Board of Excitement 5th December – 11th December 2010

By | December 4, 2010

First of all, I have reviewed some more iPad apps:

Both of these are currently £1.79, and both have equivilent cheaper iPhone versions which are untested, but are probably exactly the same but in a bigger font.

Right, now that’s done let’s see what there is to look forward to this coming week:

  • Drop Zone – after coming dangerously close to prime time viewing last week, this week it’s back another five minutes. This week six teams get sunburnt whilst gallopping around Milos in Greece. (3:45pm, Sunday, BBC1)
  • The X Factor – only one week of this to go. The cast of Glee, Alexandra Burke and the Black Eyed Peas guest in this evening’s results show. (8pm, Sunday, ITV1)
  • Only Connect – First semi-final sees the Epicurians vs the Wrights. (8:30pm, Monday, BBC4)
  • Premier League Poker – Game three part 1 (1am, Monday night/Tuesday Morning, C4)
  • The Apprentice – the candidates become tour guides. I took a tour of Oxford once, the guide was either a good liar or quite ill-informed so this should also be a lot of fun. Especially as it looks like the candidates might be about to come to blows. (9pm, Wednesday, BBC1)
  • The Challenge: Cutthroat – I keep promising to put the theme up because it’s this year’s best reality theme. Fingers crossed I’ll do it this week. If I remember. (Wednesday, MTV US)

Anything else?

37 thoughts on “Board of Excitement 5th December – 11th December 2010

  1. Des Elmes

    Uni Chal this week: Magdalen Oxford v Downing Cambridge.

    Surely the odds on this match being even better than last week’s absolute classic are several thousand to one – especially when the first-round performances of these two teams could hardly have been any more different.

    Magdalen were easily the best team in that round, crushing an otherwise very good Durham side, 340-120, on 13 September. Will Cudmore took seven starters, Kyle Haddad-Fonda five and James McComish four – but it was the team’s bonuses that stood out most, an astonishing 38/48.

    Downing, on the other hand, laboured to a 160-95 victory over St Edmund Hall Oxford three weeks previously. Their bonus conversion rate was a mere 14/31 – though, unlike Magdalen, all four members got at least one starter.

    I can’t see anything other than another big Magdalen win – and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were magnificent on the bonuses again, and scored another triple century.

    As if further proof were needed of how great this team is: en route to winning this year’s Oxford Inter-Collegiate Quiz, they achieved a 360-140 victory against a Corpus Christi side featuring a certain Gail Trimble…

    http://users.ox.ac.uk/~quiz/comp/icq/icq2010/round2.shtml

    Reply
    1. David Howell

      After the way they won in… 2003, was it?… I make a point of cheering Anyone But Magdalen in UC. Would be typical if this team doesn’t win the whole thing when the greatly inferior team of a few years back is able to luck into it.

      Reply
      1. Des Elmes

        2003/4, to be precise.

        (Well, I always refer to a series of the Paxman Era by the two years that series took place in…)

        I don’t disagree that that team got lucky – but this team looks too goddamned good to be stopped by even the likes of Christ’s Cambridge, Oxford Brookes or Sheffield…

        Reply
        1. Des Elmes

          (SPOILER)

          Pretend I never said that, or that I couldn’t see anything other than a big Magdalen win – cause that was a hugely disappointing second outing… 🙁

          Reply
          1. Weaver

            Mr. Elmes may find it disappointing, but this show is no “For the Rest of Your Life”. I ask, was this the moment where Magdalen found their limit? Will this be the spur to learn more trivia for the next phases? Was this the moment where the winners are relying on their luck, as every successful team seems to do at some point? So many questions, so few answers. Hurry up please it’s time.

  2. Des Elmes

    Also, the finals of Series 63 of Countdown get underway on Thursday.

    The following may or may not contain a SPOILER, but anyway…

    As always, the number 1 seed and the number 8 seed meet in the first quarter-final: Jack Hurst v Peter Godwin.

    Cambridge undergraduate Jack has been a revelation – his eight wins were all with scores of 110 or more (the highest being 133), leading to an aggregate of 946, the highest thus far in the 15-round format. He also came within one point of a perfect game when scoring that 133, and solved at least two conundrums after about one note of Alan Hawkshaw’s composition.

    It’s therefore not surprising that he’s the favourite to win the dictionaries. If “People’s Champion” Peter, who narrowly missed out on becoming an octochamp himself, wants to cause a huge upset, then he’ll probably have to put in a very great effort. On only six occasions, though, has the number 8 seed beaten the number 1 seed.

    Then, on Friday, seeds 2 and 7 do battle: Eoin Monaghan v Niall Young.

    Again, the higher seed put in an octochamp run that was nothing short of spectacular, while the lower seed was just beaten in his eighth match. Like Jack, 14-year-old Eoin scored eight centuries – his highest score being 121, and his aggregate 898 – and he solved at least two conundrums in less than half a second.

    And like Peter, Niall will probably have to work very hard if he wants to spring a surprise.

    Alongside Susie this week is Amanda Lamb.

    Reply
    1. Andrew

      Something else that might be of interest to poker fans – the LIVE Poker Million Final on Sky Sports 2 from 7pm. Very rare to get a true perspective of the play as every hand is shown.

      Reply
  3. Jennifer Turner

    Also this week, Iron Chef UK: The Leftovers! In case you’re planning a “Board of Meh”.

    Reply
  4. Alex

    Apparently Drop Zone next week is in Istanbul. Which is going to be interesting considering the apparent ‘no tarmac roads’ rule.

    Reply
    1. Gizensha

      The pitch is ‘the toughest natural and manmade terrains in the world,’ and they do seem to drop the rule while contestants are in towns and cities (Such as getting to the hotel last week)

      …But, personally, I’m hoping for Drop Zone: Pakour Edition. Would be more interesting than the usual 40-50 minutes of hiking an episode.

      Reply
        1. Gizensha

          Sadly, glancing at the preview at the end of this weeks (Just watched) episode… It looks like its just urban hiking rather than fun stuff.

          Loving the photography of the show, the direction for the hiking bits is still lacking, but the teams are far more entertaining to watch now (As you get to know their relative strengths and navigation skills) than they were in week 1.

          Reply
        2. Tim

          In a Running Man-esque parallel universe where H&S is of scant concern to the powers that be, Mirror’s Edge: The Gameshow exists and is quite simply the single most fantastic piece of programming ever to grace the airwaves.

          Reply
        1. David

          And here in the US they probably would have said “the show must go on” and continued, instead of canceling the rest of the show (they managed to get a rerun up pretty quick- I guess they always have one waiting to go because of the live nature of the program)

          Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Christ, saw the first jump and didn’t want to continue watching.

      Points of note: I’m surprised in its thirty years there haven’t been more accidents on live Wetten Dass.

      Also, they had a ‘people going over moving cars’ challenge on Going Straight. I’m at a loss as to how anything like that can be classed as truly safe in any situation, let alone live television.

      Reply
      1. Alex

        They had another ‘going over moving cars’ challenge on Wetten Dass a while back.

        Reply
      2. art begotti

        If it means anything, the accident itself is not graphic at all. Granted, it’s still hard to watch (especially when you know what’s coming). It’s hard to tell where the jump really went wrong. From the interior shot on the approach cutting to the external shot, it looks like he cleared the car, but over-rotated and the landing was the main problem. Still, hard to watch.

        That said, I’ve really come to appreciate how these German live shows have handled these situations. You notice from the time the accident occurs, the camera never returns to the contestant. It’s mostly static audience shots from here on in. I’m reminded of the BMX accident on Schlag den Raab, when until Stefan recovered, the camera shot was a fully zoomed-out view of the track, no close-ups at all until they were appropriate again. I think that’s a very tactful way of handling these situations, and unfortunately, very different from what we have here in America, where I guarantee cameras would be scrambling to get close-ups of the injured in their anguished state. “Because That’s Where the Real Drama’s At,” “If It Bleeds, It Leads,” etc.

        Reply
        1. Alex

          I was thankful they didn’t do a slow-motion replay, as the evidently would have done here.

          Reply
        2. Mister Al

          There’s another YouTube video containing what looks like mobile phone video footage of the incident taken by an audience member. In that, it’s clear that his head collides with the top of the windscreen of the car as the car drives under him, which causes him to over-rotate.

          The link to the video is here — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8CtWz2UFw4 — and the audience member’s footage is in the final ten seconds of the video. (I should warn you that the poster has taken the rather distasteful decision to dub on some ‘comedy’ sound effects, including a Nelson Muntz-esque ‘Ha ha!’, onto the film. I tried to find a more tasteful version of the audience footage but failed.)

          Reply
  5. Mart with a Y not a I

    Kind of puts our initial concerns of Stephan Raab’s faceplant into a gravel bank in the 2nd SDR of the year into persepective.

    I guess the only fact he is still alive (and let’s hope he recovers well and quickly) is down to the fact that he was wearing a crash helemt. Really surprised though apart from some knee and elbow protectors that was it. He should have had some form of MotoGP/F1 style HANS (Head And Neck/Spine) protecter on – that was the biggest danger – landing back first onto the floor, rather than going head first into the top of the windscreen.

    ZDF and the team in Dussledorf handled it well – although given how quickly a strecher was wheeled into the studio, there must have been tight guidelines about what to do should something like that have happened.

    I know that edition of Wetten Dass? was ended by Thomas soon after (to be fair – there appeared to be parts of the audience walking out there and then) but one report I read yesterday said the series may be pulled entirely?

    Reply
  6. Gizensha

    Only Connect: Who do I blame for the early 90s TMNT (Or, since I watched int he UK, TMHT) themetune being stuck in my head now? [2 points on that one, incidentally, but still]

    Also, Aaron – If you’re reading… If those were triangular numbers, the game of Hare and Tortoise would have been a lot trickier to make any awesome moves on. (Though, given how unlikely having 100 or so carrots in anything but a two player game of that is, 10610209857723 carrots isn’t much less unlikely than 2080… Both are entirely unrealistic within the context of that game)

    Reply
    1. David

      I was actually surprised that it took this long to have a TMNT question….

      Reply
      1. Gizensha

        Indeed it is.

        …Amazingly tempting to pick it up, now that the copy I used as a youth went back into my sisters hands after I moved out (It was hers originally, the seven year difference between the two of us means that I basically grew up on it despite, you know, that game is really not a ‘family game’, but I enjoyed it at 4 anyway), and then when I moved out she got it back.

        Reply
    2. Aaron

      Hare & Tortoise was (still is) an awesome game. I was pleased to get the two mathematical sequences, despite misattributing one and thinking the other one might be mobile-phone-keypad related at first! However our high culture knowledge – or lack thereof – was rather brutally exposed on Monday (Tosca/Swan Lake).

      Reply
  7. Dan Peake

    For those looking for an Accumul-upd-ate, we have started filming the third season (cue “don’t you mean sixth” comment) with a sponsor for the final prizes! (It’s been snow disrupted). I’ll have more info on airing dates soon.

    The sponsor is eclectic games – http://www.eclecticgames.co.uk – for those who like board games in the Reading area, definitely worth the visit (I’ve bought many a board game there)! Excellent gaming experience guaranteed.

    Reply
      1. Dan Peake

        Ooh yes, that’s the one – although it’s since moved to a more central location in Reading (Market Way, if you know where that is). Does this mean you’re stalking me Gizensha?!

        Reply

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