Pointless is the best entertainment show out there

Cienciano

Roger_007 wrote: »

Irish couple were brilliant but unfortunately only won £2000. Best character on the show recently was a tiny asian guy called Kwok. He laughed his way through the whole thing but got to the head-to-head twice. His co-competitor was about 18 ins taller than him. They were like a comedy duo. Great entertainment value.

I'm a day behind, saw one with him.
The irish couple were very good. I reckon the jackpot should start at €2500. €1000 between 2 people is just too low.

Was just talking to my wife, you can really be shafted by the subjects. 2 that regularly come up are politics and the monarchy. Almost always from the UK. Have no idea about either.

Jimmy Iovine

Cienciano wrote: »

Was just talking to my wife, you can really be shafted by the subjects. 2 that regularly come up are politics and the monarchy. Almost always from the UK. Have no idea about either.

The River Liffey was a clue in another recently and the answer was very, very low. There was another Irish related question as well. I think it may have been a county.

You can get lucky.

Toto Wolfcastle

Kwok was great. Everytime a new subject came up the first thing that came to mind was that Kwok wouldn't have a clue. He was great fun though.

Cienciano

Jimmy Iovine wrote: »

The River Liffey was a clue in another recently and the answer was very, very low. There was another Irish related question as well. I think it may have been a county.

You can get lucky.

A few months ago it was irish prime ministers. I'm bad enough with irish politics, not a clue of english.

gubbie

Jimmy Iovine wrote: »

The River Liffey was a clue in another recently and the answer was very, very low. There was another Irish related question as well. I think it may have been a county.

You can get lucky.

That one was funny. I believe the guy said something like "I dunno how to pronounce this, it sounds French, the river Liffey..." I can't even remember what he guessed but the subject was cities that begin with a D.

Skid X

gubbie wrote: »

That one was funny. I believe the guy said something like "I dunno how to pronounce this, it sounds French, the river Liffey..." I can't even remember what he guessed but the subject was cities that begin with a D.

I think he said it was in Dunkirk.

In Dunkirk's fair city, where the girls are so pretty ... :P

gubbie

Skid X wrote: »

I think he said it was in Dunkirk.

In Dunkirk's fair city, where the girls are so pretty ... :P

There was another where the category was "European cities of culture". They were given a picture similar to this



And they guessed Venice.
(This is cobh, the answer was Cork but I used this photo because it had old looking houses and a river in front with shipping boats)

delbertgrady

I think, to make matters worse, that one of the womans' parents was from Cork and she had been to Cork herself. Torture.

I thought they

got gypped very badly

in the final yesterday evening. They went with British Actors and were asked to name

Nicholas Lyndhurst films or TV appearances. Despite his lengthy career, that's ridiculous. There are the obvious three TV programmes (two of which they said) and after that, it's very tricky.

Kwok

screwed up on the Brideshead Revisited question though. Practically handed the other team the point.

(I've put in spoilers in case anyone had yesterday's recorded and hadn't watched it yet.)

delbertgrady

Cienciano wrote: »

Was just talking to my wife, you can really be shafted by the subjects. 2 that regularly come up are politics and the monarchy. Almost always from the UK. Have no idea about either.

Re: Politics - one of the best ones I saw was when a young couple went with that as their category in the final, and were asked to name female members of Tony Blair's first cabinet. I wouldn't have had a clue, but the guy was doing a Politics Masters and was involved in local government, so really knew his stuff. He came up with three. The first answer was wrong. BOTH his other answers were Pointless.

Every day, I pray for Music and Film related categories to be chosen.

One woman on recently remarked that "Irish Playwrights" often comes up (which it does) and nobody ever takes it (which they don't), and she said that she'd like to have a go at it. She wasn't offered it. Argh!

gubbie

delbertgrady wrote: »

Every day, I pray for Music and Film related categories to be chosen.

I always like to try and guess what the question will be. It's really hard to get a pointless answer in film. You have to know the early movies by actors

Roger_007

I am always amazed at why people choose "actors" or "actresses" in the final. Unless you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the whole film and TV industry you will never win with that subject. In fact Richard has pointed out a couple of times that it was the most difficult subject.
I thought the Irish couple who won the other day were very clever to chose "panel shows" as their subject. Even if you were not that familiar with whatever show was the subject, you would probably be able to guess some names and have a good chance of getting at least one right.

delbertgrady

Re: Gubbie - "It's really hard to get a pointless answer in film. You have to know the early movies by actors".

Yeah, that's true, unless it's an old school Hollywood person, in which case more recent films tend to score lower, or even Pointless answers.
There was a team on recently who were asked to name Tilda Swinton movies, and they came up with two that were reasonably well-known (one was Benjamin Button), but had actually scored quite low. None were Pointless, though.
However, Richard remarked that basically ALL of her Derek Jarman collaborations were Pointless (early films, as you said), as was The Deep End, which was the one I'd gone for. Very well done to me for saying that at home.

delbertgrady

Roger_007 wrote: »

I am always amazed at why people choose "actors" or "actresses" in the final. Unless you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the whole film and TV industry you will never win with that subject. In fact Richard has pointed out a couple of times that it was the most difficult subject.

I think TV Series or Sitcoms are the worst. At least with Actors and Actresses you stand SOME chance of not making a complete clown of yourself, I feel very sorry for people who land themselves a question for a TV show that they're not remotely familiar with.
A recent pair were asked to name recurring characters from 24, a show they'd never seen. As Richard said, dead easy if you watched it, but impossible if you didn't.

gubbie

I always think that geography is a good one, especially if you watch pointless a lot and know the favourites such as the Central African Republic

Cienciano

Roger_007 wrote: »

I am always amazed at why people choose "actors" or "actresses" in the final. Unless you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the whole film and TV industry you will never win with that subject. In fact Richard has pointed out a couple of times that it was the most difficult subject.
I thought the Irish couple who won the other day were very clever to chose "panel shows" as their subject. Even if you were not that familiar with whatever show was the subject, you would probably be able to guess some names and have a good chance of getting at least one right.

The only reason people pick it is because they mightn't have a clue of the other subjects. Take a gamble.

What annoys me is if the subjects are along the lines of:
Football, canadian politics, spanish pop, irish playwrights, soaps.
Guy is an expert in football, watches it all the time, but his girlfriend rules it out because she knows nothing about. So they go with spanish pop because they both went to spain once.

gubbie

Cienciano wrote: »

The only reason people pick it is because they mightn't have a clue of the other subjects. Take a gamble.

What annoys me is if the subjects are along the lines of:
Football, canadian politics, spanish pop, irish playwrights, soaps.
Guy is an expert in football, watches it all the time, but his girlfriend rules it out because she knows nothing about. So they go with spanish pop because they both went to spain once.

Football is usually a pretty bad one too, because a lot of English people know a lot about soccer

delbertgrady

gubbie wrote: »

I always think that geography is a good one, especially if you watch pointless a lot and know the favourites such as the Central African Republic

A mother and daughter team had to name countries South of the Equator. During their deliberations, they immediately said the Central African Republic and half laughed about it, like it had become cliché and predictable: they didn't make it one of their three, and none of their answers won them the money. The Central African Republic was right and it was Pointless.

But my "favourite" screw-up was the mother and daughter who went for Modern Artists, mainly on the daughter's insistence. The question was to name nominees for the Turner Prize. "What's the Turner Prize?", says the bewildered girl. Turned out she thought Modern Artists meant pop music artists and she knew nothing about art. Even Alexander and Richard were visibly thinking, "WTF?!".

gubbie

There was also the round with "answers ending in -io" and the clue was to do with a painter. The guy went for "Carl-vaggio"

Cienciano

Central African Republic, Comoros, San Tome and Principe, Vanuatu and South Sudan.
They're all my stock geography answers :cool:

K-9

UK political parties or MP's is an easy one if you're into Northern Ireland politics, more or less guaranteed a pointless answer!

Cienciano

K-9 wrote: »

UK political parties or MP's is an easy one if you're into Northern Ireland politics, more or less guaranteed a pointless answer!

Oh yeah, forgot about NI. Newry is always a good on UK cities which has come up a few times.

S.M.B.

Just had a look at the Irish winners episode and I think I could have actually beaten them (especially giving their one dud answer) had I been on the show. I couldn't ask for a better set of rounds than.

Football > 90s Bands > UNESCO Sites > The Apprentice > QI Panelists

That wouldn't be far off the list of interests I'd give at the start of the show.

Cienciano

You can get good subjects, but a lot depends on the order you go in. For instance, the "actors in harry potter" question and you're going first, you'll end up picking a big actor. People have time to think if they're further down the line.

delbertgrady

Cienciano wrote: »

Central African Republic, Comoros, San Tome and Principe, Vanuatu and South Sudan.
They're all my stock geography answers :cool:

... and Seychelles!

PhiloCypher

While I like the concept of having to choose the least popular answer like a reverse family fortunes I can't for the life of me understand why this show has a thread let alone one this size.

Mr.Prodston

PhiloCypher wrote: »

While I like the concept of having to choose the least popular answer like a reverse family fortunes I can't for the life of me understand why this show has a thread let alone one this size.

I guess it's because people like the show and as they say in economics it's all about supply and demand.

Let's just agree to disagree:

Poor old Richard takes grave offence too, and as a frequent poster in his favourite pointless thread he will not be pleased :pac:

Skid X

PhiloCypher wrote: »

While I like the concept of having to choose the least popular answer like a reverse family fortunes I can't for the life of me understand why this show has a thread let alone one this size.

Other threads are available.

Roger_007

PhiloCypher wrote: »

While I like the concept of having to choose the least popular answer like a reverse family fortunes I can't for the life of me understand why this show has a thread let alone one this size.

I think it has a lot to do with the quality of contestants which is much higher on average than on Family Fortunes. The presenters on Pointless are top notch and make the show entertaining in an understated way rather than manic like FF. Also the topics are more varied and interesting and FF has no equvilent of Richard Osman who really makes the show work.

delbertgrady

Well, we gave one hundred people one hundred seconds to name as many television quiz shows that were better than Pointless, but no answers were forthcoming.

brian_t

The couple from Northern Ireland who appeared in the first episode of the new season (April 3rd) have written about their experience here http://www.outlooknews.co.uk/articles/news/32991/my-pointless-quiz-challenge/



Iain and his quiz partner Grace on the set before filming