I'd post her comments.

"I wanted to make a comment on the Farscape questions – I loved the series, haven’t watched it in a few years, and only managed two. As Gillian said, the first was pretty straightforward  but I thought the rest were tricky. In contrast, I thought the X-Files questions of the previous week were much easier. I loved that series too, haven’t seen more than a handful of episodes in the last 5 years or so, but managed seven. I think Esther was a bit unlucky that they were so tricky, but I suspect she wouldn’t have been in contention anyway given her GK performance. I would guess that Samantha Hills didn’t believe her luck on her questions! But Esther looked happy and hopefully enjoyed herself."

Thanks Heather!