University Challenge

I love University Challenge, although it does have the biggest pile of eejits every week on it. The basic format is that there are two teams from different UK Higher Education Istitutions (except for Oxford and Cambridge who seem to enter about 10 teams each year, claiming that they are different 'colleges' eventhough there are generally the same number of people in each of these colleges as in an academic department within a more rounded university) and answer questions asked by the very patronising Jeremey Paxman. When I was about 18 I used to watch this and wonder how anyone could answer any of these questions, but now I seem to be averaging about 10 on ...  Read the complete review

Originally introduced by ITV in 1962 and hosted by Bamber Gascoigne, University Challenge has been around for a very long time now. ITV dropped it in 1987 and it was off our screens until it was revived by the BBC in 1994 with Jeremy Paxman as host. The format is simple. Two teams of four from two different universities answer very tricky questions to see who can gain the most points. 'Starter' questions are worth 10 points and contestants must buzz in to answer them. If somebody gets a starter question wrong, their team loses 5 points. Once a team has answered a starter question correctly they then get a set of 3 questions, worth 5 points each, on a ...  Read the complete review

Since its inception in the 1960s University Challenge has become a national insitution which still draws a mass audience after years of an unchanged format. The show is typically aired during primetime on a weekday evening and features two competing teams from various universities and colleges around the UK. The teams answer questions from a range of topics including a music round and two picture rounds. The whole point of University Challenge is that it does give the nation's brightest young things (and sometimes not-so-young) the chance to show off knowledge on slightly more academic themes than the average quiz show. The questions can range from ...  Read the complete review

University Challege is a TV quiz show where teams of university students (four to a team) battle it out to be the winning team at the end of a series. It is quite simple really. The presenter (currently Jeremy Paxman) asks a starter question (worth ten points) to both teams. The team that buzzes in forst and answers correctly gets the chance to answer the next three (worth five points each). And so the show goes on till they run out of time (denoted by an iconic gong). The appeal of this show is being able to keep my brain active by answering as many questions as I can - and they are tough. I do manage to answer about a third to a half of ...  Read the complete review

WHAT IS IT ABOUT: Four students from universities or top colleges around the country battle against each-other in this long running quiz show hosted by Jeremy Paxman. IS IT ANY GOOD: Before I give my verdict, let me say that I am an educated person, with GCSEs, A Levels and a degree, now working as a teacher. The reason I explain that is that it acts as a prelude to the fact that this show is just too tough to be enjoyable. The questions (on the whole) are ridiculously difficult, to the point where the vast majority of the country would be out-witted. It seems to me that a big part of good quiz shows is that you can join in yourself, but with such ...  Read the complete review