We’re nearly up to date with Mastermind now, peeps. Well, heat 21 was certainly memorable.
For one thing, our first contender, Alan Hotchikiss was
answering on one of my favourite subjects, Muhammad Ali. I managed 8 of these
and was disappointed. That’s not that the questions were easy, either, but that
I’d hoped for double figures. Alan took a good 9 on a round where I can vouch
for the fact that you needed to know your stuff to do well.
Every now and again a specialist round comes along where
you just want to shout at the telly – stop making this contender go through
thi!s- Ffion Rowlands was answering on Homer’s Iliad. It was a real display of
stoicism as she kept smiling despite the mounting evidence that it really
wasn’t going to be her night. I’ll maybe make a post soon about why specialist
rounds go wrong. Whatever the case, Ffion scored 3.
I will be honest, I googled to find out how many world
heritage sites there are in Britain and Ireland. I believe there’s almost 40.
So superficially at least William Tams’ specialist looked quite tough. Maybe
not so much after the first couple of questions where William looked pretty
secure. However the round slipped away from hm as it went on, restricting him
to five points.
Emma Reeves brought the round to a close on the songs of Dory
Previn. If I was to tell you that I knew anything about these prior to the
round then mmy nose would surely grow. That didn’t matter though because Emma
clearly did know a great deal about the songs and she went on to provide us
with the best specialist performance of the evening. 11 points gave her a lead of
two at half time.
Right, let’s get Ffion’s GK round out of the way. Contrary
to what the twitterati think, a low specialist score might have a number of
causes. A low GK score, well. I watched Ffion’s round back twice, and I don’t
honestly think it was a rogue round. I do think that it was a round of
questions the majority of which could have been asked 10 or even 20 years ago
which worked against a younger contender like Ffion. Sometimes you watch a
round where the contender gives plausible answers which just aren’t right. In
Ffion’s case, she just didn’t know them. Sadly, she finished with a total of 7.
You could forgive William for having been disappointed with
his specialist round, but he took it in his stride to deliver a good general
knowledge round of 11 to set the bar at 16. If he’d managed a couple more in
his specialist then it looks likely that he coulda been a contender.
Definitely a contender was Alan Hotchkiss. He was two
points in arrears at the turnaround, but could at least put pressure on Emma
who was yet to come. And you don’t have to be a seasoned quiz genius to do
this. It requires discipline not to panic, but if you have a decent general
knowledge then going for the percentage answers on the questions you don’t know
can help keep your score ticking over, and that’s what Alan seemed to do. This
earned him a double figure round and meant he was able to open the corridor of
doubt for Emma as he raised the target to 19.
So to Emma the maths was simple. She needed 9. 8 and no
passes would only earn a tie break. Sadly she never looked convincing in her
round and by the last few questions she was too far behind. She finished with 7
for a respectable 18. Close but no cigar.
It’s a testament to the care that the production team take
over casting that single figure totals are rare on the show, and I do hope that
Ffion was able to put it behind her. At the end of the day it is only a game –
it doesn’t mean anything other than you had a low score on that set of
questions. And well done Alan! Best of luck in the semis.
The Details
|
Alan Hotchkiss |
Muhammad Ali |
9 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
19 |
0 |
|
Ffion Rowlands |
Homer’s Iliad |
3 |
2 |
4 |
3 |
7 |
5 |
|
William Tams |
British and Irish
World Heritage Sites |
5 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
16 |
0 |
|
Emma Reeves |
The Songs of Dory
Previn |
11 |
0 |
7 |
1 |
18 |
1 |
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