Mastermind 2023 Semi Final 1

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

 Well, I gotta say it, even if no one else does. The matchmaker ended up putting the number 1 and number 2 on the round 1 leaderboard into the same semi-final which was going to prove to be hard lines on at least one of them.

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