Mastermind 2022 Round 1 heat 19

Another week, dearly beloved, and another heat of Mastermind. Yay!

First up was Tom Lea, who was answering on “Line of Duty”, of which I have yet to watch a single episode. I guess it’s just one of those shows that I never actually started watching and so gave it a miss every time a new series came along. It seemed to me that all the questions were on details of the events of the shows, and there wasn’t much about the production at all. This seems to be the way that we’re going with rounds about TV and films on the show now.

Now, I wouldn’t say that I know a great deal more about the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood than I do about “Line of Duty”, but what I did know was enough to bring me a couple of points and open my account for tonight. Louise Radice – who looked extremely nervous, managed a respectable 7, but it  did look as if she’d left too many points on the table to have any realistic shout of taking the semi final slot.

John Ball was answering on a staple of any self respecting Welsh school’s History curriculum, the Rebecca Riots. Just once or twice he didn’t seem to get hold of the question. However, I wouldn’t question John’s grasp on the subject since he did manage a good 10 overall on the round, which was several times better than the couple of points that I managed to scrape.

Bringing the specialist round to a close was Shanine Salmon. I do think that rounds like Shanine’s on Gin should come with a government health warning. The range of things that the setters could ask you about is huge, and I would say that they produced a pretty testing round here. It just showed that Shanine was very secure on aspects of her subject, but not on others. She still managed 6, mind you, but at 6 points off the lead she was out of the contest to all intents and purposes.

Which made Shanine’s performance in the GK all the more praiseworthy. With nothing to play for except respectability I thought she did very well. A double figure GK round is never anything to be sniffed at, and Shanine’s 10 certainly brought her respectability.

As good as Shanine’s round was, Louisa’s was even better. I don’t care what anyone says, 11 in a first round heat general knowledge round is good going. Which makes it all the more frustrating that things hadn’t gone so well for Louisa in her specialist round. Well, I suppose that it serves to underline the point that you have to have both, specialist and GK, if you want to do well.

A point which was certainly underlined with John Ball’s GK round. It’s rather difficult to know what to say about this round. Even allowing for the fact that John misinterpreted one question about The Wizard of Oz, it really wasn’t great. In the end John added  to his total to finish with 14.

In statistical terms Tom Lea really didn’t have a great deal to do in his own GK round. The target was 7 points for an outright win, and while the questions still have to be answered, it isn’t a very challenging target. Still, John’s round had illustrated just what can occasionally happen with a GK round, and just a little doubt crept into the proceedings as Tom dwelt a long time on the first question. He mentally gathered himself together, though, and ploughed on to his own double figure round, scoring 10 for a total of 22 and what turned out to be a very comfortable win in the end. Well done sir, and as always, I wish you the best of luck in your semi.

The Details

Tom Lea	Line of Duty	12	0	10	1	22	1
Louisa Radice	The Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood	7	0	11	0	18	0
John Ball	The Rebecca Riots	10	0	4	0	14	0
Shanine Salmon	Gin	6	0	10	1	16	1