Good evening again my friends, and welcome back to another Quizzy Monday! And a very high quality one indeed we have tonight! Finally a full line-up again with Mastermind back as well. It's a shame the Radio 4 PTB decided to move Brain of Britain to Sundays so we won't have a full round again, but at least we have Sounds to fix that little problemo. On with tonight's pretty explosive events...
Beginning with UC as ever, and two of the most successful institutions in the show's history. Firstly, reigning champions Imperial, whose title win last series was their fifth, a new record for the series; their previous four came in 1995-96, 2000-01, 2019-20 and 2021-22 (more on that later). Big things no doubt expected, therefore, of this year's team; they were:
Charlotte Stokes, from Chester, studying Applied Genomics
Mattia Elkouby, from South London, studying Chemistry
Captain: Matthew Spry, from Gateshead, studying Electrochemistry
Jaime Salamanca Camacho, from Madrid, studying Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces
Manchester is now the joint second most successful, winning three titles and being retroactively awarded a fourth within a ten year period that saw them reach at least the semis in all nine series they partook in. After that, though, they didn't reach the semis again until last series. This year's line-up comprised of:
Adam Dodd, from Exeter, studying Medicine
Millie Sutherland, from Brasted in Kent, studying Philosophy and Political Theory
Captain: Joel Crossley, from Chester, studying Physics
Nathan Easow, from Chelmsford, studying Medicine
Imperial immediately picked up where their predecessors left off last series, taking the first three starters of the game and every bonus bar one to immediately pull into a strong lead. Manchester were restricted to a penalty, but did eventually get some points on the board proper with the first picture round, a full set on which took the scores to 70-20. But another penalty allowed Imperial to quickly take the initiative back, and they never looked back; starter after starter and the vast majority of bonuses, and their lead was soon already in three figures. After the music round, the lead stood at 175-15.
Manchester did manage to get a couple more starters and a solid haul of bonuses, but this run was halted by a forgivable penalty, which handed Imperial back possession. After the second picture round, the gap stood at 240-50. It was now just a question of how high both teams could get; Manchester did get another starter, but just one bonus followed, and their hopes of a late play-off charge were dashed as Imperial went on a strong late run of their own, which saw them reach and break 300. At the gong, Imperial won 310-75.
Another forebodingly brilliant first performance from Imperial; carry on like that and they'll be finalists at least again! For now, though, best of luck in the second round! Bad luck to Manchester to come up against that; they'd have beaten another team on the evidence of what they managed. Thanks very much for playing though!
The stats: Messrs Spyr and Salamanca Camacho were joint best buzzers of the night with six starters each, while Mr Crossley was best for Manchester with three. On the bonuses, Imperial managed an amazing 32 out of 45(!) and Manchester an also pretty good 8 out of 13 (with three forgivable penalties).
Next week's match: Reading vs Exeter
Only Connect featured a pretty
strong line-up indeed tonight, as we met the Bloomsbury Group, Michael
Hutchinson (UC runner-up captain with Reading three series ago and a strong
player on UK Jeopardy earlier this year), Michael Kohn (UC semi-finalist
captain with Imperial a year prior) and captain Fatima Sheriff (part of the
Imperial team that beat Mr Hutchinson’s Reading to win that series), and the
Tea Totallers, Eleanor Ayres (Mastermind and Brain of Britain finalist and big
winner on revived WWTBAM), Rob Sassoon and captain Matt Taylor.
The former led 6-5 after a very
high quality first round which saw some very complex questions worked out by
both teams; I got the Catchphrase question at the same time as the Totallers
did in the second round, but that was nothing compared to the two teams, who managed
to get all six questions for three points, a truly spectacular achievement,
after which the BG led by a record after R2 aggregate of 15-14!
The high quality continued as the
Totallers easily solved their wall for a full ten in pretty quick order; the BG
took rather longer, solving everything with just seconds to go, but the result
was the same, so, as you were, 25-24 going into Missing Vowels. The BG fared
better on a pretty tough and lower scoring round (“Finally foxed you!”) to win
a superb contest 29-26. The show certainly lived up to the expectations I had
when I saw the two line-ups though; very well done indeed both teams and best
of luck next time!
Next week’s match: Third Agers vs
Introverts
Mastermind returned from its break
tonight. James Waller resumed the series with the films of Martin Scorsese, doing
well to score 7 on a pretty broad category. Tom Clarke followed him into the
chair, answering on singer-songwriter Phil Ochs, and matched James’ score,
another 7. Michelle Miller was next, answering on costume designer Edith Head, but
fell short of matching the previous score, 6 her total. Finally, Lizzie Hancock
gave us the best score of the round, scoring 10 on Mary I, putting her in pole
position for GK.
So Michelle returned for GK first,
and gave a very good effort indeed, scoring 12 to take her total to 18 and set
a solid benchmark for the others. James did better though; despite a few
pauses, he scored a good 13 to take his score to 20. Tom’s round never got
going for him sadly; he could only manage 6, giving him a final score of 13. Lizzie
thus needed 11 to win the game, but she fell agonisingly just short; 9 points
gave her a final score of 19.
So James goes through to the
semis; well done him, and thanks all for a close contest!
Brain of Britain was also a pretty
formidable line-up yesterday, and, for the second week in a row, ended in a dead
heat, with Helen Lippell (another Mastermind finalist and OC alumnus) and Shanine
Salmon (a recent contestant on Counterpoint) both finishing on 13 points!
Shanine won the resulting tie-breaker to ensure passage to the SFs, though
Helen’s score stands her a fine chance of going through too. UC and OC runner-up
Dennis (using his mononym like he did on the latter as opposed to his full name
on the former) wasn’t far behind on 11, which sadly won’t be enough for a HSNW
slot probably; Mark Robotham, a former Mastermind semi-finalist) completed the
line-up with 8.
And that's this week's action done, and what a week it was! Even with the later stages of these fine shows to come, it's going to have to go to some distance to top the quality on display today, on UC and OC especially! Anyway, thanks as ever for reading, and see yous again same time same place next week...
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