First off, the best match of each stage of the series:
- First Round + Play-Offs: Not much to choose from, so I'll go for York's shock trouncing of Manchester.
- Second Round: Again, not much of note, so I'll go for Glasgow vs Newcastle.
- Quarter-Finals: Definitely York vs Peterhouse. St Catharine's nearly coming back to beat St John's the following week comes a close second.
- The Final Three: None of them were very good, so, by virtue of being the only close one, Peterhouse vs York.
As far as the teams are concerned, there was a slight Oxbridge imbalance, with six Cambridge to four Oxford. Four London teams is no change from last series, while the post '92 unis were, again, unrepresented. Overall, though, we had a good spread of teams this series, with plenty of teams from across Britain, with all areas well represented.
In terms of scoring, for the second year running, the highest score and the biggest win of the series came in the same match, Imperial's 305-75 trouncing of Sidney Sussex. Lowest score of the series came this Monday just gone by, when St John's became probably the least deserving members of the Sub-50 club ever, with just 30 points.
And now for the annual highlights reel:
- Mr Brejevs of Glasgow trying to give an answer in Russian!
- "The viewers of this program are even older than the presenter!"
- Mr Haughton's spectacular buzz giving Manchester, what would turn out to be, their only real highlight of the series.
- Free Frasier and Divine Niles!
- My dad's favourite answer of the series: "Whig?" "Good heavens!"
- Vestgate! (Or, as it should be known, the latest non-news story that the press try to turn into news)
- Lewis from the DoND forum on the show for Reading! (Shame they got trounced; at least it was to a worthy team)
- Rent Voicemail #2, and Paxo's reaction!
- Poor Mr Walker. "Scotland?" and "Nutella?"
- "Bruegel?" "Which one?" "Pieter." "WHICH ONE?!"
- Poor Miss McMenamin's meltdown over 'nymphs'. Also "wombat?".
- The MetaPicture.com bonus set!
- Peterhouse's struggle with the foreign pop round.
- Footballers who only played for one English club, and the Twittersphere's response!
- Mr Watson's instant mental arithmetic!
- Imperial, of all teams, getting a bonus set on the Big Bang Theory!
- "Paella!"
- "Chicken Austerlitz"
So, that's the usual highlights; now, though, I'd like to speak seriously.
As some of yous will know, I try to be positive when I write these reviews, as my aim in this blog is to write-up an accurate, professional, unbiased, off-the-press review of each UC. However, it has become increasingly hard to do so in recent times due to various controversies surrounding the show. Two things, in particular, have hit the show hard recently.
The first is, of course, the repeated penalties for cutting in just as Paxo is finishing reading the question. The second, which has come to the fray towards the end of this series, is that the starters are too long, and thus the teams are waiting until they are absolutely sure Paxo has stopped talking before buzzing. Weaver's Week, of course, have been less than impressed by either of these, and have stopped fully reviewing the show regularly again.
Now, some of yous may wonder why I take what Weaver's Week say so seriously. Well, you see, Weaver's Week was one of the main things that got me hooked on the show in the first place, as their weekly reviews that perfectly summarised the show, as well as those of our friend Dave Clark, provided good reading that nicely complimented the show itself, and you looked forward to reading them every week. Plus, the archived 'weeks' meant you could swot up on back editions of the show.
But recently, it has been hard for me to be positive, as it has been very hard for me to contradict what they have been saying, as I respect them and their opinions so much. I do apologise, and no offense is intended to Mr Weaver or anyone else at UKGS, who all must be commended for their commitment to keeping the site going. And I totally agree with them on both penalty points I mentioned earlier.
When the show returns in July, I will try to be more positive in my own right about the show, though I will keep bringing up any 'borderline' penalties for as long as they carry on.
That's it for this series then; all that remains is to thank all involved for another series of University Challenge, and I'll be back to cover the next come July. In the mean time, I'll put this blog on the backseat for a while and post occasionally whenever I feel the need to. See yous around.
I would say keep up the good work, it has been interesting following the reviews, especially as you say Weavers has stopped them and Dave Clark appears to have gone on hiatus.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, you are the true winner with your commitment to this blog! A surprising series! Whilst Peterhouse College Cambridge after that display were truly deserved winners, though much like how many were tired of Manchester winning every year, hopefully next year a different university will win it.
ReplyDeleteBit disappointed with the lack of Oxbridge derbies, only 2 in round one (one of them a Cambrige x2 match) and none in the second round. Of course we had some in the QFs but I think an Oxbridge semi final would have been better. If it was a Peterhouse vs York final IMO they would have had a bit more of a run for their money. Sadly York were unable to match their 2011 record of being finalists, but impressed us with their memorable performance. Liverpool matched their 2006 record of being semi finalists.
Aside from the controversial gender diversity, I also wonder about the university diversity. I think the number of Oxbridge Colleges should be equal and reduced slightly, and many large, decent universities haven't been on for years, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Leeds, King's college, etc last appeared over 4 years ago, they should really appear more to represent the student population better. Other large/92 universities haven't appeared at all, e.g. Manchester Met, Sheffield Hallam (since 2001), South Wales, some of the largest. Their reputations might not be leading, but surely they can find 4 decent quizzers in their 30,000+ population? This is probably the fault of the universities for not having decent selection processes or the BBC choosing the 'same old faces'.
Interestingly a few former series winners also seem to have disappeared, Birkbeck, London won in 2003, never to appear again, and Bradford won in the 1970s but last appeared in 2004, and Dundee won in the 1980s and according to Blanchflower have never appeared in the Paxman series.
But the BBC do like to add a couple of new faces each year I guess, this year we were treated to Kent and the ICR, as well as Oxford's Nuffield college, while Swansea last appeared in 1997! I wonder who it'll be next time!
Have a nice break! We look forward to the new series!
Jack,
ReplyDeleteThank you for continuing to write your weekly UC updates – it's excellent to have a decently detailed resource to remind myself of what's happened in any particular episode, and your occasional thought pieces on the show are also a good read, even if I'm not always in agreement with you on everything – be it the relative merits of WW, or...
...borderline penalties for late buzzes on a question. As far as I see it, the only fair way for the producers to enforce this rule is to be very strict about it, so even if Paxman is reading the last word when you buzz wrongly, it's an in-question buzz so you have to be penalised. If things were to change, I would rather they got rid of the five point penalty completely than started being more relaxed about its implementation. Not being able to hear the full question seems like enough of a penalty, and I can't imagine (m)any teams would take to making near-random early guesses and risk locking themselves out of the rest of the question.
I'd be interested to know how you'd change the current rule – WW talks about its 'spirit', and I'm not quite sure what that would mean in terms of a reasonable cut-off point for when a team should be fined points. Do you have any suggestions?
I'd also like to talk a bit about the subjects of Oxbridge involvement in the competition and the diversity of universities on the programme more generally. Firstly, the number of Oxbridge colleges has typically (over recent years, at least) been 10 colleges with an even split between the universities. This is fewer Oxbridge colleges than you’d have if you just took the top 28 teams from the selection process to make the series. That much is clear from the over-performance of the Oxbridge teams that do make it onto the show, as well as knowing some very strong Oxbridge teams that haven’t made it on.
If you reduced the number of Oxbridge teams, you’d be replacing them with other universities that were weaker than nearly all the selected teams, not simply weaker than those Oxbridge colleges. It would reduce the quality of the series – not just in terms of team strength but probably also entertainment factor. It’s rarely enjoyable to watch two weak teams play each other, after all. I don’t mean to suggest that 10 is the magic number of Oxbridge colleges but an Oxbridge college that just makes the cut is more likely to end up being a title contender than is a marginal team from any other university.
The producers do what they can to get other universities on board and they do not favour the “same old faces”. Some universities don’t need any help – most notably, Manchester has Stephen Pearson; Warwick has a strong quiz society; other universities have experienced quizzers who may be able to offer some help, such as Ian Bayley at Oxford Brookes. Universities that have had success in the past will find it easier to recruit people for their next team. These factors, though, will favour the “same old faces”. But it would be unfair to penalise these institutions when they’re consistently putting up stronger teams than other universities. I certainly don’t believe it’s a deliberate effort on the part of the producers to keep the same teams on every year. I’m sure they’d be delighted if strong teams from Edinburgh, Leeds, etc. came along and went far in the competition.
(continued)
DeleteOn the other hand, some universities are much more reluctant to get involved – either because their point of contact isn’t willing to put in any legwork to get a team together or because the students who would make a competitive team are worried about putting up a low score and embarrassing themselves. These universities are also unlikely to have a history of success (or even just a history of appearing) on the programme that they can draw on to encourage participation. In that respect, the Oxbridge colleges have an advantage. Even if your college hasn’t been on for a number of years, there are other Oxford or Cambridge teams doing well every year and you might well think, “Well, if St Peter’s can succeed while having so few students, so could we!”
I think Unknown is right that the very big universities have failed to produce effective selection processes. They’ll certainly have clever students with a diverse enough range of knowledge to be competitive but encouraging somebody to think they could be one of the four best quizzers out of 30,000 must be much harder than out of 500 students, like it is for the Oxbridge colleges. And if they did have a large number of aspiring quizzers to choose from, it could be tough to whittle them down to a coherent team of 4. These universities need help on running trials and building a balanced team but it would be inappropriate for the producers to be directly involved in any one university’s selection process and there is obviously not enough time to involvedly help all the teams that “need” it.
Any way, I’ve gone rather a long way away from the topic of this series and its highlights. Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere but the final stages of this year’s competition were extremely similar to last year’s: the semi-finalists were an unbeaten Cambridge college, the two teams they’d beaten in the QFs (one Oxford, one northern) and another unbeaten team. The Cambridge team beat the northern university again, the Oxford college knocked out the other undefeated team and then the Cambridge team won the final very convincingly. Hopefully things will be a little different next series – a close final would be welcome, if nothing else!
Apart from it rather fizzling out at the end, I think it’s been another decent series. Certainly not as good as the 2013/14 series won by Trinity, Cambridge – but I think it could be a while before that series is matched. The questions I can recall as particularly enjoyable are mostly picture and music; maybe that’s just because they’re more memorable. The triangulation of national capitals set from episode 2 sticks out as a particular highlight – I know you weren’t quite so fond of it!
Thanks again for all the work you’ve put in over recent years – long may it continue!
"I'd be interested to know how you'd change the current rule – WW talks about its 'spirit', and I'm not quite sure what that would mean in terms of a reasonable cut-off point for when a team should be fined points. Do you have any suggestions?"
ReplyDeleteThis - exactly! Well put, K