So there we are then. After filming way back in March our Episode of Eggheads (Chaplins Smilers of Sunderland) has aired. A few days ago I posted of my account of the day as a whole, omitting the results and questions etc, but now the show has aired I can continue that one from the moment we stepped into the studio.
As mentioned, the introductions were filmed first and after meeting the Eggheads the studio was set to record. We knew nothing about the money at stake until Jeremy Vine announced it in the recorded section. I assume they do this to get a genuine reaction out of the teams when the money is high. We certainly were not expecting £40,000 and we may have thought about our subject choices more has we known :) I only really knew Adam before the Eggheads audition. He is a local quizmaster and picked some players from the various quizzes he attends so I really didn't know what to expect. It was a rather strange experience in that sense. We had quizzed together the week before to get to know each other a little.
Either way it was on with the quiz and everything seemed to go over in a blur. Contestants know nothing of the subjects prior to the show. We had made a plan on the train going down and nobody wanted to do Geography so I took it as my second option (Arts and Books being the other). I am a very keen sports fan and have had great sports results in various quizzes so ideally wanted to take on one of the big guns on Sport. However, one of our team mates was also keen on sport, and being the passive one, I gave it up.
Not being at all confident on Geography I was at least though pleased one of my subjects came up so I could have a one to one match. The Eggheads film in the same room for these. You are taken down the corridor to a room with a couple of crew members, two big cameras and a long bench with the contestant on one end and the Egghead on the other. The rest you may have seen (It will be on iplayer of course for the next week).
I knew the first question but wanted to get settled in the room a little, and under instruction of course to prolong answers, stretched it out a little. My reaction to the St. Moritz questions was quite genuine, I went purely on the Winter Olympics idea but for all I knew they could have all been Ski resorts! One that was in my mind there was no changing. My confidence was definitely boosted with Dave getting one wrong and when I picked up on his wrong answer even better!
My luck was then over. I panicked a little on the last question not really knowing it and having nothing to go on. I realise this was quite a bad miss. My chance to win was gone and it was tiebreaker time.
Again the first question was gettable in the tiebeaker...I had a pneumonic to remember the order of the countries and whether it was observable or not I could see myself running through this. However, the classic case of remembering the wrong pneumonic leading to the wrong answer. A bad answer I know but after fluffing the pneumonic I couldn't regain focus.
The second Tiebreaker question I thought was tough. Got no where near it and Dave answered his to win the match. Disappointed to lose, two questions I definitely should have had but it was back to the studio for the rest of the game.
It was odd watching the rest of the game on TV as I have so little memory of it. One answer, I won't tell you which, has resulted in 8 months of stick for one of the team but everyone enjoyed it. John was unlucky as his pop music knowledge is superb but the music questions didn't fall right and Judith had a far easier set than Anthony but I don't want to sound like a moaner. We were well beat but enjoyed the day!
That left Derek on his own in the final. Had one of us made it it could have made the difference. It was odd again watching on TV as all you can see and hear in the other room is Jeremy Vine. It is easy saying this in retrospect but I found the final set to be quite comfortable, whether or not I would have said the same had I been alone I do not know, but we had given Derek too much to do.
Then that was that! A great day, a disappointing result but no regrets about doing the show. It gets a lot of criticism from the Quizzing community but I am glad to have taken part in an episode of Eggheads and really enjoyed my first experience of Television!
Hard luck Dan!
ReplyDeleteI thought you acquitted yourself well. At the end of the day, like many other quizzes, it comes down to the luck of the draw with the questions.
Hi Dan
ReplyDeleteHard lines, but you did well to take Dave all the way on Sport - he's pretty damn good.
"It gets a lot of criticism from the Quizzing community but I am glad to have taken part in an episode of Eggheads and really enjoyed my first experience of Television!"
Yes, it's a funny thing about Eggheads. People can't just accept it - they either love or loathe it generally. With regards to the Eggheads themselves, alright sometimes Judith isn't very impressive, and it's difficult to point to any other quiz achievement other than her £1million on WWTBAM. But then, she DID achieve that, which deserves its own level of respect. As for the others, they are all great quizzers. I mean - three of them have done the Mastermind/BoB double. Two of them have been world champions. Another two of them have won BoB, and Daphne has also won Fifteen to One, as did Kevin. With credentials like that there's absolutely no criticising them. People used to criticise CJ, but there you have a guy who, considering on paper he was one of the 'weakest' Eggheads, rarely got beaten, especially on his favoured subjects, and he worked hard to get better, which he did as time went by.
But as for the format of the show, well, I can only speak for myself, but as a viewer I find it slow moving. I like more questions per show. When I was on it as well the director did tell us we should 'think out loud' , even if it meant seeming to have to think about a question you could answer in your sleep - and when I watch the show I find this artificial and irritating in some cases. There's a certain lack of drama there for me too. After all, a team with any combination of Pat, Kevin, Barry, Daphne, Chris, and Dave in it is only ever going to be beaten on very rare occasions indeed. While I'm carping, I find some of the questions which get asked to both sides pretty contrived at times too.
Still, you can't argue with box office. It has an extremely loyal fan base, fantastic quizzers, and a prize which can rise to genuinely impressive amounts. It is after all a show which is made to have a wide appeal, considerably beyond the sometimes narrow world of the serious quizzer.
It was the original 'pro-am' quiz show as well. Actually it occurs to me that you can learn a lot about the differences between ITV and BBC by comparing Eggheads with The Chase. The Quiz credentials of the top Eggheads are impeccable. The Chasers are good, but as yet have a way to go to match those of the Eggheads - Shaun is a Mastermind winner, and Mark, an Only Connect Winner and Runner up in the People's Quiz. Eggheads has been presented by broadcast journalists, Dermot Murnaghan and Jeremy Vine, while the Chase is presented by an actor/comedian, Bradley Walsh. Eggheads is carried out with an atmosphere of respect and good humour between challengers and Eggheads, while The Chase thrives on 'trash talk' between Chaser and challengers. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the drift.
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Well played, anyway. This is just my experience, but I found that appearing in a TV quiz has a strange, almost addictive quality to it, but it get's easier and more enjoyable the more you do.