University Challenge 2022-23: Round 1: Match 1: Bristol vs Durham

Good evening friends, and welcome back! The new series is finally underway! Of course, it will be taking on a more sombre and reflective tone now that we know this will be Paxo's final series, but hopefully it'll be a good one to see him on his way! There's also the 60th anniversary documentary tonight as well, happening as we speak, which I shall catch up on later on this week. For now, it's on with the show...

Bristol is appearing in its ninth successive series, and its 18th overall; last year's team were highly unlucky to draw and lose to eventual semi-finalists Edinburgh in the first round. This year's team were:

Sam Kehler, from Wolverhampton, studying Medicine

Jacob McLaughlin, from Gloucester, studying Economics and Maths

Captain: Tess Richardson, from Reading, studying Chemistry

Alejandro Ortega, from Chalfont St Peter, studying Physics and Philosophy

 

Durham is appearing for a record 23rd appearance in the Paxo era (or the BBC era as it will be next series) and its fifth in a row. Last year's team, who IIRC never met in person prior to appearing on the show, were beaten by eventual QFers Trinity in the first round. This year's foursome were:

Harry Scully, from Welwyn Garden City, studying Physics and Chemistry

Chloe Margaux, from Haringey in London, studying Sociology

Captain: Alex Radcliffe, from Edinburgh, studying Maths

Bea Bennett, from Icomb in Gloucestershire, studying English

 

So, off we set for the first time this series, and Mr Radcliffe had the honour of getting the first starter of the series with 'blank'; sadly, this was what his side drew on the first bonus set of the series. Thankfully, a second starter gave them a bonsu set which they did at least get one on. Bristol, in contrast, after their first starter courtesy of Mr Ortega, took two from their first set. The first picture round, on diagrams of chemical processes, went to Durham, who got a bonus pair of their own, which gave them an early lead of 45-20.

Mr Scully then took a second starter in a row for Durham, giving them a bonus set on video games which they took just one from again. Bristol then took two starters in a row, got nothing from their first bonus set, but got one from the second, on sporting firsts from last year. This took them within fifteen, but Durham bounced back with the first perfect 25 of the series, from a bonus set on earthquakes. This took us to the music round, on the soundtracks composed by Joe Hisaishi for films directed by Hayao Miyazaki; Durham took this, and one bonus was enough to eke them into three figures, they led 100-45.

Back came Bristol with a starter to Mr McLaughlin and two bonuses on artist Rosalba Carriera. Durham responded with a starter and another full bonus set; Bristol responded to that with a starter and their first full house of the night. Mr Kehler then gave the Avonsiders two in a row, and it was around this point I realised that every starter had been answered correctly thus far, a terrific achievement for both sides; two bonuses took Bristol into three figures. They also took the second picture round, on artworks that were the subject of court cases, and a full house gave them the lead, 135-125.

The brilliant record then finally ended with the first dropped starter of the night, but Mr McLaughlin quickly identified 'A Tale of Two Cities' for the next starter; just one bonus followed, and then Mr Scully took the next for Durham, and a sole bonus of their own meant the gap was back to 10 points. Mr McLaughlin gave Bristol a stronger lead back; just one bonus on Indian languages followed, but another starter and two bonuses on words ending 'USE' looked to have won the game for them. But Mr Scully quickly took the next for Durham, and a full set on years ending '99' kept them in the game! A starter to Mr Radcliffe and two bonuses tied up the game! One starter shoot-out! Mr Radcliffe blinked first, and that was the gong! Durham won a great game 195-185!

A fantastic start to the series; very well played both teams, both of whom would've deserved to win and both of whom totally deserve to come back, good on them for clapping each other at the end too. Hard lines to Bristol, but they'll be back in the play-offs for sure and must surely start them as favourites against whoever they end up playing; best of luck then! Congrats to Durham though, and very best of luck in the second round!

The stats: Mr Scully was the best buzzer of the night with five starters, while Mr McLaughlin was Bristol's best with four. On the bonuses, Bristol managed 17 out of 30, and Durham also had 17 out of 30, meaning it really was that final starter that won the game! That's how closely matched these two teams were; congrats to both again, a great start to the new series!

Next week's match: Open vs Newcastle

Only Connect kicked off Series 18 with the Statisticals, John Warren, Matt Loy and captain Karyn Cooke, against the Morporkians, Cathryn Peppard, Sarah Besly-Quick and captain Andrew Gyford. The former led 5-3 after the first round, and 11-8 after the second. Two perfect walls made it 21-18, but the Morporkians got the better of an excellent Missing Vowels round to sneak a win 27-26! But a great first game, both sides deserve their returns. The show was dedicated to the show’s exec producer Chris Stuart, who sadly passed away last month.

 

Brain of Britain had its fifth heat this afternoon; a summary of it and the first four will, hopefully, be coming up later in the week. (Apologies I didn’t do it yesterday as promised; I had mislaid my notes)

Amol Rajan to be new host of University Challenge

So, the day after I published that previous post with my thoughts on the new series and Paxo's impending departure from the series, the BBC announced that Amol Rajan will be his successor. He's no stranger to the show of course, having competed in the Christmas 2020 series for Downing Cambridge; here's what I wrote of that series at the time.

The response to this announcement over the past week has been pretty mixed to say the least, with quite a lot of people not terribly happy with the choice of him for a variety of reasons, many of them relating to what else he's done and said in his career thus far; see the latest Weaver's Week for a concise summary of the main reasons why his appointment hasn't gone down all that well.

For me personally, the jury's out until we've actually seen him in action on the show; he probably wouldn't have been a choice I'd have made, but I'm very much prepared to give him a chance and see how he actually fares before drawing my conclusions.

Of course, to be fair, given how long Paxo's been doing the show and how popular he's become, he was always going to be a most difficult act to follow for anyone who tried to. Compared to Mastermind last year, where John Humphrys, while he did a perfectly acceptable job IMO, was never that popular, so when Clive Myrie was announced as his successor, it immediately felt right, and so it transpired when we saw him in action. (It's a shame Mastermind got him first, as I suspect he'd have also slotted into the UC job very easily too)

So, to conclude, I'm not going to say whether I think TPTB have made a good choice or not until at least a good few episodes into the next series; then we'll take stock. Until then, it's business as usual, and hopefully the new series on Monday will be a great one for Paxo to go out on!

Back on Sunday with a summary of the first four heats of this year's Brain of Britain; then, on Monday, Quizzy Mondays finally returns with my first write-up of the series. So, see you then...

University Challenge to return on the 29th... and it'll be Paxo's final series

So, yesterday, after weeks of speculation, we finally learned what we'd all come to assume anyway: that UC will indeed be back on the 29th. Plus, there'll be a special documentary afterwards to mark the show's 60th anniversary and the film adaptation of Starter for 10 after that.

But, of course, the big news yesterday was that Jeremy Paxman will be stepping down as host after this series.

Sad news, but not entirely unexpected, given how much he was visibly struggling with his illness during the last series. As Dave C said on LAM last year, the man deserves respect and admiration for wanting to carry on doing the show as long as he can in spite of his illness. And he's done the show for so long now that he deserves to be able to stop doing it in his own time.

In a rather nice bit of timing, yesterday's (repeat of) Pointless featured a question about his hosting of the show, and Messrs Armstrong and Osman remarked how odd it is that he's still thought of as 'the new host' of the show when he's been doing it over a quarter of a century now. Indeed, my grandparents, and various others on Twitter, often say how odd it is to them when they watch the show and Bamber, God rest his soul, isn't there.

 

On the other hand, there is now a whole younger generation, myself included, who have only ever known him as host of the show, so seeing someone else do it next year will feel very odd indeed.

Nonetheless, I wish the man all the best for his retirement and hopefully this new series will be a good one for him to go out on!

And we won't have to wait long to find out who's next, as the BBC article stated that the new presenter will be announced 'later this week'.

 

So, for now, I'll avoid all the speculation that has erupted over the past day and wait until the official announcement is made before airing my views. But I will say that, after getting the Mastermind appointment spot on with Clive Myrie, I have every confidence that the BBC will get the right person for the job.

 

Back to the new series itself, and we now know that the first match of the series on the 29th will be Bristol vs Durham (two of whom I have already encountered on Twitter). Also, if the BBC website is to be believed, the series will be 37 episodes again. Which means, of my two theories as to the late start this year, the correct one appears to be we're simply starting later and not having the very first matches in the dead of summer when fewer will be watching. Assuming the usual two week break for the Xmas series and no other unforeseen stoppages (mind you, the World Cup?), we should be getting the final in late May.

Anyway, I'll be back when the new host is announced with my initial thoughts on the appointment, whoever it may be; so, see you then...

University Challenge 2012-13 Revisited: Part 12: Matches 35 to 37

OK, so, when I started this 10th anniversary series three months ago, I assumed it'd still be running when the new series began, hence why I stopped watching and reviewing eps on Mondays. But, here we are, on the final installment, and not only has the new series not begun, it hasn't even been (unofficially) announced! Thankfully, it shouldn't be much longer now; we know Only Connect is back on the 29th, and I think we're all now expecting UC to be back alongside it. Which means, either TPTB have finally done away with the expanded QF format and the new series is shorter than before, or it's still 37 and we're just starting and finishing later than usual, possibly as TPTB have decided to stop burying the first matches in the summer when everyone's away. Anyway, more on that next week hopefully; for now, let's get this over with...

Match 35, Semi-Final 1: U.C.L. vs New College (15th April 2013)

So, the first semi-final where, controversially, the two unbeaten teams in the series played each other, which, IIRC, Adam or Jim reported here at the time that New College weren’t very happy about. Which is probably why, in future series, where one of the semi-finalists had already played two of the others, the one they’d played longer ago was the one they’d be redrawn against. Anyway, New College took the first starter, but U.C.L. then raced into an early lead and, as Jim (and Dave on LAM IIRC) said at the time, when Mr Dennis identified ‘Lord Kelvin’ for the third starter of the game, a starter where Mr Cappleman might’ve been expected to get first, it looked ominous for New College.

 

A run of incorrect starters, three of them incurring penalties, slowed things down a bit, before New College got a rally together and pulled within fifteen points. But then, when Mr Hood unluckily lost five when his answer of “they moved from the Conservatives to the Labour Party” was disallowed on a question about MPs who crossed the floor (not all the same direction), that gave U.C.L. more room to pull away. The rest of the show was fairly even (with New College even getting the exact same bonuses that Bangor had gotten in their U.C.L. match!), but U.C.L. maintained their lead to win 195-115.

 

Match 36, Semi-Final 2: Manchester vs Bangor (22nd April 2013)

The second semi-final, between the two teams who’d lost a QF (in both cases, to U.C.L. no less) en route to the semis, with Bangor the neutral favourites for most on here given Adam’s posting on here and Manchester’s imperious UC record in the years prior. The ‘home team’ started stronger, taking the first three starters to run up to 50 before Bangor got off the mark. The first picture starter was the flag of the Central African Republic, appropriate as that won the Jackpot on that day’s Pointless! (Back in the days when that show was still at its peak) The two teams then swapped starters for a bit, before Adam finally got the music starter he’d been waiting for all series! Two bonuses gave Bangor the lead.

 

Manchester quickly took it back with the next starter however, before a run of three penalties from Bangor in quick succession allowed them to run away into a 60-point lead. Despite a penalty of their own allowing Bangor to take the second picture round, Manchester remained resolute and saw out the remainder of the match comfortably. Manchester won 160-95, though, as Adam said in the comments of my original post, it could’ve been different if he’d beaten Manchester to a couple of starters he knew, the first picture one included. Still, as Paxo said, it was the furthest a Welsh team had gotten in the series (amended by Adam to joint furthest, though this didn’t make it to screen), and their run was a great one, so well done to them again! Manchester, meanwhile, had a rematch with U.C.L. incoming…

 

Match 37, The Final: U.C.L. vs Manchester (29th April 2013)

And so to the big one, the final was contested by the two teams who were, on balance, the best two of the series. U.C.L. were the favourites, but it was Manchester who got off to the better start, with a penalty setting their opponents back five as they shot up to 40, with a further penalty subsequently allowing it to increase to 60. The London side did get a run together, Mr Parton taking three starters in a row, including the music round, to reduce their arrears to 15, but Manchester then increased it again with the best bonus round of the series, on two-word phrases that sound like UC buzzer announcements (such as ‘Nottingham Forest’)!

 

U.C.L. did pull one back straight away, but Manchester then ran away on the buzzer and, suddenly, their lead had reached 100 points. U.C.L. did pull back a starter and a full bonus set, and a penalty from Manchester meant they were, just about, still in the game. But another starter to Manchester killed the game off, and there probably wasn’t enough time for them to pull it back anyway. Manchester won the game and the series 190-140, and received the trophy from the Astronomer Royal Martin (now Lord) Rees.

 

And that concludes this series! It's been fun watching that series back over again, but I think I'll keep this a one-off and not do it every summer to bridge the gap between series, that would be a bit much. Thanks to all who've read this series, and, once again, everyone who's read and commented on this blog over the past ten years (and three months); here's hopefully to many more years to come!

 

Will be back next week, or whenever the new series is finally confirmed, with a confirmatory post of my own; whenever that is, see you then...