New series: Pointless

Pointless is a quiz show that revels in its own futility. The premise is brilliant: all of the questions have already been asked to a panel of 100 people who were given 100 seconds to come up with as many answers as possible. All the contestants have to do is find the most obscure answers possible, with the ultimate accolade being a ‘pointless answer’ that no-one else has given. After a successful first run last year, the second series has just started on BBC2.

I absolutely adored the first series of Pointless. My parents quite often came into the living room just after 5.15 to be greeted by me saying something like “I’d have won the jackpot again today! Films of Brad Pitt, sure that’s easy – Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.” I loved everything about it. I loved the way presenter Alexander Armstrong felt the need to explain the rules of the game at every opportunity (“23 points! That means 23 of our 100 people also said Sense and Sensibility”). I delighted in shouting at the screen when people had no idea about things that I felt I was an expert on (“Don’t say Tom Baker, he’s clearly not going to be the least well known of all the actors to play the Doctor!”). The constant puns on the word ‘pointless’ made me happy (“Wow, he’s clearly written a lot of pointless songs”). But the thing I cherished most of all was the question master, Richard Osman. He’s clearly the star of the show – he seems to know absolutely everything, and the jokey, awkward relationship between him and Armstrong was a joy to behold. I kind of want to be him.

But what about the second series? The first episode of the series had some classic ‘clueless contestant’ moments – one pair had no idea about anything sci-fi, and so guessed The Early Years when asked to name one of the Star Wars titles. They’ve tweaked the format, taking away a couple of rounds and adding one where the contestants are given options to choose from. There’s one less team competing, and the head-to-head now involves several questions rather than one. On the whole, it’s better thought out and more polished, and I’m not sure that I liked that – I loved the fact that the first series was essentially just one round over and over again, and that there was an air of cluelessness about the whole thing. But it does make the whole thing fairer, as people can’t be shafted by getting a category they have no clue about in the head-to-head. I’m sure I’ll get used to the changes, and by this time next week I’ll think it was always like this. And besides, having one less team was clearly a change made to have more of the fabulously nerdy Richard, and that’s no bad thing in anyone’s book.

Seriously, if you love random and obscure trivia, Pointless is the show for you. I recently described it as "maybe the pinnacle of all human creative achievement", and I was only half joking.

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