Mastermind Woman
The special Doctor Who edition of Mastermind which The Doctor Who Blog told you all about a while back was broadcast on BBC2 over the weekend. And the winner was a female fan, who apparently trounced several males on her way to victory (although ironically she apparently had the lowest score amongst the contestants for the Doctor Who question, claiming the victory on the basis on the non-Who related question which followed). The 9th Doctor himself, Christopher Eccleston, was even on hand to present the winner with her award.
I am pleased a woman won, as it’s about time that the general public realized that you don’t have to be male to have an encylopaedic knowledge of Doctor Who - women can be just as geeky!
I just hope the BBC see fit to put this edition of the game show on the new series DVD release, as it would make for a cool extra.
Posted by John on Monday, March 21 at 9:20 am
12 Comments...
Although the female factor is sort of “interesting” (maybe), I found the real touching aspect of the episode came in the form of Liam O’Carroll, the blind contestant. He’s an actor who used to have his sight but has since lost it. And it is heart breaking to think that such a huge fan of Doctor Who(and damn good quiz player) will not be able to see the New Series when it airs just 5 days from now. Male or female…who cares, Liam was the real star of Mastermind. I truly hope that he’ll able to enjoy the New Series by listening to it (and the descriptive audio…if that’s available). My heart goes out to him, and I’ll now be able to appreciate the series on another level thanks to Liam.
Posted by Rod on 03/21 at 10:57 AM
Interesting….I didn’t actually see the episode myself so I had no knowledge of this. I had only heard about the female winner & the appearance by Eccleston on the internet - there has been very little talk (if any) about a blind contestant. Until now, I suppose. I wish him well.
Posted by Luca on 03/21 at 11:02 AM
Ah… well. I have seen the episode and his story should be The Story here. I almost fell off my chair when he whipped out his cane to help get himself to the Mastermind chair. Roberta was in tears when he said that he will not be able to see the new Doctor Who due to his condition. Remember he *used* to have his sight, had seen the classic series, he’s a huge fan, and now that part of his life is gone.
Posted by rod on 03/21 at 11:08 AM
Never having seen Mastermind, I’m confused when you say the Doctor Who question (singular) and the non-Doctor Who question (singular). Do you mean they weren’t all DW questions, and she managed to clean up by virtue of answering more of the other?
Thanks for the clarification in advance.
Posted by Scott on 03/21 at 02:34 PM
Rod may be able to answer this better than I can because he’s actually seen it, but I understand that there is an initial round of DW questions & then a 2nd round of non-DW related questions.
Posted by Luca on 03/21 at 03:11 PM
Yes… the first round, 2 minutes, were only Doctor Who questions (not all super hard), while the second round were “general knowledge” questions. The winner won because of the 2nd round, and not solely based upon her Doctor Who knowledge… which was a bit of a let down. I would have rathered 2 rounds of DW Qs.
Posted by rod on 03/21 at 03:36 PM
...oh, in fact the winner was in 4th place for her Doctor Who knowledge by the end of the first round.
Posted by rod on 03/21 at 03:38 PM
The Mastermind format has always been first round specialist subject questions, second round general knowledge. Also, this is not the first time they’ve had a blind or partially sighted contestant, which is probably why the reports didn’t make much of a fuss about it.
Posted by Richard Salter on 03/21 at 05:33 PM
Speaking from a purely geeky perspective here I was rather disappointed about the Doctor Who Mastermind. I had thought that people would have been able to have picked a specialist subject within Doctor Who (“Bars frequented by Tom Baker 1974-1981”; “Sontarans” etc) and the ‘general knowledge’ round would have been transformed into a general trivia round about Who. Instead, they just had a regular game of Mastermind where all the contestants had Doctor Who as their specialist subject. Which I thought was disappointing. Still, it was nice to see my former editor Paul Simpson doing so well on the Doctor Who trivia. He should have shaved off his beard years ago!
Posted by Graeme on 03/21 at 09:20 PM
I watched this last night but due to this posting who was going to win was no surprise.
Posted by Mike on 03/22 at 09:03 AM
D’oh!
Posted by rod on 03/22 at 10:16 AM
MAI CONTANE SPOLYARS!
Posted by Mark Pilchard on 03/22 at 12:06 PM
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