You don't win an argument by shouting.

With due respect, it is a matter of opinion, VCM's opinion to be precise. She said would have preferred to hear "Winter Wonderland", but said she would accept the answer given. If she hadn't said she was ideally looking for the song title you might have a point in saying she should have been. But she did so it was taken account of in her decision.

With written clues, the precise format is important, but with music clues it's less clear. There's no explicit format to follow. So it would be harsh to disallow an answer that clearly got the sequence correct but didn't provide a song title.

Well if they didn't know a final clue but did know the connection then the bonus wouldn't be passed across.

What if it was the other way round. What if the connection was Childrens Presenters but the team said Newsround Presenters?
Would that be acceptable?

Time for a Venn diagram, methinks!

K

The only sequence they identified was spring - summer - autumn - winter.

And here we go again. It's not my interpretation, it's what the producers wrote and what VCM has repeatedly stated on the programme. Why bother with rules if you're not going to stick to them? After all, they (usually) adopt an ultra-strict attitude in the missing vowels round, often resulting in a 3 point swing.

Well neither UC nor Mastermind do this and both offer roughly the same reward. Frankly, I can't see that it's 'good telly' to reward a three person team apparently just for knowing that winter follows spring summer and autumn. On a prime time bbc quiz programme I think it's a bit embarrassing and insulting to the intelligence, and not worth paying the teams' expenses for.

It works ok if you stick with it.


But it helps to pass the time doesn't it? I mean, how is this endlessly complaining about anything? I spend maybe 10 minutes at a time trying to make a point to all the others seemingly trying to argue that rules shouldn't be followed and quiz questions don't have right and wrong answers. Beats me why they do it.

It was too narrow a category and not only fell into the 'either know it or you don't' type of question but was by its nature impossible to guess as well. The one person who did know the category hoovered up a simple (and predictably very significant) easy four points.

I don't think it's at all constructive to have such narrow categories at that stage and to choose one which would have no guess potential either just lent itself to a far too high a chance of one team gaining an easy four-point haul - which is exactly what happened.

You're complaining that a question falls into an "either you know it or don't" category? What a bizarre statement to make about a quiz show!

OC has always had esoteric questions, it's an ethos that lies at the very heart of the show. You're missing the point in so many different ways.

Have you thought of applying to enter atg?

I wonder how long a recording would take if you challenged the answers accepted.

BIB For the subject in question - Jabberwocky quotes - it's not at all bizarre. The missing vowels round usually has an element of work-it-out-ability. I rarely get many points during the rest of the programme but generally get 90% of the the missing vowels right before the players do. Often this is with no knowledge of the subject but the ability to "see" the words and find the answer fits the subject. Most of those were not "normal" English so if you didn't know it, impossible to work out.

No, but I could do a better job of sitting in the middle.

Why are you surprised? This thread is full of them.

And, once again, what the producers wrote was "The points are given for correctly identifying the last element in the sequence". What's meant by "correctly identifying" is absolutely a matter of interpretation. You interpret it to mean one thing - I interpret it to mean another. Neither of us is right or wrong; it simply isn't as black and white as you think.

It's not a bizarre statement at all, particularly not for Only Connect where many of the questions are worked out or educated guessed rather than known.

Nonsense. But never mind, we'll see how you get on with that if you go on any other quiz programme.

Does anybody else really agree with this or are you all just arguing for the sake of it?

The point you are missing is that they had absolutely no idea what the song was, just that if one existed with winter in the title it would be the answer. That in no way, shape or form is 'correctly identifying' the song. Rewarding ignorance. Great telly, I am sure.

I do agree in this particular instance. They should have named a song, or not got the point, but other 2nd round questions do allow more leeway, or have done.

Other teams have previously answered that they knew the connection but didn't actually have an answer.

This is where I fundamentally disagree. The answer being sought was a song with the word winter in its title. That's the answer. Not an exhaustive and comprehensive recollection of his discography, just 'a song with the word winter in its title'. That's what that particular question was looking for. If they could come up with a genuine title, there were entitled to be smug, but they didn't need to and didn't. They met the requirement of the question which was to identify the sequence and correctly said that the 4th panel would contain a song with winter in its title. It's not rewarding ignorance, it's rewarding their ability to extrapolate an answer from the previous clues. Unless I'm mistaken VC didn't specifically ask 'what song title...', she normally says 'what's the 4th in the sequence', which leaves enough ambiguity for her & maybe the producer in her left lug-hole to allow answers of this nature. Spot the link, not some specific song title. The link was seasons in song titles.

One thing to remember is that the "song sequence" question is fairly new (only used 3 or 4 times so far?), so perhaps what is acceptable as an answer is still being fine tuned?

K

I think if it was at a later stage in the competition, VC would have pushed for more.

Song sequence the other night actually brought this to my attention. Team responded with Lady in Red which was the answer they had but if they had said something like "red red wine" would it have been accepted as Victoria seemed very quick to say "is the right answer".

True. I keep forgetting this is still the first round!

K

Yes, any song with red in the title would have been acceptable, Lady In Red was just their example. As it happens I said Lady In Red sitting at home, it must be what comes first to the mind of most of us.

First one I thought of as well but then thought of a couple of others since.