The Tale of the Tape – first round performances
Michael
McPartland |
Arnold
Schwarzenegger |
14 |
0 |
17 |
0 |
31 |
0 |
Mark
Rogers |
The
Universal Frankenstein Films of the 1930s |
13 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
Ben
Farren |
Christopher
Hitchens |
12 |
0 |
13 |
0 |
25 |
0 |
Lee
Ansett |
Michael
Palin’s Travel Documentaries |
12 |
1 |
16 |
0 |
28 |
1 |
So, the first contender of the
2023 semi finals was former finalist Michael McPartland. He gave a pretty much
flawless performance on Specialist in his heat on Arnold Schwarzenegger, and
did pretty much the same thing on tonight’s round on the Great Escape. That’s
the real life event, rather than (just) the film. Me? Oh, I knew that the book
was written by Paul Brickhill and I got a single point for my pains. Michael? A
marvellous 13. One foot in the final? Well, it was rather too early to go
making any such extravagant claims, but things were certainly going according to
plan for Michael.
Next up was Mark Rogers. Yes,
if you want to be pedantic Mark had the lowest first round score of any of our
contenders tonight, but his was still comfortably mid table amongst our heat
winners. Mark was answering on Best Actress and Best Actor Oscar winners of the
1990s. A narrow field for a specialist subject, you might think. Well, you
might think it but that’s not the way it turned out. This was a tricky round
and even my work on preparation for this Wednesday’s Oscars quiz in the Gwyn
Hall didn’t help me get more than 3 of them. Mark did a lot better with 9 but
even this meant that he was four points behind Michael.
Ben Farren was carrying the
hopes of the teaching profession into this semi. He was answering on the life
and death of stars. He had a tiny bit of an uncertain start, but following the
first few questions he blazed his way through the rest of the round to end up
one point behind Michael with 12. I was pleasantly surprised by the way that I
managed to pick up three of these- a boyhood infatuation with astronomy
standing me in good stead there.
Bringing the round to a conclusion
was Lee Ansett. Now, of all of tonight’s other contenders it was Lee whose
first round performance seemed to put him in the best position to challenge
Michael for the win tonight. Of course, first of all he had to negotiate a specialist
round on the sitcom Peep Show. I did see a few episodes in my time and rather
enjoyed them if truth be told. However they were only enough to bring me a
single point. This took my aggregate to an underwhelming 8. Lee? Well, he
battled to a good 11, but let’s just put it this way. You’ve got far more
chance of winning if you’re two points ahead at half time than if you’re two
points behind.
Mark returned first to the
chair. Now, all of these contenders are heat winners and none of them had
anything to prove. Nonetheless it was such a pleasure to see all of them giving
it their very best shot in GK. Mark had a few rocky moments in his round but he
kept battling on to take his score into double figures which gave him a total
of 19. Not a winning score, no, but highly respectable.
So to Lee, then. He made a
great start to his round, but got rather found out by a few questions in the
middle of the round. Like Mark before him he kept battling on and got his score
into double figures. However he levelled out at 10. This gave him the lead at
21, but it still didn’t look as if this was going to be enough.
Ben Farren had scored a decent
13 on GK in the first round. If he could match this score he would at least
give Michael something to think about before his own round. Well, he certainly
gave it a lash, and had gone into the lead with a question or two left to go.
In the end he levelled out at 11 for a total of 23.
This left Michael needing 10
and no passes to force a tie break, or 11 to win outright. Yeah, I was pretty
sure he’d do it, even bearing in mind that a rogue GK round of very tough
questions is never impossible. To be honest, Michael gave a pretty much text
book demonstration of how to handle a GK round on Mastermind. Listen intently,
snap out the answers and don’t let a couple of wrong answers put you off your
stride. He passed the total with time to spare, eventually scoring 14 to win
with 27.
Very well done to you, sir! The last time Michael contested the final he was third. I’m not going to scupper his chances by tipping him to win. But at the moment I’m certainly not betting against him.
The Details
Michael McPartland |
The Great Escape |
13 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
27 |
0 |
Mark Rogers |
Oscar Winning Performances
of the 1990s |
9 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
19 |
1 |
Ben Farren |
The Life and Death of
Stars |
12 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
23 |
0 |
Lee Ansett |
Peep Show |
11 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
21 |
0 |
2 comments:
This results means that 3 of the finalists from the 2013-14 series (Brian Chesney, Hamish Cameron, and now Michael McPartland) have since gone on to reach the final again.
Thanks Paul - without wanting to scupper anyone's chances you wouldn't bet much against Michael emulating Brian in this series.
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