2016/17, Episode 16 - Durham vs SOAS

If you haven’t already you can watch the episode here before reading the review:

Two more teams previously vanquished return this week in an attempt to rise like four headed phoenixes from the ashes of defeat. SOAS were memorably shouted into submission by the sonorous Eric Monkman of Wolfson College, Cambridge, losing out on an exhilarating tiebreak. Durham meanwhile let a close match against Edinburgh slip away in the dying embers. Neither are likely to let this second chance go gently into that good night.

There are a number of different perspectives through which you can choose to watch a show like this. One of these belongs to Durham captain Cressida O’Connor, and if you view it through her eyes, its a harrowing tale of her struggle to reintroduce her first name to the twenty first century. There exist only seven Wikipedia entries for people with the Christian name Cressida, a remarkably low number. If she can find a dude called Troilus it may help, but until then she continues the fight.

Durham have brought a mole with them as their mascot this time, perhaps he is called Troilus.

SOAS captain Henry Edwards has no such nominative trouble, and will be hoping to best his opposite number on this occasion, having let the noisy beast of Wolfson nudge past him in the previous match. This could be a difficult obstacle for him to overcome, because he appears to forget what subject he’s studying as he introduces himself. This is even more of a problem given that his University is so niche that his teammates are all studying the same degree too.

Owen Stenner-Matthews snaps up the biblical opening question, and Durham might have thought at this stage they had a chance. But if we return for a moment to the eyes of Cressida O’Connor we can see in the distance the beginnings of the oncoming tsunami that would overcome this match for her team.

Their bonus questions seemed to me among the easiest on the show in recent times - naming main characters from Sherlock Holmes - though Durham try their hardest to deny this assertion, suggesting that John Watson rather than Jim Moriarty possesses psychotic tendencies…

SOAS claim the first picture question, and come so close on one of the bonuses, answering Yamchatka rather than Kamchatka, that I think Paxman should have shown them some pity and given it to them. Not that they were really in need of his pity, being about eighty points clear already at this early stage.

Following on from six starters in his first match, Edwards chips in with an even healthier seven this time, though immediately after his answers have been confirmed as correct, he looks physically repulsed, as if he’d been hoping in some masochistic way that he was wrong.

Combining this with the blonde hair flopping off one side of his head, emo-like, and his pale complexion, he looks like the long lost brother of Jamie and Cersei Lannister who found themselves as a vampire in the world of Twilight. This is Halloween after all.

And with all the ruthlessness of pushing a small child out of a window SOAS steamroll Durham to the extent you wonder how they remain in three dimensions. They have some joy, with a double-guess of Duke of Monmouth and Sedgemoor, Cressida simply can’t contain her excitement and erupts into a beaming grin. I’m glad they can see the happiness even in death. They take a full bonus set on musicals, but its a case of too little too late and SOAS continue stretching their lead right up until the gong.

Their final score of 270 is the highest of the series by a solid 35 points and marks them as serious contenders for the series title. Perhaps they’ll follow Guttenplan’s Emmanuel in becoming only the second team to win the trophy through the play-off route.

Final Score: Durham 85 - 270 SOAS

That was the final episode of round one. Next week Durham’s other conquerors Edinburgh return to face the Open University in the first of the second round matches.