Only Connect: Does Missing Vowels carry too much weight?

Now, when it comes to online discussion of Only Connect by non-quizzers, there are various things people discuss on Digital Spy, Twitter and other sites. One is how good Victoria is looking that week. The others range from pedantic complaints about questions to actually interesting discussion about questions.

But there is one issue that is quite often tossed up that is definitely worth discussing: does the Missing Vowels round carry too much weight? This issue has been dragged up quite a bit over the past year, and, having re-reviewed the stats from the past series, I can understand why.

Just to make it clear what these people are saying: the basic complaint is that Missing Vowels quite often decides the show all by itself, either a close match can become very one sided in the final round, or a team that has led throughout will suddenly lose it at the end.

These people often say that Missing Vowels isn't really the same as the prior rounds, which require lateral thinking, while Missing Vowels is just about being quick on the buzzer.

Well, I thought I'd investigate how often this has happened.

Michael Wallace of the Board Gamers has already covered this in some depth on his and Jamie Karran's blog The Ones That Got Away. In a post made in the slipstream of their come-from-behind first round victory, he looked back over the first seven series, and determined that, in 99 episodes (presumably celeb and champions specials were ignored), only 14 times did the team trailing going into Missing Vowels go on to win; five were by trailing by just one, and the largest margin overturned was four.

I looked into the four full series we've had since and what we've had of Series 12 so far this morning/afternoon, and, by series, here are my findings:

• Series 8 saw 3 overturnings, the afore mentioned Board Gamers turnaround from 3 behind, and two more in the preliminaries, both from just one behind.
• The infamously difficult Series 9 saw just two overturnings, both from two behind, plus two instances of the teams going in level pegging, including the final.
• Series 10, despite the amount of shows doubling, remained more or less the same, with three overturnings; we did see what was, at the time, the largest overturned deficit in the final round, five points, while the other two were two and three. Only once did the two teams begin the final on equal terms.
• Then we get to Series 11, however, and now you start to see what people are on about. Seven turnarounds, only one of them from one behind, the rest from between three and five.
• So far in Series 12, we seen six turnarounds, including the two from the Verbivores overturning seven and six respectively, thus breaking the previous record. The others from one and two. Plus several instances of a team miles behind running Missing Vowels and reducing the gap to just two or so; both Group B play-offs saw this.

So, that's a total of 21 in the past five and a bit series; in the past two and a bit, we've seen only one less than the first seven series put together. This would suggest that Missing Vowels has become more of a game changer since the move to BBC2 than it used to be on BBC4.

Of course, the complainers will look at these figures, in particular the two huge turnarounds by the Verbivores this series, and call for the rules to be changed so that, in their mind, Missing Vowels doesn't render the prior rounds completely irrelevant.

I can't really agree; bear in mind that these 21 shows have been out of 102, so its still very much the norm for the team ahead after the Walls to still be ahead after Missing Vowels, even if, in some cases, it is by a considerably smaller/larger margin.

The particularly annoying complainers will argue that Missing Vowels is completely different from the other three rounds, and that it is totally unfair for a team who have been better on the three lateral thinking rounds to be swamped over by a team quicker on the buzzer in the only round where it isn't really that important. They'll say that a team who only excel at Missing Vowels shouldn't be on a show where lateral thinking is the main advertised requirement. Some have even called for Missing Vowels to be changed so that a correct answer is only worth half a point, thus making it nigh on impossible for a team as far behind as the Verbivores were in those two matches to overturn the deficit.

Surely, however, the main object of Only Connect, like almost every other competitive quiz show, is to win no matter how. Coming from behind by bossing Missing Vowels is a perfectly legitimate tactic, even if it is a risky one that has only worked about 1/5 of the time over the years. Most of the time, how you win is glossed over by the fact that you have won. As William G Stewart used to say, it's better to win 1-0 than to lose 5-4.

This sort of thing, like most complaints people have about our favourite quizzes, is just going to keep going on until something is done. But I personally think it should stay as it is. Only Connect is a much loved show with a tried and tested format that, uniquely for some, hasn't changed at all. In fact, the only things that have changed since Series 1 are the studio colour scheme, Victoria wearing dresses instead of suits (much to the delight of some!), the hieroglyphs replacing the Greek letters, and the straight knockout tournament being tweaked twice.

The actual round layout hasn't changed at all, and there's a good reason for that: it works. Starting to fiddle with formats that work often results in the show's demise. Remember old UC? It's format was changed to the infamous Pass the Baton format for no reason other than low-ish ratings, and it was cancelled within two years. Or Deal or No Deal, which introduced Box 23 and the Offer Button to try and win back lost viewers, but all they did was alienate long term viewers (myself included) and scare them away.

Formats that needn't be fiddled with shouldn't be fiddled with unless there is clearly something hugely wrong with them. And there isn't anything majorly wrong with Only Connect's format bar the occasional quibble over an allowed/a disallowed answer and people moaning about Missing Vowels. To whom I can only say: be careful what you wish for.

That's that for now. I'll be back next Tuesday/Wednesday with my review of Monday's OC; see you then.