Mastermind 2022: Round One Heat 4

 Now, wasn’t that more like it, dearly beloved? Tonight’s was to my mind the best contest we’ve seen so far this series.

First up was Mollie Bingham. It was announced that Mollie’s specialist subject was Margaret of Anjou, consort of King Henry VI. While I wasn’t exactly saying yum-yum and expecting a windfall of points, I do immodestly think of royal history as one of my stronger subjects, but all I managed to pull from this round was 2. Mollie did a lot better, scoring 9 and incurring 2 passes. That’s a pretty decent score for the current era, and Molie looked justifiably pleased as she took her seat.

Alice Walker was offering the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein. That’s the sort of subject that you’d think offers opportunities to a regular quizzer of a certain age – such as myself – since a basic working knowledge of their oeuvre has brought points in quizzes across the years. I added a further three to my aggregate. Alice took pole position by scoring a fine 11 points, and also by incurring no passes.

The History of Canterbury was one of those subjects that I was wary of predicting how I might do. Funnily enough all of my points came from the questions based further back in time, which brought me 4 on this round. Andrew impressed with his knowledge, which may even have brought him more points than his fine 11, if he had only answered just a wee bit more quickly. He too incurred no passes, to sit comfortably alongside Alice on the front row of the grid.

If Sean Lea was intimidated by the previous two rounds, he didn’t show it as he began his round on the first 9 seasons of the Simpsons. I will make no apologies for the fact that this was my best specialist round of the evening, netting me 6 more points for an aggregate of 15. Sean took 9 points from the round with 2 passes, which actually only left him in joint 3^rd. with Mollie.

Kudos to all 4 contenders for their specialist rounds. This is just my opinion and as always, feel free to disagree, but I do feel that if you accept a place in the first round, then you are also accepting the responsibility to learn your specialist subjects as thoroughly as you can in the time available. All 4 contenders in this show had clearly done this.

Onto the GK, then. Despite a rather good specialist round, Mollie was starting from the back row of the grid, and she never really picked up enough momentum to pull off any passing manoeuvres on the rest of the field. Or, if I leave the tortuous formula 1 metaphors behind, she never looked convincing in her round, and rather laboured to add 7 to her total. Whatever the case she never lost her composure and seemed to be enjoying the experience, and that is often the main thing.

 Sean, who, like Mollie, began the round on 9 points, did something quite different. He did something I always love to see, that is, to throw caution to the wind, try to answer everything, and as a result, come up with a round that is every bit good enough to mean that anyone coming after would have to cross through the corridor of doubt in order to overhaul his score. Whichever way you look on it, his 13 n GK was a good score, which, in a slightly weaker heat, might have brought him a win.

It didn’t in this one, though. Alice Walker, seemingly totally unphased by the round she had just witnessed, strode boldly trough the corridor of doubt to overhaul Sean, and just kept going. This was the best GK round I think that I’ve seen so far in this series, and I can’t help wondering just what level of experience Alice has in quizzes, since this was the round of a very good contender indeed.

If I felt sympathy towards Sean for the way that his fine performance would not bring him an appearance in the semi finals, then I was even more sympathetic towards Andrew Whiteley. I mentioned, when describing his SS round, how I felt that he was just a little slower answering than Alice had been, and the same thing might be said of his GK. However, he was accurate, and his score kept climbing and climbing. The buzzer beat him, though, as he finished with a fine 14 and no passes, to end with 25.

To put the quality of tonight’s show into perspective, the third placed contender, Sean, would have won 2 out of the previous 3 heats with 23, and Andrew would have won all of them with 25. It’s harsh that neither will be back in the semis, but that’s the way the series rolls at the moment. As for Alice, well, let’s watch out for her in the semis. If this is the level of GK that she can produce, she’s certainly in with a shout. Well played to all.

The Details

Mollie Bingham	Margaret of Anjou	9	2	7	4	16	6
Alice Walker	Rodgers and Hammerstein Musicals	11	0	15	0	26	0
Andrew Whiteley	The History of Canterbury	11	0	14	0	25	0
Sean Lea	The Simpsons Seasons 1 - 9	9	2	13	1	22	3