Monday 16 January 2012

Catching up with Pointless....


Back when Pointless was first aired, I used to make sure to see every episode. I really enjoyed the concept, the show was on just as I was getting in from work making it ideal viewing to unwind to with a cup of tea and I actually applied to appear on the show.

As the series began to go on I did however become less and less interested. When I moved jobs and ended up having to record the show to see I did not get round to watching it and ended up missing entire series of Pointless. Not that I was too bothered but sitting on iplayer I thought I would give it a try and check in on how the show is doing.

The show is now in its fifth series and the basic set up has not changed with Alexander Armstrong fronting as well as ever and the ever so slightly annoying know-it-all Richard Osman behind the laptop clearing up questions. This was the Pointless episode from 13th January....A Eurovision fan as one of the contestants too. Nice to see a mention of my Mastermind Specialist subject of the future!

Has Richard Osman became a comedian seen I last saw this show? If he is he obviously needs to go back to the day job. In fact, what is his day job?

The first round of Pointless is the same as always. The subject is given, words ending in "aze" in this case and then both members of the team give an answer, the fewer the points the better.  (In case you havent seen Pointless it is like Family Fortune in reverse, you have to find correct answers nobody said hence the fewer the points the better).  Not too keen on these "words" type round, makes the show more of a gameshow and less of a Quiz show. Saying that the contestants came up with a lot more than I did!

The second round involves seeing some clues. For instance this episode of Pointless had a list of 6 Drummers. Contestants had to correctly identify which band the drummer played with and also score low. So anyone going for Ringo Starr would obviously be expecting a high score. I like this round as its more a quiz and you can test your knowledge and certainly learn a thing or too!

After this round the Head to Head remains the same. Oscar Wilde plays was the subject and the team with the lowest points wins. Again another good subject and I like list type questions and it certainly stumped one of the teams here! Just proves that Pointless is one of those game shows when gaps in your knowledge are exposed, really exposed. It's a shame when you cannot even guess, maybe they should introduce some sort of lifeline where they show you a few answers and you guess. Maybe would make it better to watch than people hazarding daft guesses that they know is not right. Cricket World Cup Quarter Finalists was next, a better topic to be able to guess at. This round is a best of three and is was Steve and Paula who made it through.

The final of this show has always been tough to win. You are given a subject, usually a tough and you have to get a Pointless answer....an answer nobody else has said. £5,250 was on offer on this show, it rolls over every day depending on the amount of Pointless answers given as well. Really hard going and the topic in this episode, from the choices they had, was Childrens Book and the contestants had to name Enid Blytons Famous Five titles......tough to get a Pointless answer on that. To be fair I would be clutching at straws too as Steve and Paula admitted they were. They did not win, an incredibly tough tough round with the Pointless answers being "Five go Down to the Sea", "Five Fall into Adventure" and "Five have a mystery to solve" amongst others.

The one thing I will say about Pointless is its a quiz show I do always learn something from and its got great play along at home value, especially when you know the subject. Although the days where I make sure to watch every show have passed, I still would love a crack at this and another application will be going in shortly. It is enjoyable and when I move and get the chance to watch it after work maybe I'll settle down to see Pointless more often!


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