Fifteen to One: a show deserving of its own Wiki?

OK, so, if you've been following this blog for the entirety of its existence, you'll know that I used to review the finals of the revivial of Fifteen to One, back at a time when nobody else seemed to be doing so. Eventually, Weaver's Week started doing them as well, so I phased out of doing them, but I stuck with the revival afterwards, even though I stopped giving it attention on here.

 

In fact, I'm sad that Channel 4 appeared to have called time on it. I mean, sure, it was never going to hit the heights of the original with William G. Stewart, but still, it was good to have the show around in some form.

Which brings me to the main thread of this...

You see, in the same way that I found myself drawn back to Deal or No Deal last year following Weaver's Week's review of Noel Edmonds' life and career, I myself have found myself drawn back towards the original Fifteen to One in the past weeks after a number of episodes appeared on YouTube in quick succession.

One episode that came up was the third episode of the 30th series (the last one before the major set overhaul, won by Daphne Fowler), which WGS claimed to be episode number 1,850. And that goes against the transmissions list available on Wikipedia, which claims that episode 1,850 happened in the final week of the previous series.

Not only that, but a later episode from the same series uploaded by the same user is said by WGS to be episode 1,920, which suggests that this series thus has more episodes than the 70 Wikipedia claims. In contrast, we know for sure that Series 29 had 70 eps as WGS makes reference in the first episode of that series that we're at episode 1,778.

Now, I'm pretty sure that that list is, for the first 17 series at least, correct, given that we know the 1,000th episode came during Series 16, and the episode with the famous dropping the cards blooper was episode 1,016.

However, from Series 18 onwards, things get a bit more complicated, as the show moved from alternating with Countdown at 4:30 to being on alongside it at 4:00. And thus, like with Deal in its later years, often had to take days off for horse racing. The third episode of Series 18 demonstrates this, as does at least one other episode from the latter half of the show's run that I've come across.

Of course, it's quite possible that whoever put together that transmissions list on Wikipedia took the 2,265 episode count made by WGS in the final episode and gave an educated guess as to how long each series ran for. It would be good if we could work together to try and put together a more accurate list.

 

And then I had a thought that I had a while back, but which vanished for a while: what a shame it is that the show doesn't have a comprehensive wiki and record of every episode every made, in the same way that Countdown does. I suppose, in that sense, the show is the victim of having come off air by the time Wikis became a thing. Though, on the other hand, Robot Wars, which came off the air just after original Fifteen to One did, has a very thorough Wiki, of which I am a member.

I have thought long and hard a few times about setting one up and seeing if it catches on, and maybe now, when many of us have a lot more time on our hands than usual, would be a good time to do it. I'd require a great deal of assistance with it, though, so, if anyone reading this would be interested in this, do let me know either on here or on Twitter.

If we did create a Wiki, it would give us a chance to sort out some of the quibbles and mistakes with the information about the show we have.

Obviously, the quibbles over the precise running time of some series that I've gone on about here is one thing; another would be which episodes exactly go towards that final running total of 2,265. For example, does the Schools series that came between Series 25 and 26 count towards it? (Google says yes, Wikipedia says no)

And also the finals boards, at least three of which, available on both the defunct fansite accessible from UKGS's page about the show and here, at least three contains errors. The most notable being for Series 25, for which the boards on both sites list Dennis Collinson's score of 201 at No 15, when, in reality, that score was pushed off the board on the last show before the final.

So, I'm up for starting a Fifteen to One wiki, but it will require a great deal of hard work and research. If enough people express interest in participating in this, I shall go ahead and do it at some point in the coming weeks. So, if you are up for this, let me know below or on Twitter.

That's it for now, back on Monday with my usual write-ups; until then, sayonara.