Humpty Dumpty Had A Great Fall (Egg Heads)

Member Name: lilmsnaughty79

Product:	Egg Heads
Date:	11/03/09 (362 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's Great When The Lose

Disadvantages: Not Many Questions, Smugness

Humpty Dumpty Had A Great Fall
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Just in case you don't know Eggheads pits five challengers against five of the "greatest" quiz players in Britain. I use quotes when I say greatest because there are a few week links in the chain, more on that later. It's on BBC Two at six o'clock or sometimes six thirty.

There are four rounds where a challenger must play an Egghead on a pre chosen category. After four rounds the remaining players compete in a general knowledge round to find the winner. The challengers always decide if they want to go first or not. Every day £1000 is on offer and it rolls over if nobody wins. Sometimes there have been big wins, in the tens of thousands.

The categories are politics, arts & books, food & drink, history, geography, science, music, film & television and sport. These have been the same since the program started as far as I am aware.


The Eggheads
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The six Eggheads I will list in order of how good (not how smug) I think they are, only four appear on each show in a rotation :

Kevin Ashman, the only Egghead I like and easily the best in terms of knowledge. The only modest one. What titles he hasn't won aren't worth winning.

Daphne Fowler, the most annoying of the bunch, showing off all the time. She does know a lot though.

Chris Hughes, International Mastermind winner 1983, train spotter extraordinaire , smug but not afraid to laugh at himself.

Barry Simmons, the newest addition to the team after winning the spin off program "Are You An Egghead?", not too annoying but he's got time.

CJ De Mooi, general poor sport and most often knocked out, the rolling eyes, the showing off. there anything good to say about him... No.

Judith Keppel, too posh to talk and lacking in knowledge compared to the others, how did she win Millionaire?

What I think Of It
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In a word, Annoying. The Eggheads, with the exception of Kevin are very poor sports and most of them think they are God's gift. In fact they have been beated on a number of occasions, sometime in a row. Most of the the Eggheads will go around the houses to often showing off how much they know. This would be ok if they weren't so smug about it. They just have to discount the wrong answers in detail when they obviously know the it, just give the answer for pity's sake, grrrrr!

My biggest gripe with the program is that the questions seem to play on the Eggheads strengths. For example, Greek Mythology come up an awful lot and is something they almost always know and have researches, but average Joe probably won't have. There are also only fifteen questions asked unless there are sudden death rounds, in a half hour show this is very low, compare this to the Weakest Link where there are many more questions asked.

I really don't know why CJ is an Egghead as he is always getting knocked out and Judith isnt' far behind him either. I'm sure there must be better Egghead candidates out there who need the money. They should get University Challenge ave Gail Trimble as an Egghead if they want real class.

The contestants range from very intelligent to pretty dumb, most come unstuck at some point but there have been times when one contestant alone in the final round has defeated the full complement of Eggheads. Of course I'm always rooting for the contestants, we all like an underdog.

The only saving grace here is that the new presenter Jeremy Vine doesn't pander to the Eggheads like Dermot Murnaghan used to. I wouldn't recommend this to quiz show fans as it's really a poor relation and only just more entertaining than the mind numbing Deal or no Deal.

Why do I watch this quiz show, I wish I knew why. Perhaps it's because it's on when I have my tea and the news is too depressing. No, it's because I love the look on their faces when they get beaten! So, while I wouldn't recommend it I still end up watching it.

Not Recommended.

Summary: Annoyingly Addictive Yet Poor BBC2 Quiz Show