Well, sorry for the long wait for this, but I missed the show on Monday, and haven't had a chance to listen to it again until now.
But, on with a short review of this week's show, which this week came from the University of Exeter. Steve Punt, in his typical way, claimed the show to be harder than University Challenge, as they actually do make the teams sit on top of each other! The students were:
Laurie Belch, studying Biosciences
Anna Clifford, studying Psychology
Jack Griffiths, studying Philosophy
And the Dons were:
Robbie McDonald (Biosciences)
Michelle Ryan (Psychology)
John DuPrey (Philosophy)
So, we kicked off, as usual, with the general knowledge swapping questions. Some interesting questions in this line-up, including why whistling in a theatre is considered bad luck. The students' final question was a complex maths question, which Punt insisted on giving commentary on while they worked it out! The score at the end of the round was a lead for the Dons 4-2.
The first specialist round followed, with Laurie and Robbie facing off on questions on biosciences. This was followed by the lists round, which saw the Dons try to name 'original defendants of the Nuremberg trials', of which they could only manage two. The students had to name the 'original player tokens in Monopoly', of which they managed six; this was enough to give the Students a lead of 11-8.
Specialist round two between Anna and Michelle followed. Then came 'Highbrow-Lowbrow', which is always the highlight of the show. This week, the two-point option (ie a student going highbrow, or a don going lowbrow) was selected by three of the participants. After that round finally ended, the students led by 18-14.
The final specialist round between the remaining student-don combo, came next. And then onto the final quickfire buzzer round. This round saw the Dons impressively fight back at the deficit, while one of the students was caught out by a UC-style swerve question. But it wasn't enough, and the Students won by 25-22. Only the second student victory in the show's brief history. Well done indeed to the students.
Well, hopefully I'll remember to listen to the Monday showing next week, so the review will be up earlier on in the week. We'll have to wait and see.
I think this show is going to be a lot like Eggheads, in that once the students realize that there is a good strategy to beat the dons, the knowledgeable student teams will continue to win, and the dons have to hope that the students do whatever the equivalent of knowing less about Food and Drink than Kevin is.
ReplyDelete