2016/17, Episode 30 - Warwick vs Bristol

If you haven't already you can watch the episode here before reading this post:

These two teams entered the quarter final stage with similar fortunes - they topped the aggregate score charts of the eight teams left in the competition, Bristol slightly edging their. It wasn’t there that the similarities ended - both were handed humiliating defeats by an Oxbridge college in their latest appearances, leaving them on the precipice of elimination.

And regardless of who manages to haul themselves up from the cliff edge for another chance to make the semi finals, a third of the remaining female contestants will fall out of the contest. Bristol and Warwick have two female and two male members apiece, but of the other six teams in the quarters, there are only two in total. Of tonight’s contestants, Warwick’s Rudd and Bristol captain Clarke have shown themselves to be two of the series’ entertaining contestants - the former for an abundance of exuberance and the latter for a distinct lack.

Of the two other women, Sophie Hobbs is still sporting the sling she wore in Warwick’s last match, which limits her to one handed buzzing, not that many contestants opt for the rarer two handed technique. And since this may be her last appearance, I’m also going to mention for the fourth time that Bristol’s Jackson shares her name with the protagonist from the novel, and film, Starter for 10 - a fact which will never stop providing me with at least a mild chuckle.

And because I’ll have plenty of time to discuss the gents later on in the tournament, I’ll only give a sentence to one of them. Bristol’s Rolleston is studying to become a history teacher, and if he doesn’t want to become part of his own curriculum he’ll have to put in the game of his life.

As it happens, he starts as if he means to do just that, taking his side’s first two starters as they danced into a narrow lead early on. A lead which, admittedly, was aided by one of the easiest bonus questions I’ve ever seen on the Challenge.

“Which building features prominently in the films King Kong, Sleepless in Seattle?”

If its likely that all one hundred and twelve individual contestants who started the series, plus probably at least 80% of people watching at home, would get that on their own whats the point in having it as a bonus question? There are plenty of complainants who argue that the difficulty of questioning on the Challenge has been falling over the years, and on most issues I would argue with them, but you won’t get an easier five points, even if, like Jackson’s namesake, you’ve had a sly peek at the questions beforehand.

The same could be said for a full set of fivers Bristol get later on darts, which amount to nothing more than rudimentary mental arithmetic, and of which they somehow conspire to miss one. 60+60+50=170? I’m fairly sure that if you’ve made it to the quarter finals of University Challenge you’re going to be comfortable adding together multiples of ten.

This week also saw a round on pop music, providing a welcome break from the endlessly guessable classical music rounds. Its far more difficult to pluck a random band name out of thin air (and for it to be right) than it is to run through a list of Italian composers and pick whichever one sounds vaguely the most likely. Now of course a lot of the time they do genuinely know the right answer, but when you can throw ‘Mozart’ or ‘Bach’ at Paxman with a reasonable chance of it sticking, you aren’t operating at the maximum levels of fun, are you? Its the same issue, as I’ve mentioned in previous editions, that you have with literature questions where the answer is inevitably Austen, Dickens, or a Bronte sister.

Its not like you can’t have arduous questions on popular music, either, as Only Connect has been showing for years.

Meanwhile, back in the match, Rolleston was living up to his early verve, playing like a man reborn with six tens to his name, having only managed a total of four from his previous three showings. His newfound prowess helped his team to a one hundred point lead, and looked to have consigned Warwick to a second consecutive defeat, and elimination.

But Warwick had had enough of rolling over and accepting their fate from their match against Emmanuel, and bounced back with five tens on the bounce to creep within one starter question of their opponents.

Its at this point that I have no choice but to quote Batman, for this is one of many scenarios in which he is solely apt. Riding high on the confidence of his six ten pointers, Joe Rolleston buzzed in with Henry V instead of VIII. If Warwick got the next starter they’d nick it at the death!

Rudd, with a poor, by her own standards, four starters at this point, looked both delighted and startled at the opportunity to win as she beamed out ‘Fritz Lang’ to claim the victory with seconds to spare.

“You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”.

The pendulum swings eternally, and it won’t be Rolleston’s dominant twenty nine minutes that will go down in his precious history, it’ll be the fraction of a second it took him to hand Warwick the tie.

Final Score - Warwick 120 - 110 Bristol

So a low scoring match, but given the conclusion, by no means a boring one. Next week will either be Edinburgh//Wolfson or Birmingham//Balliol, couldn’t tell you which at the moment. No idea why the BBC don’t release the schedule ahead of time for these, and as always, thanks for reading