Mastermind - 2020/2021 - Episode 1

 

Mastermind 2020/2021

Episode 1 - Heat 1

 

The latest series of Mastermind began on Monday night on BBC Two as part of its extensive Quizzy Mondays line up. Airing for the foreseeable future at 7.30pm the 2020/2021 edition has a few known names from the world of quiz taking part, an interesting selection of subjects and thus far has been recorded in the midst of a Pandemic.  

 

There is of course no audience but all else remains. 96 contestants….one winner. So what will this series throw up? We shall see...It all began on Monday night with these 4 contestants taking the chair...

 

-        Adrian Segens

-        Sally Wilson

-        Emma Haley

-        Tom Lee

 

At the end of the specialist round the standings were as follows

 

Emma Haley	Black Books	11
Sally Wilson	Julie Andrews	11
Adrian Segens	The Levellers	10
Tom Lee	Isabella of Castille	9

 

All very close and the only disappointing observation was that the length of the questions issue that I know plagues so many viewers and quizzers remains. Particularly during Emma Haley’s set, there was a range of question with heaps of unnecessary wording. It takes an extra degree of concentration to remember what is being asked for after such a long question. I do understand the need for Mastermind to be fair, and each player getting roughly the same amount of questions on the Specialist round, but surely overlong questions isn’t the way to do it?

Either way, all 4 players had superb rounds with a nice range of subjects setting up what would be an interesting GK Round! Everyone was still in with a chance…

Tom Lee stepped up first and hit his stride early on. Again it was obvious from the outset that the long-over-worded questions would continue into the GK round! Tom coped well with the as always diverse subject matter Mastermind throws up and hit double figures to take his total to 21. A couple of stoppers in the set (Horse that won the Gold Cup and Grand National in 1934 etc) but it had certainly passed me by that Vera Wang was a failed Olympian! Good performance setting a marker for the rest!

 

Adrian Segens was next up and got off to a strong start. The round was typified by something all quizzers go through….the 50/50 going the wrong way. Barbie/Cindy, the Tetralogy question and the likes of LA Stories/Once Upon Tim in Hollywood may have all been the pressures of the chair. 7 scored bringing a total of 17. Tom Lee was still the man to beat…

 

Sally Wilson came to the chair needing at least 10 to catch Tom and was hit with a sport question early on (Which team won the 2020 Premier League?) and a pair of Science questions which slowed down the scoring. Mid-round a string of solid answers set Sally on the path to reaching the target of 21, and with a ‘just on the buzzer’ question about Kelvin Fletchers soap roots, this secured a score of 21 meaning the game was certainly going to a tiebreak!

 

Emma Haley concluded the first episode of this series of Mastermind with a confident display, looking unshaken throughout as she rattled through her General Knowledge scoring points across the board.  At around the 18 point mark, the questions seemed to ramp up and questions on the likes of The Great British Sewing Bee, Jim Reeves and F Scott Fitzgerald left Emma matching Tom and Sally’s 21 with a triple tiebreak needed. The final question for Emma was a horrible keyboard related question that would be a nightmare to work out under the pressure of the chair!

 

So a triple tiebreak it was (not the first time Mastermind have chosen a tiebreak episode to kick off the series but as John Humphreys said…the first time we had a triple!)

 

The tiebreak set I felt was nicely balanced with 2 tamer questions, 2 middling ones and a tester. Sally, Emma and Tom all coped well with their extended time in the chair. In  a close tiebreaker Emma scored 2, Sally scored 3  but Tom, who had scored highest on the GK in the normal round, repeated the feat and scored 4 to take the victory.

 

Congratulations to Tom Lee on being the first contestant into the Semi Finals. The final standings were as follows

Contestant	Specialist Subject	SS	GK	Total
Tom Lee	Isabella of Castille	9	12	21 (4)
Sally Wilson	Julie Andrews	11	10	21 (3)
Emma Haley	Black Books	11	10	21 (2)
Adrian Segens	The Levellers	10	7	17

 

As the season going ones I will be doing an overall leaderboard for this series and I look forward to the next episode on Monday!