OK, so, you may have heard a minor fuss has been kicked up this past week after a mistake was spotted in Monday's Only Connect. In the very first question of the series no less.
For those who didn't see it, the Whitley Baes saw a picture of Ronnie O'Sullivan for the first clue, then a picture of Marvel's Rocket Raccoon for the second, and instantly spotted the connection for three points. However, one of the pictures they didn't need wasn't Stephenson's Rocket, as it was supposed to be, but a different, earlier construction by Stephenson.
Of course, it didn't make any difference to the final outcome; the various scenarios in which it may have done have already been discussed by Dave C over on LAM a few days ago, so I recommend you read that.
It does bring up the spectre of occassions when a mistake, or, as the WWTBAM Wiki would call it, a 'Bad Question', HAS influenced the outcome of a quiz show though.
Of course, if a Bad Question did occur on WWTBAM, such as the famous tennis question or the Million Pound Question that Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen got wrong, the mistake was usually acknowledged on screen and, if impacted negatively, the contesant allowed another go. Ditto the original Fifteen-to-One, where contestants who received a Bad Question, or, more commonly, had a borderline answer harshly disallowed, were allowed another go.
I can only think of two instances of a Bad Question on University Challenge. One of these happened in the first round of the 2010-11 series, where the Sheffield team of blog readers Tristram Cole and Hugh Bennett were asked a question which began "Which son of Edward IV, who also became king...", and to which the answer was 'Richard III', who was, of course, Edward IV's brother, not his son.
As I say, it didn't affect the outcome as Sheffield won by 200+ points, but it's worth mentioning, not least because the exact same Bad Question subsequently appeared in a UC quiz book!
(Incidentally, now I mention that Sheffield team, I do believe they are unique in being the only UC team all four of whom have since been on Only Connect as well; Hugh, Andy Bolton and Tom Thirkell made up the Steel City Singers from Series 5, while Tris was part of the Bookworms in Series 11. Do correct me if I'm wrong about that though.)
The other instance happened in the first round of the 1998-99 season, and was much more consequential. A team from Balliol College Oxford were asked a question that went something like "What is the only country to border both Latvia and Lithuania?", which is a Bad Question because there are two countries that border both those nations: Belarus, which was the answer on the card, and Russia, which is what they said, due to the Kaliningrad exclave.
Balliol went on to lose that match to Durham (among whom were future Mastermind champ Jesse Honey and future Fifteen-to-One winner Jack Welsby) by just five points, that question proving the difference. They subsequently got an on-screen apology from the chairman when they came back in the play-offs, but, while they won that match, they were beaten in the second round, while Durham ended up reaching the semi-finals.
Of course, the most memorable (for me anyway) mistake on UC, wasn't a Bad Question, but a wrongful allowance. In the first round of the 2001-02 series, during a bonus set on Scottish football, a team from Newcastle answered 'Dundee' when the answer was 'Dundee United', and got the points! (For those who don't know, Dundee and Dundee United are two completely different teams altogether!) Newcastle went on to, initially, beat their opponents Downing College Cambridge by just five points, the mistake, again, making all the difference!
This time, however, the mistake was noticed in time for something to be done about it; Paxman announced after the gong that the five points had been awarded in error, so they were deducted, putting the teams on level pegging, and a tie-breaker was filmed, which Newcastle won, so nothing changed ultimately.
The point is, mistakes can, and do, happen, even on the best of quiz shows which have the best of question setters. I think Dave C summed it up best on his post when he pointed out that, at the end of the day, it's just a quiz; we can discuss the matter at length, but there are more important things to worry about than whether someone was or wasn't hard done by on a quiz show.
Back on Monday with my usual write-ups, so, see yous then...
It's not the first time there has been a blunder in a picture question on OC - a few years ago there was a question where they included David Steel in the Gang of Four instead of Shirley Williams. On that occasion, Victoria acknowledged the error during the credits after the show.
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