Mastermind 2020 Grand Final: Review

I have thought over a couple of hours about whether or not to post again on LAM. Maybe I’ll post about that in a day or two. But this isn’t about that. This is about last night’s Mastermind Grand Final, and about this series as a whole. For once, let’s start with the stats: -

Julie Bungey	The Wars of the Roses	10	0	9	0	19	0
Lewis Barn	The Ancient Universities of Scotland	6	0	6	0	12	0
Marga Scott-Johnson	The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels of Alexander McCall Smith	10	0	11	0	21	0
Dave McBryan	The ‘View Askewniverse’ films of Kevin Smith	10	0	14	0	24	0
Emma Laslett	The Stonewall Riots	10	0	11	0	21	0
Jethro Waldron	Johannes Vermeer	12	0	7	0	19	0

The first thing to point out here, unless I’ve made a highly possible mistake, is that there were no passes. None. That’s not unique, but it is rare, and kudos to all 6 finalists for achieving that.

So, what can we say? Well, not having made any kind of comment on the show – or any show – for months, I obviously didn’t make a preview. Prior to the start of last night’s show – and I apologise to the other finalists for saying this, but I’m being honest here, I really saw this as being a two horse race between Dave and Emma, with Dave a clear favourite. Is that harsh? Maybe. I’ll explain my reasoning. I haven’t been writing about the show for months, but I’ve watched every show this series. What struck me was that Julie, Marga and Jethro had all played pretty much to their best form in both heats and semis. They had prepared their specialist subjects extremely well, and vitally, kept their heads during their GK rounds, and achieved good enough scores in them. If you’re not a regular, competitive quizzer, then that’s pretty much all you can ask of yourself. Crucially, however, it does mean that there’s not another gear there for the final. You’re already hitting your max, and for this reason I discounted the chances of all 3. Apologies.

With Lewis it was a slightly different story. I remembered Lewis from University Challenge, and judging by his performances on that show, and his GK performances so far, I didn’t quite see him having the standard of GK needed yet to really challenge for the title. It was interesting in Lewis’ filmed insert that he met with Gavin Fuller. Gavin was the youngest ever Mastermind champion at the tender age of 24. I thought that Lewis was really tempting fate actually saying that he hoped he could beat Gavin’s record – think it, Lewis by all means, but don’t say it.

As for Emma and Dave, well, to start with Emma, her first TV appearance that I know of was as part of a great family team on Only Connect, which was referenced in her insert. Then there were her GK rounds. Although not perfect, to my mind you could see that on the right day she could throw in a barnstorming round which would give her a real shot. Maybe the final would be that occasion.

As for Dave, I’d seen him playing well on Only Connect in the past as well. As a professional quiz master, it was no surprise that he was for me comfortably the finest performer on GK in the whole series. A comfortable favourite, but then anyone can have a bad day.

Let’s talk about the final, then. Julie Bungey is a schoolteacher of a similar vintage to mine. It’s been a long time since a schoolteacher won Mastermind, 12 broadcast years (my final was filmed almost a year before it was broadcast in 2008.) I have held the distinction of being the last schoolteacher to win Mastermind for longer now than anyone else ever has – Dave Edwards held it for 11 years from 1990 – 2001. While I still get a wee bit of a glow from that fact, I’d be quite happy for someone else to assume the mantle now. So at least a part of me was rooting for Julie. She did well on her specialist, the Wars of the Roses, too, ending up with 10. After half time she used the same tactic which had stood her in good stead for her previous GK rounds, and added 9 to her score. A perfectly good respectable performance, but I couldn’t see her winning. Well, anyway, it was really nice to see her school treating her so well for getting through to the final. I never got so much as a letter of congratulation from the governors or the education dept. when I won. I did get a reception in the Mayor’s parlour, but that was purely on his own initiative, and nothing to do with the governors or the education authority. Only 8 years later the school closed. Coincidence? (yes.)

Lewis, and his contemporaries, are part of the future of quizzing. I don’t know how many other grizzled veterans felt the same as I did watching his filmed insert, but he came across as enthusiastic, and so up for it and into his quizzing that I saw something of the young me of more than 3 decades ago. Now, I wouldn’t have won Mastermind at the age of 24, and I didn’t think Lewis would. Judging by Lewis’ specialist round, I somehow feel that there must have been some misunderstanding between contender and question setters over the parameters of the subject. Put simply, Lewis in his filmed inset suggested he would have done up to 3000 questions in preparation. The largest amount of questions I prepared for any of my specialists was 1500. So it wasn’t lack of preparation on Lewis’ part which saw him accrue a total of 6. It’s never over until it’s over, but I’ve little doubt that this played on Lewis’ mind during the GK. Lewis – there’s little you can do when it’s just not your night. You know how hard you worked and prepared. Keep at it – a few more years at the quiz face and this can all change drastically.

Marga Scott-Johnson put on a fine specialist and a good GK performance. Of all of the contenders, she seemed least phased by the occasion, and I hope she enjoyed it as much as she seemed to be enjoying it. Marga is a stalwart member of the Mastermind Club, and I think she’s a great example of how the show can get under your skin. Obviously, when you’re in the final, then the first objective you have is to win. However, with the best will in the world, only one of the 6 contenders is going to be able to do that. So being able to say, I performed as well as I could, and produced my best, is important. Marga, you can certainly do that.

I’ll skip David for a moment if I may. I just made the observation that the show can get under your skin. Well, Emma Laslett is a good example of this. In her filmed insert she seemed to say that if she didn’t win this time, then she’ll be back, and she’ll be trying again. Right enough, too. Like Marga, she scored 11 on GK, as did Marga, and ended in joint second. From my outsider’s observation, I would say that the only thing which Emma needs in order to be holding the trophy at the end of her next grand final, is a few more years at the quiz face. In all honesty, in my opinion there’s no substitute for playing in other people’s and setting your own quizzes over a period of years. This gives you such a fund of GK stuff which you wouldn’t necessarily know otherwise, and which you wouldn’t expect to be such a quiz chestnut. Over a period of time you find that your guesses become so much more educated , and your knowledge gaps narrower.

Jethro produced the only perfect round of the show in his specialist, which was a brilliant performance, but I’d felt his GK in the heat and the semi was weaker than the other finalists. So it wasn’t a huge surprise that he ended in joint 3^rd with 19. Again, like Lewis and Emma he has years of quizzing ahead of him if he wants.

As for Dave, then, well, I felt he would be best of the lot on GK, and frankly that’s exactly how it panned out. In some ways, I felt that Dave had to do it the hard way as well. I tried each of the GK rounds while I was watching, and I had my lowest score of all on Dave’s questions. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, granted. Still, pulling out a round of 14 under the greatest pressure was a fine performance, a championship performance. The winning margin of 3 points isn’t the largest there’s ever been in a grand final – off the top of my head a certain Dr. Gary Grant may well hold that record – but it’s daylight, certainly.

While we’re talking about Dave’s GK, this does lead me to make one of the observations I’d make about the series. I think I understand why the questions have become so long and wordy. It’s another way of testing the contenders’ nerves a little more, and it also gives the people playing along at home a little bit more thinking time. But there’s a fine line with this sort of thing, and I think that line was crossed at times during the series. One of my lasting images of last night’s final is Dave’s frustration with John H chuntering on with what turned out to be the last question, when Dave had already worked out the answer seconds earlier, especially when the buzzer went.

On the whole though, I think it’s fair to say that Hindsight and Hat Trick have done a good job with the show this year. Going back to having all the contenders sitting in a row rather than forcing them through the portal of portent was a very sensible move. Likewise, not telling them each other’s scores last series was just daft, and I’m glad they’ve stopped that. It is a shame that we’ve lost the repechage places for highest scoring runners up. It’s also a shame that there were no reward visits for the filmed inserts as well. OK, for my insert I only got to go to London (I drove down myself, and stayed at my Mum’s, so the Beeb weren’t exactly splashing the cash then) but you can’t buy an experience like going into the Museum of London after closing time, and getting to see and handle artifacts which are not on display to the public.

Right, elephant in the room time. Last series I did make the point that I felt that some of the contenders should have been saved from themselves – that is they put in very low scoring performances which cannot have been very pleasant experiences at all. Yes, you can only tell so much from 20 general knowledge questions in an audition, I agree. But the number of contenders falling through the net just seemed to me to have increased significantly, and I have to say the same for this series.

Apologies if this sounds elitist. It isn’t meant to be. Everyone who is old enough has the right to apply to be a contender on Mastermind, and good luck to you for doing so. But if you do apply, then to my mind that gives you a right, but also a duty. You have a right to expect that the production team won’t put you in the position of really embarrassing yourself if there’s reasonable suspicion that you will perform badly on GK. Then you have a duty to prepare your specialist subject as well.

Overall then, thanks Hindsight and Hat Trick for the series. Well done, and well done for not fixing something which wasn’t broken. May this continue into the future.