Normally, this is the time of the year when we quiz commentators get a rest, as none of the major quizzes are on. And I was recently uncertain what I would cover on here until UC resumes in July. But Only Connect seems to have returned a few months earlier than usual, so, why not?
Two changes for the new series: firstly, Victoria Coren now calls herself 'Victoria Coren Mitchell', following her marriage to the perennial Internet favourite David Mitchell; secondly, and more importantly, the rules have changed! It seems the show has adopted a system similar/identical to UC's quarter-final rules, in that each team will play repeatedly until some go through to the semis. I hope this isn't due to what I said over on LAM last year about what a shame it is that the show is a straight knockout.
Anyway, playing last night were the Corpuscles, and the Cat Lovers.
The cleverly named Corpuscles are all graduates of Corpus Christi College Oxford, and all have represented the college on UC: Paul Taylor and Seb Page played in 2007, where their team were trounced by Edinburgh in Round 2, while captain Sam Kay, lest we forget, competed alongside Gail Trimble in 2009, helping the team to victory, only for them to be disqualified after it emerged he'd left by the time of the later stages.
Their opponents, the Cat Lovers, were Roger Johnson, Jean Upton, and captain Jim Crozier, were linked by their love of cats, unsurprisingly. I am not aware of any of them being on any shows before, but Dave Clark may let us know over on LAM later.
Anyway, off we went, and Victoria tried to explain the new rules to us, but eventually had to resort to a complex diagram, which may or may not have been a joke.
One thing that hadn't changed was the format: we began with Connections between four clues. The Corpuscles went first, and had an unlucky miss, opting for '5,000', when the answer needed was '10,000'. The Cat Lovers took the points. The much dreaded music round went to the Cat Lovers; neither them or their opponents spotted the connection, that all the bands playing share their names with high street retailers.
The Cat Lovers also got the picture round, on pictures connected to 'safety', including a still from Harold Lloyd's 'Safety Last'. Overall, the Cat Lovers had the best of the first round, leading 6-1 at the end.
And so, on we moved to the Sequences round, where the teams are shown all but the final clue, which they have to guess what it is. In a change to previous series, we seemed to have two picture rounds. The first of these went to the Corpuscles, who had another unlucky miss; the question was on rosettes given to horse race winners, and their colours, and they opted for the wrong colour.
A rather complicated question that went to the Cat Lovers turned out to be on a dart board: consecutive numbers, and what appears either side, for example 17: 3 and 2. Neither side got the fourth: 20: 5 and 1. Another question, the second picture one, saw the Corpuscles get the right answer, but the wrong reason (they still got the points), and get a lot of stick from Victoria for their wrong reason, including some after the next question had been asked!
The final question of the round, I should have got, and would have if I'd paid more attention: it was the first names of the male generations of the Simpsons! Still annoyed I missed that! The Cat Lovers got it, but the Corpuscles had had a good round too, and had cut their deficit to 9-8.
On to the Connecting Walls, which are usually the hardest round of the show. The Cat Lovers struggled with theirs, only getting one group within the time limit, but getting a couple of bonuses for unsolved groups; they came away with 4 points. The Corpuscles did better, getting all four groups, and two of the connections. This got them six points, and was enough to give them a narrow lead of 14-13, going into the final round.
As usual, we finished with Missing Vowels. This was really closely fought by both sides, both of whom buzzed strongly, and answered well. However, another very unlucky miss for the Corpuscles, who answered 'Clockwork Orange' instead of 'A Clockwork Orange', cost them a point, and gave the opposition a pretty easy point. This proved crucial, as, at the end of the show, the Cat Lovers had the victory, by 18-17.
A very good performance their by both sides, both of whom deserve to play again. It's a good thing they've introduced this new format, as it would've been rather unfair on the Corpuscles, who were a good team and had a few unlucky misses, to go out so soon. We'll see how this new format unfolds in later weeks, before we draw any definite conclusions on it.
I like this new format. There are so many good teams on this show that they deserve to play more than once.
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