Sunday 21 April 2013

Last Night's Telly (Who Dares Wins)

Watched the usual three Saturday night shows. Britain's Got Talent, Who Dares Wins and The Cube. I tweeted about BGT and The Cube last night on twitter but I thought I would blog about Who Dares Wins since I was slightly frustrated with the contestant's tactics last night. We had returning champions Colette and Baz who won their first match last Saturday and secured £25,000. They faced Sarah-Jane and Tim.

First list was BBC Presenters at the 2012 Olympics. One of the major rules to becoming a dominate team on Who Dares Wins is to always listen to Nick's clarification on what can be acceptable on the list. Nick confirms the list contains 146 commentators, presenters, news correspondents  and reporters who worked for BBC TV during the London 2012 Olympics. That's 146 names on the list. Since everybody watched the Olympic Games last year surely must remember the people who fronted the coverage. Who Dares Wins was recorded in December 2012, four months since the Olympics finished. Meaning the memories are fresh in the people's minds. Also, as it was on BBC Television, one way to winning the list to simply think of all the presenters who has appeared on BBC Sport programmes as a presenter, analyst or commentator within the last 12-24 months. Also any sports reporters who have worked for BBC News would bound to be on the list. I said last night I could early get 10 as a starter and if pushed would go higher. Given there are 146 names, the names I could think of sure would be on that list. So we go to the challengers first with their opening bid. Tim said he watched the Olympics but think it's hard to remember the presenters so they go for an opening bid of 5. Yes, that's five names! The champions decided to up the bid by a whopping two, to six. The challengers then upped it to 9 and were forced to name them.

As stated if I was playing I would go round sport by sport.

Football
Gary Linkear
Alan Hanson
Mark Lawrenson
Garth Crooks
Jonathan Pearce
Steve Wilson
Guy Mobray

Tennis
Sue Barker
Tim Henman
Tracey Austin
Virgina Wade
John Lloyd
Andrew Castle

Athletics
Colin Jackson
Denise Lewis

Then you get the people who worked on the opening/closing ceremony.
Huw Edwards
Reggie Yates

Also BBC Olympic Breakfast would count so you got
Bill Turnbull and Sian Williams reunited
Hazel Irvine
Chris Hollins
Sally Nugent

Also you got that prat Rob Walker who jumped on Ben Ainsle when he won his gold medal.

Take makes it 22 names and given what the teams had bid I would've early beaten them.

The challengers said these names

However, they came unstuck as they said Daley Thompson. Nick stated he was a guest and not part of the BBC team. I think he did work as a presenter but for an Australian broadcaster.

For those playing along here are the other answers













That makes the champions 1-0 up. Next list was Actors in Richard Curtis films. Basically any actor or actress who have appeared in The Tall Guy, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Boat That Rocked.

Once again as there are five films you could easily get 10 if you work through then one by one. Provided you have watched them. Simply work through film by film. Also, if anybody watched Pointless recently then one of their Classic Pointless rounds were actors in Love Actually. So we get an opening bid by the champions with 5. Yes, only 5. Challengers raised their bid to seven who was outbid by the champions to 8 who had to name them. They managed to win the list and to to play on the money list. The full list contained 7 pages of names.

The first money list of the night was Countries Visted by UK Residents. Basically the top 30 countries to have been visited by UK residents in 2011. As with the money list last week they worked out a tactic to go through the list. As with this week they did the right thing by going through European countries. The managed to get nine correct answers to win £15,000. Securing a total of £40,000 over two money lists.

Second half of the show had the champions pitted against Chrissie and Joe. The first list provided a brick wall to me. Coldplay songs, including collaborations. In a nutshell I don't know any song by Coldplay at all. The challengers opened their bid with 8 but was raised to 10 by the champions who had to name them. They worked their way to 9 but lost the list on their tenth answer where Baz gave Xyloto Myloto. Which was deemed incorrect as the song they performed was Mylo Xyloto. The challengers are now one list away to dethrone the champions. Next list Cities with underground railway stations. So any city in the world that has got an underground railway. For the first time on last night's show we get a team who decides to take a risk and name 14 cities. They manged to rattle them off and became the new champions.

The second money list, first for the new champions were Greatest TV Detectives. To clarify, Nick wanted any of the 60 TV detectives that have appeared on the 2009 Top of the Cops. Which was produced to for a television show to find the nations favourite TV detectives. He goes to say the list features detectives around the whole as well as British ones. In addition. If the detectives were part of a double act then reach name can be taken as separate entries. That last bit proved valuable. My way on working to £50,000 is to think of the TV detective shows that have been popular. Not just UK shows but shows in the US like Magnum and Kojak. Also if you know any popular double acts like Cagney and Lacey, Morse and Lewis & Dempsey and Makepace that would give you eight answers already and I've yet to mention the well known ones like Poirot, Marple, Jim Taggart and Tom Barnaby. I would say this was dream list had I been playing but I wasn't. The champions climed to £15,000. Joe wanted to play on for £25,000 but Chrissie persuaded him to stop. They return to face their second pair on next weeks show.


These were the correct answers they gave.





and the correct answers they could've said.

I noticed Hamish Macbeth was on the list. I know the TV adaptation was a modest success on BBC One in the mid 1990s but I know the author, M.C. Beaton hated how the BBC adapted her creation for the small screen.

I said at the start of the blog I was slightly frustrated about the contestants tactics. The first few lists had the teams being too cautious with bidding as low as 5. The name of the show is Who Dares Wins. Yes, I know the actual name is The Rich List but that's how the BBC called the UK version. The whole point is to dare to win. If you play cautiously too much then you will get punished. You need to take a risk now and again, make a high  bid then work your way through the list. Don't forget there is no time limit on how long it takes a team to complete. I will say when a team plays their first list then need to be careful as there is no guarantee they will be back to play for a second time. So they need to bank as much money as they possible can from their knowledge on that list. Once they do bank enough money then could have some fun if they come back. A good example were recent champions Sam and Kevin. They won the maximum £50,000 on the first list. Came back to win £25,000 on their second but won another £50,000 on their third. Securing £125,000. However, they lost on the fourth money which ended up losing but have already won £1250,000. They lost their fifth match afterwards.

Last night's show swapped timeslots with The Voice. Therefore it went head to head with Britain's Got Talent. I was gutted to read it had an all time low rating of 2.82m (12.9%) against Britain's Got Talent's 9.66m (43.9%). I know it was against the Cowell machine but I hope the BBC don't make the silly decision to axe this show on the basis they swapped slots with The Voice. Given it's a cheap show to produce compared to The Voice which cost the BBC £22 million for two series. I might be wrong but I think the timeslot swap has made the BBC worse off with their Saturday night ratings.

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