Weaver's Week 2025-05-18

Last week | Weaver's Week Index | Next week

This edition was published on the morning of Saturday 17 May, before the Eurovision finals.

Spoilers abound for shows this week. So, if you don't want to know what happened in the University Challenge final, the Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals, or this week's Genius Game, then we recommend a quick trip to the relevant catchup service before you read on.

Contents 1 University Challenge 2 Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals 2.1 SSR SRG for EBU (seen on BBC1), 13 and 15 May 2.2 Semi-final 2 2.3 The running order 3 Genius Game 4 In other news

University Challenge

A very, very weird final.

Not just in the host's costume: Amol Rajan came in a shiny suit and bow tie, looking like a pastiche of a used car salesman. The students were smart and presentable but not as outlandishly dressed as the host. Again, we're reminded that we do not watch University Challenge for the host, he is not the star.

The stars are the competitors, the students. Brendan Bethlehem kicks off the show with the Nuragic civilisation of Sardinia, they created giant stone sculptures and were related to the Beaker people. Brendan Bethlehem is a linguistics student and is Christ's one star buzzer, no other player has scored more than him in any show. Oscar Despard is a biochemist and the team's captain, Linus Luu reads maths. Anniko Firman studies classics, she appears to have been selected for bonus ability, having got just one starter in the five previous matches.

Christ's have been consistent: bonus conversion percentages of 58, 57, 60, 68, and 58 show that they're reliable and well-rounded. They're even more flat in our bonuses-and-starters metric, they've crammed five wins between 56 and 59 percent of all questions faced. Most winning teams score in the 60s when they win; perhaps Christ's metric is lower because they've faced good teams, Imperial and Warwick ran them close in the quarter-finals.

Anyway, three questions on Watling Street fall for Christ's, then Benjamin Watson wins a buzzer race to guess "milk" in a book title. This is unusual; Warwick's PPE student hasn't answered as many starters as Thomas Hart and Oscar Siddle, two maths students who have split the buzzer race between them. Ananya Govindarajan, an engineering student, is also a bonuses specialist, having answered two starters in the series so far.

Warwick pick up the first penalty of the night after failing to get the designer of the diesel engine, but the opposition are unable to pick up the question for themselves. Then Thomas Hart goes on a bit of a buzzer rampage, scoring with the film director Chantal Ackerman, tripoints in flags, and Popper's paradox of tolerance. You know, the one that says we tolerate anything except intolerance, because intolerance leads to authoritarian practices, which end tolerance; Popper doesn't prescribe a society-wide solution, but raises questions for each individual to consider.

"Weaver's revolt". Sorry, did we miss a memorandum, was there supposed to be a rebellion tonight? Er, down with this sort of thing! Careful, now! No, this was an event in 19th century Silesia, which was memorialised in lots of art works and apparently is analysed at great length in the works of Karl Marx. It's as incomprehensible as middle English poetry, on which Warwick score another full bonus set.

Warwick are on the losing side of a narrow decision in a later bonus set on John Dalton – they offer "solar flares" when Dalton observed "sunspots". Narrow, but correct decision; solar flares were not discovered until 1859, over a decade after Dalton's death. At this point, Warwick are ahead by 125-40.

"Sprechstimme" from Brendan Bethlehem gets Christ's back into the game, followed by a useful set on constructivist art. Warwick draw a set of bonuses on utopian literature, and literature in general has been a problem area for them. Across the series, Warwick proved very strong at Philosophy and Social Sciences, strongest of the semi-finalists at Art and Entertainment, but very weak at Literature questions. By comparison, Christ's were strongest of the final four in Science, and Science accounts for about 20% of the points across the series.

We see Christ's superiority on Science questions when they get a starter on the focus of conic sections, shortly followed by bonuses on neutrino oscillation. Christ's were not so hot on Geography, blanking a bonus set on the literal translations of Brazilian state capitals, and consistently being One Decade Out when asked about states joining the United States. Christ's also fall on the losing side of a narrow decision, their answer of "Boltero" is not accepted, the artist was "Botero" without the L.

About a minute to play, and Christ's buzz in, leave a pause that might have been a beat too long, but are allowed to answer a starter on the scientist Rolf Sievert. Two out of three on a mixed bag set themed around "lentils". University Challenge seems to have stopped setting these sets of multi-disciplinary questions with a loose theme, which is a bit of a shame for the casual viewer. What's not a shame for the casual viewer is that the scores are nearly tied: Christ's have 160, Warwick 170.

It all comes down to one starter:
Q: According to many sources, William Faulkner's 1930 novel As I Lay Dying takes its title from the translation of a line spoken by which Greek ruler in Book 11 of Homer's Odyssey? He is the brother of Menelaus and the husband...

Anniko Firman has done it! Two starters in the entire series, and she only goes and gets the one to draw level! Christ's take the lead with the first of a set of questions on the given names of monarchs, narrowly miss the second, and the gong goes before the final. Having not led since the second minute, Christ's Cambridge finish ahead, 175-170.

As we say, a very weird show. Christ's were not their usual model of consistency, the bonus rate was only 39%. It's the second lowest bonus rate in a win all series, beating only Bristol's ugly win over Open. Christ's overall rate was 43%, again the second-lowest winning rate of the series. Warwick had more correct answers on the night (27 to Christ's 24), the first time this year a side has answered more questions correctly and lost before a tie-break.

The crux of Christ's win? Christ's had no penalties for incorrect interruptions, Warwick picked up two. The later starters fell for Brendan Bethlehem, enough that Christ's finished with 11 starters to Warwick's 9. For us, though, the key seems to be all-round knowledge: the Christ's side got about 60% of the questions right in all topics; they knew that if they got the starters, enough bonuses would follow.

It was a narrow win, it wasn't a convincing win, but a win is a win is a win.

Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals

SSR SRG for EBU (seen on BBC1), 13 and 15 May

The stage is dominated by a massive tribute to Gary Lineker. Sure, they say it's a proscenium arch, framing the stage and giving us a viewport through which to look, but we all know this is just an excuse for the stagehands to have a kickabout.

Hosts were Hazel Brugger and Sandra Studer. Hazel's a comedian and presenter, well used to live events; she's the blonde-haired one. Sandra performed in the neverending 1991 contest and did German-language commentary for ten years. They'll be joined in the final by black-haired Michelle Hunziker, another experienced live television host.

From the first show, we loved "C'est la vie", Claude is a bit like Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa, welcoming us with open arms and taking us away on a quick and fantastic journey. Lots of respect for "Zjerm", which feels like it will do very well with the juries and might get a decent something from the viewers.

Kyle Alessandro, the young man in chainmail armour, will doubtless get into a scrap with Justyna Steczkowska's backing singers and their scantier armour. Winner will go head-to-head with Væb, a combination of Jedward and the Lindsey Stirling Clones wrapped in tinfoil and set on a boat.

Manga is the inspiration for "Bird of pray", singer Ziferblat is shot in the softest focus we've seen since David Cassidy was last on Top of the Pops – the singer appears to glow on screen. A weird song, close to prog rock, with some (deliberate) audio glitching, and one we're glad to get the chance to hear again.

Less impressed by "Espresso macchiato", Tommy Cash comes across as one of those comedians who have a great reputation, but nobody actually likes, we're just pretending to laugh. He was eclipsed by "Bara bada bastu", the best of Tuesday's gimmick songs: Big Fun's younger nephews bring nothing groundbreaking, and perhaps it'll do better with the televote than the jury. "Tutta l'Italia" brought Gabry Ponte to Saturday night; if the San Maranese televote is wholly made up, are they allowed to vote for themselves?

These five didn't get through.

"How much time do we have left?" (Klemen for RTVSLO, shown on screen as "Slovenia"). An Our Tune letter set to music. Some will find it cloying, but we have to remember that Our Tune was an absolutely massive feature, as popular in the 1980s as Popmaster was in the 2010s. Perhaps needed a tighter close-up on the singer Klemen, pull the effective aspect ratio in from cinema-wide to a narrow 4:3 as the emotions close in – and then reveal his living wife as the screen expands back.

"Strobe lights" (Red Sebastian for VRT, "Belgium"). It's as if Hotblack Desiato's accountant hadn't put his glasses on, and insisted the star spend a year red for tax reasons. Rave pop was always a bit of a niche pursuit – how many times have you heard Altern 8 recently? – so there's a low ceiling to its vote. A poor sound mix hurt a lot of acts – we reckon there wasn't any bass being transmitted, perhaps from downmixing surround sound to stereo through old encoders. The result: percussive beats were missing, and rave music relies on percussive boomphs and tschusses.

"Run with U" (Mamagama for Íctimai, "Azerbaijan"). A bit modern rock, a bit ethnic Azeri instrumentation, more than a bit Joe Pasquale on vocals. Appealed to the dad rock audience, and the Azeri diaspora, and nobody else. Likely lost a straight-up fight to "Deslocado", a more accessible song.

"Poison cake" (Marko Bošnjak for HRT, "Croatia"). It's the 1980s Bran Flakes advert. Tasty, tasty, very very tasty, and guaranteed to keep you regular in the morning – if only to switch the alarm off while this is playing. Loved the lighting falling around the stage, but the song was never there. Perhaps they should have gone full Bambie-satanic-witchy rock; the staging was neither edgy nor spectacular.

"Shh" (Theo Evan for CyBC, "Cyprus"). The one with the scaffolding. Enjoyable staging, serviceable song, and it's been years since the last song in a semi failed to qualify. Was this too reminiscent of Olly Alexander's "Dizzy" last year, and viewers were yucked by the homoerotic staging? Or was it stuck as the one and only song after the host's performance: people will have mentally switched off during this non-competitive performance, leaving "Shh" literally unheard.

Highlight of the show's interval acts was "Made in Switzerland", a list of everything good that's come from the area. It's the local equivalent of Swedish Smorgasbord, right down to the actor playing William Tell.

Ten of the top eleven most-streamed Eurovision songs appeared in a countdown. One of the top eleven would be "Europapa", which was administratively vanished into the ether last year. At some point, the EBU will recognise "Europapa" as one of their own; perhaps the wounds are too fresh this year.

Céline Dion delivered a short, heartfelt, and entirely blubworthy message, before some of last year's stars perform "Ne partez pas sans moi". There was some blatant padding, with the hosts asking the competitors about the snacks on their tables. The alternative was to lead the crowd in an impromptu singalong rendition of "Volare". Or "Snap", except that's still the most-streamed Eurosong ever and we'd heard it not twenty minutes earlier.

Following his successful appearance at last year's contest, and the massive crowd reaction to his short set, Martin Österdahl And The Scrutineers have relocated. To a secure bunker some distance away from the action, so that they can, um, party as hard as they can without waking the neighbours. And nothing to do with the prospect of being pelted with rotten eggs, rotten tomatoes, or half-drunk steins of beer.

Very unimpressed with the new Disappointment Factor method of showing qualifiers. Three performers on screen, one goes through, two are left to fight again. It's unnecessarily cruel for the performers, repeatedly raising and dashing people's hopes. And it's confusing for the viewers, songs that don't get through first time round can still qualify. There is surely a better way than calling out names at random, but this is certainly not it.

Semi-final 2

Semi-final two, and the six to fall were:

"Milkshake man" (Go-Jo for SBS, "Australia").

Seriously. They put through [waves hands animatedly] that drek, and sent "Milkshake man" home? Pah. Pah and again pah. The song still didn't have much technical merit, but it was fun and had a wonderful staging involving a giant contraption and graphics like a television commercial. Saturday viewers, you missed a treat.

"Dobrodošli" (Nina Žižić for RTCG, "Montenegro"). The woman with the portable duvet. Quality Balkan sound, quality singing, but perhaps the costume didn't help her connect. We were surprised to learn that it's a metaphor for how abusive relationships isolate people from the rest of the world; we were not surprised to learn that the RTCG budget was about €35 000.

"Laika party" (Emmy for RTÉ, "Ireland"). Oh dear. A very static staging, Emmy up on the top of a podium, four dancers wearing cat ears roam around the stage. Loved the backdrop display of stars in the shape of a dog, but we'd seen and heard everything this song had to offer in the first minute. Still, it's better than the 2019 interval act "Laika prayer".

Across the two semi-finals, that's five non-qualifiers in a row. Given that we're only losing eleven from the contest, that's a massive run of failure.

"Freedom" (Mariam Shengelia for GBP, "Georgia"). Much better than in the preview video, it looked like Mariam was commanding armies of fighters to impose her version of freedom on everyone. Vocals were stupendous, artistry was clear, and this would not have disgraced Saturday. Still, the broadcaster is free to concentrate on hosting Junior Eurovision.

"Kiss kiss goodbye" (Adonxs for CT, "Czechia"). One of two Freddie Mercury impressionists, perhaps got confused with the other. This was the white one, white shirts and white trousers against a white background. The song popped, the visuals didn't, and on a night of memorable things, that might have sunk it.

"Mila" (Princ for RTS, "Serbia"). One of two Freddie Mercury impressionists, perhaps got confused with the other. This was the more Balkan one – inspired by the ethnic sound – with an interesting visual tale of Princ being dragged off by demons and possibly beating them. In any other contest this would be the surprise non-qualifier.

Popping up in the final are "Serving " and "Ich komme", two songs that are very much bawdy end-of-the-pier shows. "Bur man laimi" is a very different take on the same area, being all ethereal and out of this world and well worth a watch. "La poupée monte le son" is also worth a watch, the performer acts like a marionette on the set of Finders Keepers.

"Survivor" with the treadmills will get votes from an audience of testosterone-fuelled young 'uns, "Tavo akys" will get votes from an audience of emos and goffs and anyone who's ever played to four people and a dog in a tobacco-stained working men's club. "New day will rise" will get votes from people who put flag first. "Hallucination" will get votes from people who are going down the club as soon as this has finished.

We have to apologise to "Asteromata", this column completely missed the semi-final performance. We were still cheering at "What the hell just happened?". It's tremendous, roaming the stage from front to back, lovely shots along the catwalk and the T-bar and a giddily-offkilter chandelier. There's a swagger about this song, it is leaving absolutely nothing on the table. Bold and fearless: even if it flubs, it will have tried. Bravo!

"Wasted love" is the most likely winner from the Thursday show, staged with tremendous theatricality and storytelling. By being another all-styles song, it could be seen as too close to last year's winner, but it's surely going to be in with a shout.

The interval acts were "for the fans", so a short piece about keeping time, and a long presentation on some of the performers who didn't get to appear in 2020. Curiously, everyone who appeared in this segment was also present in the 2021 contest.

The running order

• 01 – "Lighter" – armoured hobbits
• 02 – "La poupée monte le son" – dancing puppets
• 03 – "Espresso macchiato"; 04 – "New day will rise"; 05 – "Tavo akys" – all of limited appeal
• 06 – "Esa diva" – TVE gonna TVE
• 07 – "Bird of pray" – anime soft focus
• 08 – "What the hell just happened?" – for anyone who's ever been a mother or a daughter

• 09 – "Wasted love" – in one of the producers' favoured spots
• 10 – "Róa" – silver boats
• 11 – "Bur man liami"; 12 – "C'est la vie" – two artsy dark horse contenders may cancel each other out
• 13 – "Ich komme" – ride the microphone
• 14 – "Volevo essere un duro" – in Italian, with subtitles in vision
• 15 – "Gaja" – more warriors
• 16 – "Baller" – basic dance from ARD
• 17 – "Asteromata"; 18 – "Survivor" – two we don't recall and will love to see afresh
• 19 – "Voyage" – an international moment of zen
• 20 – "Serving"; 21 – "Deslocado" – the most contrasting contrast in Eurovision history
• 22 – "Hallucination"; 23 – "Bara bara bastu" – a bit of build-up before the favourite
• 24 – "Maman" – a song built on sand
• 25 – "Tutta l'Italia" – sorbet
• 26 – "Zjerm" – what's Tirana like at this time of year?

At the time of writing, we've got about five songs that would not surprise us in the least, and about a dozen where we can see a path to victory. It's great that this year's contest is so open.

Full report on the final, and matters arising, next week.

Genius Game

This week, the geniuses were given cubes. Six of them, all various sorts of colours.

Players could swap a cube with other players in each round. Whoever gets a full case of colours first is the winner and receives loads of Garnets. One of the cubes is a black cube; whoever's got that when the game ends is straight through to the Death Match.

An added complication: the players only get to see the colours of their cubes once, for a few seconds. After that, they rely on memory and trust.

The programme we saw was mostly about "chase the black cube", from Ken to Amanfi, and then on to Bodalia. None of the players was open about the way he was going to shaft his comrade, and for Bodalia this opened up some old wounds about how Amanfi had shafted him in the zombie game.

Bodalia had tried to get a suitcase full of white blocks, because that would bring extra Garnets into the game and ultimately to the winner. Bex had the same idea. But if he's got three whites, and Bex has three, and one's known to be with Alison, and one's got to be with Amanfi – that's eight blocks, and there are only seven in the game. Either blocks are able to change colour, or somebody is lying.

Some things they only intimated on screen. Charlotte spent most of the episode hanging out with Ken and Amanfi, clearly she'd decided that Ben was too controlling to work with. Ken was shown last week to be a swift-witted poker-playing tactician, but he was overwhelmed by all the information in the "where are the white blocks" infodump; is this a weakness we will come back to?

Bex clearly had knowledge of her group's blocks, and was prepared to share most of that information with Ken's group, however much it annoyed Ben. Good. Ben's strategy is clearly to take charge and control everything and never back down. It may work in a one-shot game, he would probably have been able to win big on Golden Balls back in the day. But this bulldozer strategy doesn't work in a group who you're playing a lot with; eventually the group will tire of you and engineer your elimination.

That could have happened on this episode; India's successful pursuit of the red blocks brought the game to a close, and locked Bodalia into the Death Match. With a certain inevitability, drawn more from emotion than from logic, he chose Amanfi as the opponent.

"Tactical" Rock-Paper-Scissors was the Death Match. The other players – the six who weren't playing the Death Match – each give one of Rock, Paper, or Scissors to Amanfi, and another one to Bodalia. The players also got a starter pack, one of each card. First player to win five rounds wins the match. The group could push the game in favour of their preferred candidate, and chose to nerf the game in Bodalia's favour: Paper beats Rock. Bodalia's cards had more paper than a newsstand, Amanfi had been given a gravel pit hand full of rocks, and the win was in.

No tactics in the way they played it, this was a popularity contest. The group chose to eliminate Amanfi, and there was nothing he could do about it. Good choice from the group: they could eliminate a decent rival who had tactical nous, and keep in someone who isn't (yet?) showing a good social game. Viewers can't intervene in the show, but the ITV audience tends to dislike untrustworthy behaviour, and here we have our agents punishing a betrayal.

Path not taken: the group as a whole decided on their tactics. We didn't see either Death Match player ask to speak to others individually, or to thrash out their plan amongst allies. Another path not taken from the main game: Ken opened the swaps by getting rid of the black box; Ken finished the swaps by giving India the last red block. What if Ken had kept the black to the end..?

If the dominant story of the series is Ben's controlling nature, this week's episode was a welcome break. The main game was played as intended, the plot of betrayal was a self-contained drama, with the betrayer getting his comeuppance before the end credits.

More Genius Game next week, when apparently we're off on safari.

In other news

The last semi-final of Mastermind was won by Ivan Milatović, who took the career of Novak Djokovic as his specialist subject. Rakesh Sharma finished second, telling us about the Indian musician MS Subbulakshmi and throwing guff answers rather than pass – it's a valid tactic. The other semi-finalists were Neil Pritchard (war memoirs of Spike Milligan) and Olivia Woolley (Anglo-Dutch revolution of 1688); both finished four off the win.

At the BAFTA Television Awards, two game shows picked up honours. Would I Lie to You? scooped the Entertainment award, and Strictly Come Dancing the Memorable Moment for Chris and Diane's waltz to "You'll never walk alone".

We're interested to hear that Fox Television (a subsidiary of the Rupert Murdoch empire) will make a version of 99 to Beat. You know, the "don't finish last" show ITV has been showing to decent figures over the past few Saturday teatimes, surely good enough to get a second series. Apparently, Fox's show will be filmed at the same location as the ITV version, which means there may be a little more budget for events. And it may mean there are fewer of those rotten team events, which blighted the middle part of the series.

The line-up for Celebrity The Traitors has been confirmed. Game show talent involved include presenters Alan Carr, Clare Balding, Jonathan Ross, Stephen Fry; the Minor Quiz Deity Kate Garraway; Splash! coach Tom Daley; Catsdown irregulars Joe Wilkinson and Lucy Beaumont. There's also singers Cat Burns, Charlotte Church, and Paloma Faith; acting talent Celia Imrie, Mark Bonnar, Nick Mohammed, and Ruth Codd; comedian Tameka Empson; historian David Olusoga; sports star Joe Marler; and wildcard Niko Omilana. A full series will air in the autumn.

Kudos to the ITV schedulers, who end the weekend with their own Basel; the honourable fox Lord Brushford is on a repeated Celebrity The Chase (Sun). Got Talent moves to Sunday (VM1 and ITV). Faking It returns (Channel Five, Tue). The Quizzy Monday season ends with the Mastermind final (BBC2, Mon), and Nikkie Tutorials makes a welcome return to Glow Up (BBC3, Wed).

To have Weaver's Week emailed to you on publication day, receive our exclusive TV roundup of the game shows in the week ahead, and chat to other ukgameshows.com readers, sign up to our Google Group.

Last week | Weaver's Week Index | Next week