Topic: Only Connect (BBC4)

[ozziechef]

AKA The Best Quiz on TV

I've been a fan of this since catching a series 1 episode a couple of years back but I think it's slowly coming into the mainstream. Two Teams, Connections, a grid, 6 'geeks' and Victoria Coren. What is there not to love?

RThr nyt hrfns nhr?

(Are there any other fans on here?)

Dyswht ddthr?

[Steve Lampkins]

I like it a lot, but they need to kill the missing vowels round.

There's always one person who is great at it, and that just really racks up the points. So whichever team has that person, that's usually the team that wins, no matter how well they did in the previous rounds.

Well, OK, that wasn't the case in the last episode, and it was actually quite tense until the end, but that was an exception to the rule.

[Danger Man]

I'd like to pretend that the thought of a bunch of Oxbridge postgrads doing what they probably consider to be party games is the main reason I sometimes watch the show, but if I'm being honest with myself I'm only there to stare at Victoria's tits.

It's not just her body I love, it's her mind as well. I like playing 'spot the electra complex' when reading her Observer column on Sundays.

This week's had a cracker. She was waffling on about why marriage is not for her but then said the only reason she would go through with the ceremony would be so that she could hear her father do the Best Man's speech.

[Still Not George]

I'd like to pretend that the thought of a bunch of Oxbridge postgrads doing what they probably consider to be party games is the main reason I sometimes watch the show, but if I'm being honest with myself I'm only there to stare at Victoria's tits.

It's not just her body I love, it's her mind as well.

The voice, dude. The voice. She has the best "dirty posh girl" voice I've ever heard.

[Jemble Fred]

This week's had a cracker. She was waffling on about why marriage is not for her but then said the only reason she would go through with the ceremony would be so that she could hear her father do the Best Man's speech.

Wrong tense, surely?

Thanks for the heads up, anyway. Never seen this show but I do want to dribble all over her naked body.

[Garfield And Friends]

Coren always dresses in a dress. I approve, if only to perv at her legs.

Good quiz, though I couldn't give a fuck about finding out about the contestants hobbies, personalities or interests. Just get on with it, "The Librarians"...

Monday nights are good for intelligent quizzes, what with University Challenge (the king of tv quizzes) on right before Only Connect.

[Danger Man]

Wrong tense, surely?

Only if I had used 'will' instead of 'would', then the sentence would have meant that I thought Alan Coren was still alive.

Or, as Happytree will confirm, Alan could come back as a ghost and my sentence would then  be grammatically correct.

I wish Victoria would post and tell me if I'm right about this....and then spank me if I'm wrong.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Let's face it, the quiz may as well have the same set, rules and contestants as Get Your Own Back. Indeed it might even be an improvement.

[Slaaaaabs]

Let's face it, the quiz may as well have the same set, rules and contestants as Get Your Own Back. Indeed it might even be an improvement.

Just needs the gunge...

[boxofslice]

Never seen this show but I do want to dribble all over her naked body.

"Hi, I'm Giles Coren, sister of Victoria Coren.  Please feel free to let me pop into your head when you're trying to knock one out over her".

[jaydee81]

Giles Coren was a pleasing running joke in last night's episode

[buttgammon]

Both teams were crap at the wall, though, presumably because the Giles Coren reference threw them off course. He's even being a cunt when he isn't physically there!

I absolutely love this programme. While I feel the general knowledge questions on Mastermind have got too easy and University Challenge has too many exgtraordinarily long questions about particle physics and other things I neither interest or understand, Only Connect is very difficult but not enough to stop itself from being entertaining. I'm even getting better at the respaced words with the vowels removed, to the extent that I think I got one right last night.

[jaydee81]

I'm pretty awesome at the vowels round. I've started seeing how many I get before the people on the show.. got about 6 or 7 last night (I've only ever had one conundrum on countdown tho). Maybe we should form a team. 'The Victoria Coren restraining order breachers' anyone?
Did anyone see the clue about footballers in films the other week? I would've had five points as I knew the first one was Stan Collymore in Basic Instinct 2 (although it was easier... and about sport.)

[Garfield And Friends]

(I've only ever had one conundrum on countdown tho).

I'm similarly atrocious with the Countdown Conundrum. Some people's brains must be wired for that particular challenge.

[buttgammon]

I was alright with every aspect of Countdown including the conundrums until Rachel took over on the programme. Now, I watch it lying down with drool dribbling down my chin.

As for Only Connect, I'm assuming I wasn't the only one who literally screamed the answer to the 'Spanish Inquisition' question at the screen after the second clue appeared and then proceeded to hate the philosophy students after, right?

[gatchamandave]

Giles Coren was a pleasing running joke in last night's episode

Did you catch the episode last year when for some reason Victoria brought up his winning the Bad Sex in Fiction Award from Literary Review in 2005 solely so she could then explain that " what people don't understand is that he had deliberately written a bad sex scene". The contestants who were busy trying to find the answer to that particular part of the connecting wall looked at her the way a nun would  look at someone describing the last time they gave a blow-job - indulgent and pittying rather than shocked.

[rudi]

I've played poker with Victoria. Rearrange that sentence into something much dirtier sounding.

[Ambient Sheep]

Although I'd been aware of it, I'd never managed to catch a whole episode until last week, and I saw last night's as well.  Very impressed, great stuff.

However...

I like it a lot, but they need to kill the missing vowels round.

There's always one person who is great at it, and that just really racks up the points. So whichever team has that person, that's usually the team that wins, no matter how well they did in the previous rounds.

Exactly.  I was pretty cross last week when the team that had been doing so well throughout got beaten by the other lot in the last round.  I was worried it was going to happen to the Hitchhikers last night as well; thankfully it didn't.

It reminds me of the original Krypton Factor (and maybe the new one as well, I've not seen the reboot).  You'd have somebody who'd clearly been in the lead throughout all the other rounds, both mental and physical, a deserving winner, but then you'd have the General Knowledge section at the end and some fast-fingered smart-arse would answer every single one right and easily win the game.  It's the main reason I stopped watching it.

Ideally the scores from each round would have been averaged, but in practice they could have fixed it by making the points gained from the last round a lot less compared to the rest of them - the General Knowledge round seemed to be worth as many points as the rest of the game put together, if not more.

They could do the same with Only Connect - double all the point values in the rest of the game and leave the last round as it is.  I'm guessing the "minus one for a wrong guess" is an attempt to mitigate the situation, but it's not enough.

[Ambient Sheep]

Both teams were crap at the wall, though, presumably because the Giles Coren reference threw them off course. He's even being a cunt when he isn't physically there!

I got the four cartoonists, and also realised there was a wine thing in there, but would have gone for Body instead of Legs (never heard of "legs" in a wine context before).  I'd also never heard of a Radar chart, but hopefully, having got the other three right, would have got there in the end.

As for Only Connect, I'm assuming I wasn't the only one who literally screamed the answer to the 'Spanish Inquisition' question at the screen after the second clue appeared and then proceeded to hate the philosophy students after, right?

No, you weren't the only one, although I couldn't remember what it was!  I knew the third one, but couldn't remember the last, and just sat there muttering "Fear...Fear & Surprise...Fear, Surprise & Ruthless Efficiency...Fear, Surprise, Ruthless Efficiency and...and..." to myself over and over.

I still managed to sneer at the philosophy students though.  I had the Hitchhikers down to win from the start, simply because the Philosophers had too narrow a team (insert your own sizeist joke here).

I'm pretty awesome at the vowels round. I've started seeing how many I get before the people on the show.. got about 6 or 7 last night.

Me too.

It's odd, I did very badly last week, I barely got one question right apart from the vowels round; but this week I would have got 3, if not 5 points on the Archaic Acid Names one, and would have got 2 if not 3 for the Radio Four Theme Tunes one.  There were a few more that I could have got 1 point on as well.

Perhaps we should have a team after all?  Jutl would have to be on it, mind.

[papalaz4444244]

I'd like to pretend that the thought of a bunch of Oxbridge postgrads doing what they probably consider to be party games is the main reason I sometimes watch the show, but if I'm being honest with myself I'm only there to stare at Victoria's tits.

I feel better now knowing that it's not just me that does that....

[davidbod]

Thanks for your comments.

According to my stats for series 1 and 2, the average team scores 4-5-6-5 points on rounds 1/2/3/4 so the Missing Vowels round is no more valuable than the Sequences.

I'd be loathe to remove Round 4 given that it seems to be the one that people find easiest to play along with. And besides, we can't think of anything better.

Yes, there have been one or two very very good performances but they do tend to be the exception rather than the rule. A swing of over 5 points is quite rare so the first three rounds really do matter.

Cheers,

David
OC Question Writer/Editor

[ozziechef]

So David, Is it just you that writes the questions? Any chance of a tramsfer to "normal" telly?

[mycroft]

So David, just how lurid do the comments about The Fragrant Victoria get in that production booth during filming?

[Steve Lampkins]

According to my stats for series 1 and 2, the average team scores 4-5-6-5 points on rounds 1/2/3/4 so the Missing Vowels round is no more valuable than the Sequences.

Huh... I wonder why I perceive it as such a high scoring round... I don't think I've missed a show.

Very well, carry on. :)

[davidbod]

Huh... I wonder why I perceive it as such a high scoring round... I don't think I've missed a show.

Very well, carry on. :)

One of the factors is that a team can buzz and get three right but also they might get the fourth wrong thus incurring a penalty, so they've only actually moved their score on by 2 points instead of 4.

[davidbod]

So David, Is it just you that writes the questions? Any chance of a tramsfer to "normal" telly?

(a) I do most of them but increasingly other people are contributing, as you see on the credits. (b) It's often been talked about but no news as yet. But I don't think BBC4 is all that hard to find these days, what with Virgin, iPlayer, digital etc.

[jaydee81]

Don't worry mycroft, he's getting round to yr question

[Ambient Sheep]

According to my stats for series 1 and 2, the average team scores 4-5-6-5 points on rounds 1/2/3/4 so the Missing Vowels round is no more valuable than the Sequences.

I sit corrected!  Fair enough then - having only seen two editions, I'm not in any position to judge and so will happily take your erudite word for it.  It's just that last week's did have a fairly large turnaround in the last round and so I thought "Uh-oh, it's the Krypton Factor Syndrome all over again".  Wrongly, as it turns out.  :-)

I'd be loathe to remove Round 4 given that it seems to be the one that people find easiest to play along with. And besides, we can't think of anything better.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have wanted it removed, it's a good round.  Just the relative points adjusted as I said earlier.  However now you've proved that on average it's equal points-wise to the other rounds, it's fine.


Out of interest, how long does it take to generate one of the grids and verify that there are no possible interpretations you haven't thought of?  Do you show it to a few different people to check it?  I've only seen four of them so far but am already amazed at the ingenuity behind all the red herrings.

[davidbod]

Out of interest, how long does it take to generate one of the grids and verify that there are no possible interpretations you haven't thought of?  Do you show it to a few different people to check it?  I've only seen four of them so far but am already amazed at the ingenuity behind all the red herrings.

Personally, it takes me about an hour to write each one, then about another hour to verify the sources. All the questions get sent to the same verifiers who do University Challenge.

There's a bit of an art to ensuring there are no 'short circuits' but one way is to ensure that one group can only have four items in it whereas other groups may have five or even six possibilities. This gives you a constraint that ensures for one perfect solution.

[ozziechef]

Any grids that didn't make the cut you can share with us David?

Anyone want to make a Cookd and Bombd one? You could have 4 members of the clique, 4 TC Raymond swear words etc. etc.

Also were you always on here (a lurker?) or did a Google search bring you our way?