Only Connect Post Mortem: Series 10 Episode 13QI Elves vs. Nightwatchmen

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Warning: the following contains spoilers for Series 10, Episode 1 of Only Connect, first broadcast on BBC Two on Monday 24th November. If you haven't seen it yet go and watch it on iPlayer!

Missed last week's recap of the Coders vs. the Romantics? Check it out here!

An extra-late update this week, as technical difficulties have wreaked havoc with my vital TV quiz Internet opinion schedule. Nevertheless, here we are with the last set of first round losers, the QI Elves and the Nightwatchmen. The former were seen off by the Bibliophiles 23-16 in their opening match, while the latter suffered the ignominy of a missing vowels turnaround as a five-point lead was turned into a narrow, 28-26 loss against the Nørdiphiles. Two lovely teams but one of them would be eliminated tonight. Hashtag sadface.

Round 1: What's the connection?

The questions
1) Music: Any Broken Hearts to Mend?; How Can You Mend a Broken Heart; Where Do Broken Hearts Go; Too Many Broken Hearts
2) Joan Fontaine; Jack Charlton; Lucian Freud; Liam Gallagher
3) AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER; ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL – ENGINEER 1806-1859; IN VICTORY MAGNANIMITY IN PEACE GOODWILL; STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
4) Pictures: Ben (a rat from the 1972 sequel to Willard); Gentle Ben; Ben Nevis; Uncle Ben
5) Australian gold; Antiguan and Barbudan silver; Portugese platinum; Cuban copper
6) You; A Beatle; A Dukla Prague Away Kit; My Two Front Teeth

The answers

1) Broken hearts
2) Sibling feuds
3) £2 coins
4) Bens
5) Web country codes and elements
6) 'All I Want for Christmas is ____'

Our thoughts
1) A tough set of songs to identify and with some quite long titles you'd need to know at least two, or make a good educated guess, to get the points. The Nightwatchmen didn't seem to recognize any which allowed the Elves to open proceedings with a good bonus point. At home we were lost until I excitedly recognized the Jason Donovan classic, but based on that alone we over-thought matters and proposed "suits of playing cards".
2) Another tricky one, as while after two clues it's reasonably clear we're talking about siblings, the specific feud link seems rather harder to pin down. Both teams, like us, were skirting around the sibling idea, but neither could land on the required answer. I'll admit that only the Gallaghers' reputation for not-so-familial relations was familiar to me.
3) As I mentioned just last week (when women on banknotes appeared as a sequence question) things on money is one of those areas everyone loves to set quiz questions on. While at home we managed to get this on the final clue, it's perhaps no coincidence that all four could feasibly appear on plaques or statues, which was where the Nightwatchmen headed. A question I'd expect is either a five, one, or zero-pointer for most players.
4) I really hope that we weren't the only people at home thinking "...black things?" before Uncle Ben rather awkwardly debunked it. It certainly had the appearance of one of those questions where the setters are trying to lure people in to an early buzz after two clues, but that seemed far too easy. After the third, however, we decided Ben Nevis was actually the Black Hills of Dakota and we were sunk. The Elves, however, weren't to be tricked, and took what was ultimately an easyish point on a question where patience pays off. I was surprised to learn that the rat in this question is the same 'Ben' Michael Jackson sang about.
5) Lovely stuff, and a real Only Connect classic. The opening clue offers a few thoughts ("is Australian gold used as a standard for something?" "maybe it's to do with Olympic medals?") and the second only serves to further suggest it's somehow to do with precious metals. Platinum, though still in the same vein, does rather bring elements to mind (which was when the penny dropped for us) while the final clue helped confirm it for the Nightwatchmen. Not only does this question feature some really elegant misdirection, it's also gettable for five if you've really got wits about you: perhaps I'm ignorant of the metal down under, but I'm fairly sure there's nothing special about Australian gold, which could easily be enough of a hint to spot the link and (if desired) take a brave punt.
6) This was really a test of whether you knew either of the middle two songs, as the first alone is little to work with while the last gives it away. We took a bit of an early stab after two clues with Time Magazine's Person of the Year, expecting to see Hitler or the Queen show up next. "A Dukla Prague Away Kit" did, admittedly, lower my optimism a tad, while it was enough to give the Elves two points and a 4-1 lead.

Round 2: What comes fourth?

The questions
1) Trousers; Shave; Were-Rabbit
2) Pictures I 100% can't be bothered to render properly, sorry: L reflected; M reflected; N reflected
3) Clergyman (7); Former Marriage Guidance Council (6); Fill with joy (5)
4) Spanish; Asian; Hong Kong
5) Broken hearts; Sibling feuds; £2 coins
6) 1st: Love's Labour's Lost; 2nd: A Midsummer Night's Dream; 3rd: All's Well That Ends

The answers

1) Death (Wallace and Gromit titles)
2) O reflected (L, M, N, O reflected)
3) (e.g.) tardy (4) (Prelate, relate, elate, late)
4) Swine (Influenza pandemics)
5) Bens (First four answers in this programme)
6) 4th: The Winter's Tale (Shakespeare plays with apostrophes)

Our thoughts
1) The Nightwatchmen impressively spotted we were dealing with Wallace and Gromit after 'Trousers' alone, and with 'Shave' it's difficult not to at least have the link. At this point it's a matter of how well you know the films, and at home we (correctly) deduced the third clue wouldn't help, and (incorrectly) guessed Were-Rabbit as the answer. Neither team could remember A Matter of Loaf and Death (I'd got as far as "there's baking in it, I think?"), thinking the sequence was instead going back to the duo's debut in A Grand Day Out.
2) Very hard to judge the difficulty of this IQ-test style puzzle, but my suspicion that it was perhaps a tad easy was reinforced by the Elves joining me in spotting it for three points.
3) I do wonder if this one was originally planned without the bracketed numbers before someone decided that it needed softening up a bit. I think it hinges a little too much on whether you remember Relate, as it seems tough to come up with 'elate' for the final clue with nothing else to go on. We'd deduced that it would be a case of "take a letter away each time" which should have helped, but didn't, while the Nightwatchmen knew their marriage councils and worked their way to two points.
4) A matter of how well you know your flus, although despite working this out after two clues we couldn't decide whether it would continue "swine, bird" or "bird, swine" and so took a third to be 'sure'. This, however, seemed to kill off the flu idea and we were left stumped. The Elves, meanwhile, went for it after Asian and took an impressive three points (leaving Victoria to explain that avian flu was never a pandemic).
5) Forget question of the week, this felt like question of the series. Absolutely devilish, the Nightwatchmen seemed in agony before eventually picking out 'Bens' to earn two points. I'd love to have had the experience of playing this in the studio, as trying to keep track of who was asked what in that sort of environment seems a world away from playing along at home.
6) Impressively, we were fixated on the apostrophes ourselves but couldn't see how that could form a sequence, and while the Elves spotted the link they couldn't come up with a fourth allowing the Nightwatchmen a cheeky bonus. (It was only on a second viewing that I noticed the apostrophes were coloured!) Perhaps it was just in comparison to the previous one, but this question felt a touch like someone stumbling across a group of four and thinking "ooh, I can make this an Only Connect question!". Nevertheless, after two rounds with some absolute crackers, the Elves had stretched their lead by another point going into the walls 10-6 ahead.

He'll be ready.

A four point lead looks good, but as the Elves didn't know their bridge terms their seven on the wall left the door open for a real comeback. The Nightwatchmen couldn't quite take advantage, managing seven points of their own and in the process providing some wonderful imagery. Stumped on who CJ, Kevin, Barry and Judith could be, they proposed characters from Baywatch and the West Wing. The former suggestion is particularly glorious, and so naturally I called in my expert Photoshop skills to help bring it to life.

With a four point deficit to make up the Nightwatchmen would need to inflict a Nørdiphiles-like comeback to stay in the competition. Alas, it was not to be as the Elves took the vowels 7-5 and the show 24-18. Sad to see the Nightwatchmen leaving so soon, as the trio were an enjoyable watch. Similarly though, it would have been a bit of a shocker for the Elves to be dumped out immediately, and so I'm glad they've lived to fight another day.

Question of the Week

As you can probably guess from the write-up, there was no doubt for our favourite question this week. Although 'Web country codes and elements' looked like having the accolade all but sewn up, it was First four answers in this programme that knocked our socks off. I say it about a lot of questions, but this is another example of why Only Connect is so great. It seems simple on the surface, but short-term memory can be surprisingly rusty, not least when you're in the middle of filming a TV show, and it was particularly fun that it fell such that the team had to remember their opponents' question to boot! As always, if a little bit late, the poll below means you can share your own opinion with the world!