Mastermind 2012/2013 - Episode 1
Welcome back Mastermind! It does not seem like 5 minutes since Gary Grant stormed to victory in the Mastermind final earlier in the year but the new series started tonight and it is good to have the show back. With University Challenge back too as well as Only Connect due at the end of the month, the quality quiz shows are coming round again!
This year, as I have mentioned maybe a few times :), I applied to Mastermind an failed to get on the show so I have an extra dimension to viewing each episode this series. How would I have done? It will always be hard to say but either way I am going to thoroughly enjoy the series as the quest to find the next Mastermind begins......
So, the first batch of the 96 Mastermind contestants for this series tonight were -
Rosalind Winter
Nathan Joss
Gregory Spiller
Chris Cann
And so we were away with a good range of specialist subjects tonight. First up was Rosalind Winter who had the subject of Jane Austen Novels for her specialist subject. A bit of a dubious area as with so few novels written I did not think this would acceptable. Nevertheless Rosalind did not let the occasion phase her and with a reasonable set of questions scored 15 which is always going to give a Mastermind contestant a very good chance of progressing. A narrow subject but answered superbly.
Nathan Joss was next, a student and there will be few younger on the show this year. He tackled Elizabeth I and made a confident start, again looking totally unphased by the pressure of the chair. The answers kept coming, and the questions were much more wide reaching that the first set, and a heck of a lot longer in wording!, and Nathan managed 13. Good score!
Next tackling Fawlty Towers was Gregory Spiller. This was of much interest to me as this could have been a specialist subject of my own and I was really looking forward to this round. Again though with only 12 episodes made this must have been a lucky one to get through past the production team as I know people have had other shows that had 3-4 series but were considered "too short". Gregory did well though and scored 16, 1-2 more than I would have got with no research, but whether I could do it in the chair is another matter. Gregory coped well and went into an early lead.
Chris Cann was last into the chair knowing a decent score was needed to stay in touch and the wider subject of The Savoy Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan was his choice. Chris did well and never looked in trouble at all recording another high score of 16. This was going to be close.....All down to GK.
Nathan Joss was next, a student and there will be few younger on the show this year. He tackled Elizabeth I and made a confident start, again looking totally unphased by the pressure of the chair. The answers kept coming, and the questions were much more wide reaching that the first set, and a heck of a lot longer in wording!, and Nathan managed 13. Good score!
Next tackling Fawlty Towers was Gregory Spiller. This was of much interest to me as this could have been a specialist subject of my own and I was really looking forward to this round. Again though with only 12 episodes made this must have been a lucky one to get through past the production team as I know people have had other shows that had 3-4 series but were considered "too short". Gregory did well though and scored 16, 1-2 more than I would have got with no research, but whether I could do it in the chair is another matter. Gregory coped well and went into an early lead.
Chris Cann was last into the chair knowing a decent score was needed to stay in touch and the wider subject of The Savoy Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan was his choice. Chris did well and never looked in trouble at all recording another high score of 16. This was going to be close.....All down to GK.
Scores at the end of the Mastermind Specialist Subject Rounds -
Gregory Spiller - 16
Chris Cann - 16
Chris Cann - 16
Rosalind Winter - 15
Nathan Joss - 13
Nathan Joss - 13
Into the General Knowledge round which is where the most fun lies for me and again the question writing is up to the usual high standard. This was going to be a very very close tie and I would not have liked to hedge a bet where it was going.
Nathan Joss was first carrying over his score of 13. He gave a great performance with what I thought was a very uneven set of questions with "gimmies" thrown in throughout the round. Nathan was very impressive, matches his 13 from the SS round and managed to take his total up to 26.
Rosalind Winter next....She faced what I thought was a much tougher set than the others tonight. There were far less "gimmies" and far more tougher questions thrown in and Roslaind managed a solid 9(despite not getting the Brain of Britain questions which I suspect she knew!). 9 was not enough though and Nathan Joss Leads.
Nathan Joss was first carrying over his score of 13. He gave a great performance with what I thought was a very uneven set of questions with "gimmies" thrown in throughout the round. Nathan was very impressive, matches his 13 from the SS round and managed to take his total up to 26.
Rosalind Winter next....She faced what I thought was a much tougher set than the others tonight. There were far less "gimmies" and far more tougher questions thrown in and Roslaind managed a solid 9(despite not getting the Brain of Britain questions which I suspect she knew!). 9 was not enough though and Nathan Joss Leads.
Gregory Spiller next needing to add 10 to his total from his Fawlty Tours round. Very impressive over the first half! The answers to some tough questions came thick and fast showing what you need to win Mastermind...speed and knowledge. A little wobble came towards the end though and you see so many Mastermind Contestants slip into a pass/wrong answer combination that tends to throw them off. Gregory managed to pull it together scoring another 16 to take his total to 32 but I think he has much more to offer in this series! A definite contender to go far in the series but Chris Cann was still to come...
Chris Cann needed 16 to match the current leader and started well with a very confident opening but got caught in a spiral of wrong answers early on which made his task even harder. Whether it was guessing or the pressures of the chair, it was hard to tell but Chris was in the middle of a terrible run before he had reached 20. It is one tactic to guess at anything rather than pass but Chris was in need of points and passing is after all quicker! The questions seemed to be a fair and balanced set, probably the most balanced of the night, and Chris managed 13 scoring 29 meaning he will have to wait and see if that score will take him through as a highest scoring runner up.
Mastermind Episode 1 Final Scores -
Gregory Spiller - 32
Chris Cann - 29
Chris Cann - 29
Nathan Joss - 26
Rosalind Winter - 24
So very big congratulations to Gregory Spiller who scored a very good 32. He could be a dangerous opponent in future rounds and advances to the semi finals which seem such a long way away now!
Roll on next week, welcome back Mastermind.
Roll on next week, welcome back Mastermind.
I guess that since I posted this on David Clark's blog, I should also post it here.
ReplyDeleteGary Grant's comments about fairness during the last series have inspired me to create a metric called correct answers per 40 questions. Whilst the tenths place is not a significant digit, it will probably be needed later on as a tiebreaker about which 30 contestants "should've" moved on. To be fair, I think that Mastermind does a lot better job of advancing its better contestants than University Challenge does, but this metric might be interesting to some people.
Anyway, the CA40 for round 1 are:
Gregory Spiller-32.8
Chris Cann-30.3
Nathan Joss-27.4
Rosalind Winter-26.7
Since the CA40's were higher than the actual Mastermind scores, no one was even asked 40 (let alone the 41 minimum needed to match Ashman) questions in this heat.
Cheers,
Jonathan