Eggheads

[Brock]

Barry Simmons, one of the resident team on BBC2's "Eggheads", has just appeared on Radio 4's "Brain of Britain", winning his heat easily. Can this be right?

And how did "Tremendous Knowledge" Dave Rainford ever get picked for the team?

[George White]

Yeh, Dave was picked because the producers knew him, apparently. I read it in RT.

[Mark]

Hasn't CJ left.?, not seen him on any I have caught recently.

[Brock]

He has, and "Tremendous Knowledge" was brought in as his replacement. In previous years they had an "Are You an Egghead?" competition to find new panellists, but Dave Rainford just seems to have appeared from nowhere. His quiz show CV seems rather less impressive than some of the others:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggheads_% ... ggheads.22

Maybe it's my imagination but he seems to lose his round far more often than the rest. Perhaps the nickname is meant to be ironic.

[Mark]

Ah right, taken up Acting, I see....knew he had done the odd Panto.

[robinsmith]

My mother and I came to the conclusion, independently, that Eggheads was a bit of a fix, with the egged ones seemingly getting the easy questions...I'm sure we are not the only ones...

[Scary]

Three of the Eggheads appeared on a special edition of Only Connect a few weeks ago. They weren't very impressive, it did seem as though they'd never even seen the programme before

[Dandy Forsdyke]

I think Dave is there because they needed someone that is not middle aged now that The Smug One has gone (under whatever circumstances). I agree that he needs to do better, but it's still early days and he just needs to gen up. I have to say if I had a £ for every time a Challenger said "It's gonna have to be a guess" or "This is before my time" I'd be a rich man.

OFFTOPIC :

My first post. You probably know me from Roobarb's though.

[Scary]

I have to say if I had a £ for every time a Challenger said "It's gonna have to be a guess" or "This is before my time" I'd be a rich man.

They're told to pretend to be not sure about the answers for some reason.

A good family friend was on Eggheads a few years back. Her first question was a very easy one with the answer Cornwall, she's travelled all over the world for work and has also spent loads of time down there. She knew the answer but still had to do the 'er well I think I've heard of it I'm going to take a guess...' stuff

[Tilt Araiza]

As far as I can tell, it's because the last round can vary in length. The fake uncertainty serves to pad out the main rounds in the event of a brief last round. Once you realize this, you can often tell how long the last round will be from how much waffling happens earlier in show.

[Mark]

They did something similar on "You Bet", when a contestant was naming pictures or something, they would pass on one or two, and come back to them ( more often than not) obviously told to, creates more tension and extends it a little longer.

[Dandy Forsdyke]

Those insights are fascinating and I'm sure you are right. In some cases they really do just guess though, which is what I mean rather than the waffling, especially when they get the question wrong and blame their age. I do like Eggheads though and I'm not really complaining. It's nice to see older faces on the TV for a change.

OFFTOPIC :

12 Yards also produce Perfection which I've become a fan of since the New Year. It's a 'true' or 'false' game rather than multiple choice, but it's very good.

[Brian F]

As far as I can tell, it's because the last round can vary in length. The fake uncertainty serves to pad out the main rounds in the event of a brief last round. Once you realize this, you can often tell how long the last round will be from how much waffling happens earlier in show.

Yep, I always do that to see if the last round goes to more than 6 questions. I cheat with the clock as well though.