Tuesday 7 October 2014

New Egghead Lisa Thiel

It seems like a lot of debate has been emerging on Social Media about the latest addition to the Eggheads team Lisa Thiel who made her debut last week. We all know Twitter is a harsh place but regardless a few talking points seemed to have emerged that are worth addressing and getting opinions on - 

-  Lisa was offered the job. Lets just bear this in mind....regardless of how good you are at quizzing if the BBC approached you and offered you £xxxx to bean Egghead would you turn it down? The production team have to consider a number of factors including ratings, appealing to all age groups/denominations and producing a watchable show. They have more knowledge and experience in doing that than most of the people passing judgement on Lisa, and must have seen something in her to give her the nod. And thus far, in my opinion, this judgement has proven to be a sound one!


 -  One of the main arguments revolves around the availability of other top quizzers who could have stepped in. With Pat and Kevin the team, arguably the two finest quizzers of all in addition to Barry Simmons (2013 Brain of Britain)....does the team really need strengthening? Adding top level, shall we say elite?, quizzers to the team would start making the task of beating them even more difficult. Nobody wants to watch the Eggheads 5 vs 1 in the final every night of the week! That is no disrespect to the new Egghead Lisa who certainly brings something new to the team.

- I personally think Lisa has settled in well and gives new dynamic to the show. Keeping a show that has been running 10+ years fresh is important and this decision certainly does that!


Any other views of the new Egghead?

6 comments:

  1. I'm possibly not really qualified to comment as I have not seen her first episode yet, but I have seen some of her other quiz appearances and have communicated with her a little online. I do think that some of the reactions to her online are a little unfair, and I'll address a few of the ones that haven't come up.

    One of the most frequently recurring comments about her is that she has not proved herself as a quizzer. I disagree on this point, because she has appeared on Weakest Link, HeadJam, The Chase and Revenge of the Egghead, and she reached the final on all of them. That's more than Judith has done (not that I have anything against Judith, I respect her as an Egghead and like her as a person, but it seems unfair to accept Judith and not Lisa when comparing their previous quizzing experience.) From seeing her on two out of four of these shows, I think that she comes across as very intelligent and is certainly more knowledgable than the average challenger. It wouldn't be correct to say that she's up there with the likes of Kevin and Pat, not at all, but in fairness she is considerably younger than them. I think that when bearing in mind the quality of her colleagues, her own quizzing credentials and the quality of the challengers that they have, in addition to the fact that she's young enough to improve over time and become even stronger than she is at the moment, Lisa is certainly qualified to be an Egghead.

    The other thing that continuously comes up is that people think that she's cocky and irritating, having a similar personality to CJ. I do actually see their point as Lisa is pretty quick-witted and appears to have no qualms about offering quite sharp and definitive responses when questioned, but that doesn't annoy me at all. CJ comes across as a bit unpleasant, and I think everyone knows that that is all a bit of an act - anyone who has ever had a one-on-one with him has said that he's actually really nice. I have no idea if Lisa's manner is an act or not, but in any case I rather appreciate her approach, it really added something to her episodes of Weakest Link and Revenge, and I'm sure it adds something to Eggheads as well. In her interviews, she has come across as a very honest and pleasant person, if a rather assertive one, and as I said I have communicated a little with her online. If I ever tweet her, she always takes the time to respond to me, and is always very polite and friendly.

    I give Lisa the benefit of the doubt from what I've seen of her, I look forward to seeing her on Eggheads (I'm catching up on iPlayer).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lisa comes across as such a stuck up, up herself snob. She should think herself lucky she was asked to be an egghead. After all it appears all she was is a contestant on other quiz shows. She is knowledgable but not in the same league as the other eggheads by any means. She needs to stop looking down her nose at the contestants. She is only one person after all. Stuck up cow!

      Delete
    2. 'All she was is a contestant on other quiz shows'... you mean as have all the other Eggheads? Many of them have done non-televised quizzes as well, but other quiz shows is how most, if not all of them, became known.

      As for her coming across as though she thinks she is better than the contestants, do you have an instance of this? Because I haven't noticed anything like that at all. As I said, she has always been very pleasant to me, although I confess to have only interacted with her on the Internet and not in real life. On television I don't think she comes across as nasty at all - confident, definitely, but not in an unpleasant way. But each to their own.

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Quality going down again! The only thing Lisa seems to do is pull (unattractive) faces and make useless remarks. Nothing to do with the class and quiet elegance of the other ladies in the team. She makes watching the programme a painful experiece for me so, unfortunatelly, I will have to say ...no more Eggheads for me!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agree with some of the comments made by Sketchbook and Danielle. Comes across as very cocky for a newcomer. Can't really take to her and don't watch it as much as I used to.

      Delete