The Guide #238: The overlooked underdogs of British quizshows that are still worth a stream
The quizshow will never die.Nuclear war could rid the earth of all living creatures bar the cockroaches and still, a shiny floored half-hourer hosted by Stephen Mulhern will somehow be airing on the emergency broadcast system.Quizshows have been airing on British screens since 1938, when a televised spelling bee was broadcast on the BBC, and they have remained remarkably resilient.Today they seem a good accompaniment to an era where everyone seems to be tapping away at puzzles on their phone.Scroll down the channel guide of your TV and it won’t be long until you find a quizshow (and that one will almost certainly be The Chase).
The format remains completely irresistible to commissioners,Relatively cheap and endlessly replicable, it serves as perfect filler for teatime TV,If one fiendishly high-concept quiz doesn’t catch fire it can be quietly cancelled without too much bother, knowing another will be conjured up in short order,If it really catches fire, in the manner of Pointless, Tipping Point or The 1% Club, primetime and the hallowed celebrity special awaits,And if it really catches fire, then well, you have something that can trundle on for decades (The Chase is now almost old enough to vote) before being regurgitated endlessly in repeat form on Challenge.
But beneath those big hitters exists an entire ecosystem of quiz programming: clever quizzes; insultingly easy quizzes; specialist quizzes (praise be to PopMaster, the TV version of which has just been commissioned for two more series); quizzes whose rules are impossible to follow, quizzes that are little more than fastest finger first (or literally Fastest Finger First).There’s something strangely pride-inducing about the British quizshow landscape, where excruciatingly difficult Mensa-level puzzlers like Only Connect can sit alongside a gameshow where people yell as loudly as possible at a telly.So in this week’s Guide we’re celebrating some of the less talked-about quizshows, including some that were cancelled before their time, but can still be played along with at home on streaming.---Impossible BBC iPlayerThis Rick Edwards-hosted brain-frazzler lasted eight series (plus two celeb ones) before quietly getting shuttered towards the end of the pandemic.Still, it remains popular enough that its repeats receive regular daytime rotation, as well as people on social media and in the letters pages of the Radio Times calling for it to return, (although the latter might just be Edwards writing in).
You can see why – it has a great, tricksy concept: contestants are given three answers to a question, one correct, one wrong, one impossible (ie.so wrong it could never be the answer); get the correct one and you add to your prize pot, get the wrong one and you don’t; or get the impossible one and you’re out of the game.This format is cleverly embellished on in each round, building to a corking final round.The people are right on this one: bring it back, BBC.---Puzzling with Lucy Worsley/Celebrity Puzzling Channel 5If in doubt, add celebs.
That was the rule Channel 5 followed with this series, which first emerged in civilian form in 2023 with happy historian Lucy Worsley tasking members of the public with verbal and visual brain-teasers,It only lasted a series, and that would usually have been that, but in this post-House of Games landscape, Channel 5 spied an opportunity and reframed it as a celeb face-off hosted by Jeremy Vine,Carol Vorderman and Sally Lindsay are team captains leading some fairly mid-tier famouses into battle, but the games – missing word rounds, cyphers, anagrams – are reliably good,If not quite as wildly inventive as House of Games, it’s a very solid stand in,---The Finish Line BBC iPlayerCurrently airing on BBC One, this visually very silly quizshow is also deeply enjoyable – and at times surprisingly nail-biting.
Five contestants race each other on giant, garish, motorised podiums by answering questions in turn.Answer a question correctly and your podium starts moving towards the finish line, get one wrong and it stops.The enjoyable wrinkle is that podiums keep moving even when other contestants are answering their questions, ratcheting up the tension and prompting those contestants who are trailing behind to answer their questions in a mad rushed panic.Roman Kemp, who definitely has designs on Mulhern’s light entertainment crown, hosts (with side-kick Sarah Greene).---The Answer Trap Channel 4Another prematurely cancelled show, this one hosted by Anita Rani (picture above) and reminiscent of Only Connect in its cheerful cleverness.
Teams of contestants are given a grid of answers and have to place the correct ones into one of two possible categories (like “mononymous footballers”, or “impressionist painters”).But sneaky “trap” answers have been placed in the grid by the show’s resident Trappers, University Challenge breakout Bobby Seagull and champion quizzer Frank Paul, who are playing their own parallel contest to collect the most incorrect answers.Had someone come up with it a few decades earlier, The Answer Trap would have happily aired on More4 for years and years.As it is, there’s only a single series to gorge on, though if you enjoyed it, one of its creators is also behind the podcast Here’s What You Do, which sets three new fiendish quizzes each episode.To read the complete version of this newsletter please subscribe to receive The Guide in your inbox every Friday
Goldman Sachs chief ‘hyper-aware’ of risks from Anthropic’s Mythos AI
Goldman Sachs’s chief executive, David Solomon, has said he is “hyper-aware” of the capabilities of Anthropic’s Mythos AI model and is working “closely” with the tech firm after it issued warnings about the cybersecurity risk it poses.The US bank had been monitoring the rapid advances in artificial intelligence, including large language models (LLMs), as part of wider efforts to protect itself from hackers.“Obviously the LLMs are making rapid progress and we’re hyper-aware of the enhanced capabilities of these new models with the help of the US government and the model publishers,” Solomon told analysts on an earnings call on Monday.That included Anthropic, the company behind the Claude family of AI tools. Last week it claimed that its latest model, Mythos, posed an unprecedented risk because of its ability to expose flaws in IT systems
Oil price tops $100 a barrel as US blockades strait of Hormuz; Goldman Sachs posts rise in profits – as it happened
Time to wrap up…Oil prices have jumped back above $100 a barrel and global stocks fell after weekend talks between the US and Iran ended without an agreement and Donald Trump imposed a blockade of the strait of Hormuz.The US president announced the blockade on Sunday, targeting Iranian vessels and ships that have paid a toll to Iran for passage through the strait, in an attempt to choke off the flow of Iranian oil.US Central Command said it would start blocking all Iranian Gulf ports and coastal areas from 3pm UK time, in effect seizing control of maritime traffic in the strait of Hormuz.Trump said on Monday afternoon that ships coming near the blockade would be “eliminated”, warning Iran not to send its “fast attack ships”:double quotation markWarning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea. It is quick and brutal
Elon Musk’s X cuts payments to users who post clickbait
Elon Musk’s X has reduced payments to users who post clickbait and recycle news stories as it warned account holders against “flooding the timeline” with low-quality content.Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, wrote on the social media platform that all “aggregators” – users who quickly repackage and repost news from other accounts – had received less money from the creator revenue sharing programme.Under the scheme, X gives a share of advertising revenue to creators who have at least 500 verified followers and generate at least 5m views over a three-month period. Bier wrote that aggregators had their payouts reduced by 60% and that total will be reduced by a further 20%.“It became abundantly clear: flooding the timeline with 100 stolen reposts and clickbait everyday crowded out real creators and hurt new author growth,” he wrote
Booking.com warns customers of hack that exposed their data
The accommodation reservation website Booking.com has suffered a data breach with “unauthorised parties” gaining access to customers’ details.The platform said it “noticed some suspicious activity involving unauthorised third parties being able to access some of our guests’ booking information”.“Upon discovering the activity, we took action to contain the issue,” it said. “We have updated the pin number for these reservations and informed our guests
Rory McIlroy says preparation at ‘home course’ Augusta aided Masters defence
Rory McIlroy has explained how weeks of preparation at “home course” Augusta National after advice from Jack Nicklaus played a substantial role in his successful Masters defence.Rather than play in PGA Tour events in the lead up to the Masters and despite a back injury causing him competitive disruption, McIlroy spent considerable time at Augusta in the lead-up to the Masters. On one occasion, it is understood he played the front nine in 29 when playing with a single ball.After seeing off Scottie Scheffler by a stroke, the Northern Irishman and now six-time major winner pointed towards his deliberate buildup. “I joked last week that this place feels like my home course,” said McIlroy before leaving Augusta
County cricket: Anderson stars as Lancashire win thriller against Derbyshire – as it happened
Jimmy Anderson peeled back the years with every neat and tidy stride from the James Anderson End, poetically butterflying Derbyshire at Old Trafford.It was a day of high drama from start to finish, with Ben Aitchison grabbing two wickets in the first over of the day, much to the surprise of the Lancashire No 10, Mitchell Stanley, who was still doing himself up and dropping gloves on his way to the middle.Derbyshire were finally set 138 to win, which felt possible, though Caleb Jewell, who has a blind spot against Lancashire, was out in the second over. From then on, it was nip and tuck, until Anderson started his second spell. Just 4
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