Weaver's Week 2024-10-20

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We're looking through game show history, counting up the shows with the most distinct episodes broadcast on UK tv and radio to the end of 2023. Repeats don't count. 500 episodes for the big list, 100 episodes for the primetime list.

Contents 1 Which game shows have had the most episodes? Part 15: Q-R 1.1 QI 1.2 A Question of Sport 1.3 Quote... Unquote 1.4 Ready Steady Cook 1.5 Regional Round 1.6 Robot Wars 1.7 Round Britain Quiz 2 Scores so far 2.1 All episodes 2.2 Primetime episodes 3 In other news 3.1 Quizzy Mondays

Which game shows have had the most episodes? Part 15: Q-R

And brief writeups for some influential programmes that didn't quite make the mark. Qd - The Master Game was brilliant fun, a competition run at teatime, across a week, asking the same contestants to take on a variety of physical and mental tasks. Only ran for one series of 5 episodes, there's more than a little pinch of this show in Richard Osman's House of Games (3).

QI

Lord Stephen Fry – and latterly Dame Sandi Toksvig – ask very obtuse and obscure questions to the visiting panel and Alan Davies, who is kept in the studio for reasons lost to tradition. There's some vague notions of a contest, enough to class it as a panel game, but QI is mostly about the discussion, quietly intellectual and pleasantly rigorous.

Moved from BBC4 to BBC2, with a short run on BBC1 to see if it might have worked there. Up to the 2023 Christmas special, they'd made 327 primetime episodes. This includes 3 Comic Relief specials, and includes QI VG compilations which usually have some new material, but not QI XS cutdowns which don't.

The Question Jury was another daytime show that could have run for ages: a panel of strangers use their brains to identify the correct answer to questions nobody knows, but are open to be worked out. "Which high street coffee chain sells the most coffee?", that sort of thing. Just 40 daytime episodes.

A Question of Sport

Very long-running quiz programme, about sport.

Began under the gentle tutelage of David Vine, a gentleman host who seemed to be a bit more golf club than football terrace. Absolutely no nonsense when David Coleman took over in the late 70s, some big international sports stars would identify people on the picture board, go through the one minute drill, and try to work out what happened next.

A Question of Sport moved from "big" to "huge" under Coleman's stewardship, the order expanded from 10 episodes a year to 20 throughout the winter, and eventually 26 episodes lasting as long as the rugby season. David Coleman was replaced by Sue Barker in 1997, her approach was much less stern, she'd let the young whippersnapper captains prat about, more entertainment than quiz.

And during Barker's time in the chair, A Question of Sport became disposable television. Runs of 42 episodes a year meant it was on every week; shows were kicked around the schedule, and recorded a long time in advance so the topical element was lost. The BBC kept faith in the format – they tried A Question of Sport Super Saturday for a month in 2012, and gave the show a major reboot in 2021, with Paddy McGuinness taking over.

By then, the BBC needed that shows should be infinitely repeatable, or attract huge audiences, or reach audiences that would otherwise not get anything from the BBC, or serve some public purpose. Shows like QI and The Apprentice and Strictly Come Dancing hit many of these marks. By the time it was cancelled, A Question of Sport hit none of them. Sports clips meant they couldn't repeat shows, sports stars commanded relatively high fees, and viewing figures were so poor AQoS rarely reached the BBC1 top 50 lists.

There is surely room in the schedules for a reasonably rigorous quiz about sports; whether that's played by sports stars or by members of the public is a matter of preference. But no channel has anything like A Question of Sport, and there's surely a gap for someone to fill.

Through the main series, we reckon there were 1415 primetime episodes. We've included the North West regional pilot, the two Christmas specials shown away from their main series (and almost forty shown within their series), retrospectives on the 20th, 25th, 35th, and 50th anniversaries, seven episodes shown in various charity appeals, and 34 sundry other specials and highlights and outtakes editions. It's very possible that more episodes than this were made – the BBC series listings miss three episodes from the 2007-08 series, and one each from the 2014-15 and 2021-22 runs. On the other hand, it's very possible that industrial disputes might have meant episodes were billed in the Radio Times but not made the weekend before.

Add to that the 5 episodes of Super Saturday for the final total of 1420 primetime episodes. And then there's A Question of Sport The Podcast, which ran as a competitive format on Radio 5 for 11 episodes during the pandemic; the name was subsequently reused for Sam Quek's investigations into sports trivia. The series has a grand total of 1431 episodes.

We're going to mention, but not include, the related shows A Question of Entertainment (16 primetime episodes), A Question of Pop (23 primetime episodes), and A Question of TV (8 primetime episodes).

Another sports quiz was soccer simulation Quiz Ball. Gave us the term "Route One football", for high balls hit into the opposition's half of the field. Ran for 72 primetime episodes, and still not revived.

Quiz Night gives us a bit of a quandary. This was a late-night programme, Ross King hosted a pub quiz between some good quizzers, crowning a champion at the end of the series. We reckon it made 116 episodes – but can any show going out at 1am be classed as primetime? We think not.

Quote... Unquote

Nigel Rees wrote, researched, and presented the long-running show about quotations. It ended when he retired from the job. There was some vague approximation to a contest, questions were assigned to individual panellists, but nobody cared about the scores and the fun was in the discussion. 505 episodes.

Raven. The biggest children's show for ten years, made a star out of James Mackenzie. Simple events – leap off a tall tree, cross a river by crawling on a narrow log, or answer true-or-false statements given by a talking bush. More shows need talking shrubbery. Loads of spin-off series, and a revival last decade that almost worked. 267 episodes.

Ready Steady Cook

The idea is incredibly simple: Two chefs and members of the audience attempt to make a meal within 20 minutes using ingredients "brought in" by the audience members (to a value of £5) and anything from the larder (just about anything a normal person would have). And at the end, the audience would vote as to who they liked best. And that's it.

And it ran for sixteen years, and got a revival a few years ago. Made a star of Ainsley Harriott, introduced the world to Antony Worrall Thompson, and to Gino D'Acampo.

Ran for ages, and churned out the episodes – in the late 90s, they were making a new episode pretty much every weekday from September to June. We reckon there were 1751 episodes in the original series, 50 in the revival. Plus a further 102 episodes of Celebrity Ready Steady Cook in primetime and daytime, and 8 specials for charities. That's a grand total of 1911 episodes.

Rebound was an ITV daytime quizzer, where losing contestants would Exit, Pursued By A Bar. More shows should be based on a Shakespeare pun. Only made 30 episodes on telly, deserved a bit more, and Twitch streamer Topper1 occasionally hosts a darned good contest inspired by this show.

Red Alert was yet another revival of Don't Forget Your Toothbrush, with people standing in dark streets shouting incomprehensible noise, Lulu gamely trying to hold it all together, and an arm-wrestling interlude. More shows need an arm-wrestling interlude. 14 primetime episodes, then someone invented In It to Win It.

Red or Black? asked one contestant to take a 50-50 choice. They'd been selected having been lucky in nine previous 50-50 choices. No skill is involved from the contestants, and viewers found the series a rare Ant and Dec turnoff. 14 primetime episodes, then someone remembered Saturday Night Takeaway.

Regional Round

Long-running inter-regional general knowledge quiz broadcast during BBC Radio's Children's Hour. The show traced its origins to the 1937 one-off Inter Regional Spelling Competition, and aired intermittently until 1962.

First listing in the Radio Times comes from 1940, and the Home Service listings include 134 primetime episodes, and 170 episodes in total. It's very likely that other contests were aired, but not billed in advance, but we don't know how many.

Rhannu was S4C's serial quiz, where defeated contestants came back week after week, and winners came back for the final. 21 primetime episodes; a second series was nixed by the pandemic.

Roast Battle was on Comedy Central, and some sort of joke-telling contest. Shame it wasn't to produce crackling, Yorkshire pud, and a sumptious gravy – that would have had more than 22 primetime episodes.

Robot Wars

Activate!

Six robots knock several different colours of engine oil out of each other in order to find a winner to go forward to the finals. Repeat, repeat, make massive stars of the participants.

Attracted a huge audience of young men, helped by a Friday night slot after The Simpsons, and enthusiastic hosts Craig Charles and Philippa Forrester. It was going to be one of the big shows to help the move to digital television, with loads of episodes premiering on BBC Choice, but then Robot Wars accepted a big-money transfer to Channel 5 where it lasted about two minutes.

Revived in 2016 with Dara Ó Briain and Angela Scanlon, and it was almost as good as people remembered. Wonder when the next revival will come.

Across all the series, 177 primetime episodes.

Room 101 had 148 primetime episodes, and 181 episodes in total. The show, where celebrities explain why they think very horrible things should be consigned to the worst room in the world, only had a competition format for 60 primetime episodes (or 87 in total, if you accept "what links these pieces of music" as a quiz).

Round Britain Quiz

Radio's premier cleverclogs quiz traces its roots to Transatlantic Quiz, a contest between the BBC in London and NBC in New York. It ran weekly from 1945 to 1947, popped onto television for a month, had a revival in 1951, and intermittent comebacks between 1976 and 1986. Transatlantic Quiz had 148 episodes, 17 primetime episodes.

There was a pilot European episode, Cross Channel Quiz, 1 primetime episode in 1949. Round Europe Quiz was commissioned many years later, 52 episodes from 1977-1981

Round Britain Quiz was a simple concept: a quiz pitting teams from around the nation against each other. The first series of 34 episodes ran on some sort of knockout format, with a grand final. The next series started a few weeks later, under a format they'd keep for two decades. A resident team of boffins from London would play a series of matches against a team from one of the BBC regions. The London team played every match, the regional team always had home advantage.

RBQ ran with only short breaks from 1948 to 1953, then it settled into a regular slot on winter Wednesday evenings from 1954 to 1968. The show moved from the Light Programme to the Home Service for its series in 1957, it's remained in the Home (or its successor, Radio 4) ever since. This first incarnation lasted 612 editions; our arbitrary convention is to class radio shows broadcast after 6pm at night and before the end of 1959 as "primetime", so 208 primetime episodes.

After five years resting its laurels, Round Britain Quiz was picked up again in 1973. It's a bit closer to the show we know — sorry, the show we hear — today. Questions are abtruse, cryptic, and with many components to be answered perfectly for maximum marks. Marathon runs of 26 episodes saw London play four matches against North England, Midlands, West England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland; and London played twice against a team from the Republic of Ireland (just once in 1974). The series was shortened to 14 episodes from 1977, and not produced in 1981 or 1987. The Republic of Ireland last played in 1983, and the South West was merged into Wales after 1986. A Christmas special in 1985 means the total for this incarnation is 304 episodes.

Up until this point, Round Britain Quiz had enjoyed the luxury of two quizmasters. In the new, lean BBC, such overmanning had to become a thing of the past. They could also cut down on the price of transport, by getting all the teams to a posh hotel with a slightly echoey boardroom. That became the format for RBQ from 1997, with six teams (South of England, Midlands, North of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) playing twelve matches to produce a winner. Nick Clarke, Tom Sutcliffe, and latterly Kirsty Lang have hosted. No series in 2006, owing to Nick Clarke's illness, and the Radio 4 schedules meant no full series in 2002 and 2018. With 12 episodes in 23 series, that's a final 276 episodes.

Phew. All of that means Round Britain Quiz and its siblings finish on 1427 episodes, of which we class 226 primetime episodes.

Runaround typically featured Mike Reid getting choked by vintage cars in the studio, an "educational" bit with a woman making macrame, and a performance by a pop band like The Beige City Strollers. There was also a quiz: contestants ran to one of three answers, and could run between answers on the signal.

Remembered for being a complete shambles, recent repeats on the Talking Pictures channel leave us open-mouthed with the missed cues and poor shot direction and Mike's continued inability to control the crowd and he cannot remember the incredibly simple rules and there is an all-pervasive air of incompetence. Did ITV not have a quality control department?

Still, it gave us Tim Edmunds, the original competent sidekick to a useless host, a role later filled by the richardosman. Revived as Poparound in 1985 (remember that for the Pet Shop Boys' tv debut) and for Sport Relief. 116 episodes, and it's still better than Red Alert.

We plan to come back to this countdown in two weeks; a look at the topical news quizzes is planned for next week.

Scores so far

All episodes

Show	Episodes
Countdown	8732
Popmaster	6550
Bamboozle	5900
Big Brother	4183
Deal or No Deal	3011
Fifteen-to-One	2683
Come Dine with Me	2432
The Chase	2247
Eggheads	2239
Bargain Hunt	2085
The Big Quiz (1)	2000
Pointless	1925
Ready Steady Cook	1911
Brain of Britain / What Do You Know	1592
Blockbusters	1586
100%	1546
A Question of Sport	1431
Round Britain Quiz	1427
Mastermind	1426
Masterchef Goes Large	1202
Brainteaser	1200
Just a Minute	1065
Four in a Bed	1058
Going for Gold / One to Win	1058
Call My Bluff	1047
The News Quiz	1041
Dickinson's Real Deal	1025
Antiques Road Trip	905
I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!	846
Fighting Talk	835
Mr and Mrs / Sion a Sian	808
Love Island	746
Great British Menu	741
Family Fortunes	717
Mallett's Mallet	700
Let the Peoples Sing	695
The Brains Trust	691
Can't Cook, Won't Cook	685
ITV Play	650
Coach Trip	630
Have I Got News for You	613
Hold Your Plums	600
The Price is Right	600
Puzzle Corner	600
Games World	590
Catchphrase	583
Richard Osman's House of Games (3)	582
Going for a Song	569
Have a Go	567
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue	557
Opportunity Knocks	553
My Music	524
Criss Cross Quiz	508
Quote... Unquote	505
Fame Academy	500

Our arbitrary cut-off was at the end of 2023: Mastermind overtook Round Britain Quiz on 8 January, and both have now moved past A Question of Sport.

Primetime episodes

Show	Episodes
Big Brother	4173
A Question of Sport	1420
Mastermind	1384
Masterchef Goes Large	1025
I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!	816
Love Island	746
Family Fortunes	647
Have I Got News for You	611
Puzzle Corner	600
Opportunity Knocks	553
Call My Bluff	542
Catchphrase	531
The Price is Right	476
Double Your Money	470
Great British Menu	469
The Apprentice	468
Only Connect	463
Juke Box Jury	461
Come Dancing	431
The Generation Game	425
Blind Date	416
The Brains Trust	416
Love at First Sight	400
Games World	390
Have a Go	390
Britain's Got Talent	383
Bullseye	369
The Great British Bake Off	368
Blockbusters	366
Mr and Mrs / Sion a Sian	361
It's a Knockout / Jeux Sans Frontieres	340
The Golden Shot	339
Pointless	329
QI	327
ITV Play	321
Blankety Blank	320
Never Mind the Buzzcocks	301
Pot Black	297
The Krypton Factor	295
Celebrity Juice	271
Dragons' Den	269
Play Your Cards Right	264
Big Break	252
Fame Academy	251
Mock the Week	244
Dinner Date	242
One Man and His Dog	236
8 Out of 10 Cats	232
Round Britain Quiz	226
Jacpot	223
Ask the Family	221
Criss Cross Quiz	220
Noel's House Party / Saturday Roadshow	217
Celebrity Squares	210
New Faces	205
A League of Their Own	201
What Do You Know?	200
Masterchef	200
Dancing on Ice	189
Looks Familiar	180
Robot Wars	177
Artist of the Year	175
Going for a Song	175
In It to Win It	172
Face the Music	166
The Chase	163
Eggheads	160
Gladiators	160
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown	157
3-2-1	154
Name That Tune	152
Joker's Wild	150
Pull the Other One	150
BBC New Comedy Award	149
Every Second Counts	142
Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway	141
Cardiff Singer of the World	141
Jet Set	139
Britain's Next Top Model	138
The $64,000 Question	137
The Million Pound Drop Live	136
Laughlines	135
Night Fever	135
Regional Round	134
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral	131
Jeopardy!	130
Gamesmaster	129
Ninja Warrior (Challenge channel)	125
The Crystal Maze	124
Flying Start	123
Do I Not Know That?	121
Bob's Full House	117
Eurovision Song Contest	112
Ask Me Another	109
Pencil and Paper	105
Busman's Holiday	103

In the primetime list, Mastermind should move past AQoS early next year.

In other news

In another universe, Liam Payne was a track athlete; he was a schoolboy on the fringes of the national squad for the 1500 metres. But his heart was set on being a pop superstar, and he briefly became one of the biggest stars on the planet. Liam Payne died this week, he was 31.

Having been rejected as a solo star two years earlier, Liam was put into One Direction on The X Factor in 2010. His was the first voice on debut single "What makes you beautiful", the first image of lads larking about on a sunkissed beach. They became the hottest group for a few years, flawless vocals performing superbly-crafted songs. The lads had enough personality to charm fans of all ages; Liam's was "the sensible one", perhaps a little more mature than some of his bandmates.

Over the years, Liam became a talented songwriter, earning credit for "Story of my life", "Fool's gold", "Steal my girl", and the majority of One Direction's swansong album "Made in the AM". After the group came to an end, Liam kept working with other cutting-edge pop and dance stars – Zedd, Rita Ora, J Balvin, Pharrell Williams, and Ed Sheeran. His solo album, "LP1" was released in 2019 to indifferent reviews; this year's single "Teardrops" enjoyed a warmer welcome.

Liam struggled with alcohol, and experienced turmoil in his personal life. He fathered a child from a relationship with Cheryl Cole, had a number of short-lived romantic entanglements, and experienced a severe kidney infection last year. Liam died on Wednesday night, no third party is believed to have been involved.

Eurovision update Martin Green has been announced as the Director of Eurovision Competitions, which appears to cover the strategic planning that was not handled so well during this year's Senior Song Contest. He worked on the 2023 Senior contest in Liverpool, and on a sports day in London a decade back.

The BBC has also announced its plans to find a worthy song for next year's Senior contest. David May is working with the corporation; he was Sam Ryder's manager when he won the jury vote, and is generally seen as a big player in the music industry. We also see that the BBC expects to show the semi-finals on BBC1 and Radio 2, in addition to the final.

Keep masking! Two more series of The Masked Singer on ITV, with a digital companion series The After Mask. Harriet Rose will be the host, which looks set to be uploaded to the ITV Hub, so good luck watching it.

Quizzy Mondays

Rakesh Sharma won Mastermind, telling a million people about the life of Madhuri Dixit, one of the most celebrated actresses in Indian cinema, and who could probably walk down the street unbothered round here. A near-perfect specialist round, though a very shaky general knowledge round might not bode well for the semi-finals.

Only Connect had an extended discussion of child car seats: how good are they, when should you turn your child round in one, and when a child should stop sitting in a special seat. When the journey's over, we would have thought. We do hope that OC is not turning into the new Watchdog, and Victoria will not get Jenny Under-Minister on the show to grovel about her department's practice of licensing new racecourses next to schools: it's a potential death trap.

Oh, there was also a quiz, which the Harmonics won by 22-20, eliminating the Bean Farmers. Lovely close match, 3-3 after the first round, 8-8 after the sequences, 18-18 after the chocolate-filled walls. Spot of the night from the Harmonics, pictures of protectors for the head, shoulder, knees, and toes.

Another bad call on University Challenge: when asked for the sense of a sentence in Spanish, Exeter Oxford offered "has"; the setters wanted "had". The rest of the answers were accepted, but there's so much subjectivity in the interpretation that we'd be glad never to see this type of question again.

Christ's Cambridge won the show, beating Exeter Oxford by 205-110. Not one of the classic shows, the producers seemed to have seen "there's a biochemist on each team" and loaded the show with masses of sciencey questions. Christ's had a low bonus conversion rate, just 57%, and we fear they'll struggle if they get a more decisive side in the next round.

Ready to voyage? QI XL returns with the V-series (BBC2, Mon). Finals night for Young Musician of the Year (BBC2, Sun) and for Dress the Nation (ITV, Tue). The Watch channel has Masterchef Down Under Dessert Masters (weeknights). Next Saturday has the Hallowe'en Strictly Come Dancing special (BBC1), and the grand final of BBC The Voice (VM1 and ITV).

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