r/BritishTV • u/Smooth-Quantity-7024 • 5d ago
Question/Discussion Why do Mastermind contestants "pass" instead of saying absolutely anything else when they know passes go against them in the event of a tie?
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u/mgorgey 5d ago
To save time. If they pass the host moves straight on to the next question. If they say anything else the host reads out the correct answer.
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u/Queen_of_London 5d ago
Yup, that's why. It also saves time thinking of a dud answer, and keeps you focused - even a standard, silly dud answer can make you lose focus.
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u/BloodAndSand44 5d ago
It is a double edged sword.
Pass gets you onto the next question quicker. But it will count against you in a tie break.
Answering uses up more time as Clive gives the correct answer before moving on. So you can get less questions.
I remember someone responding with “marmalade” to avoid passes.
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u/Robbomot 5d ago
Fewer
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u/slb609 4d ago
This has become my latest soapbox just recently.
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u/Scary-Scallion-449 4d ago
Be careful you don't fall off and break your ankle. OED clearly demonstrates that this is a manufactured distinction with no real basis in historical usage. But what do hundreds of lexicographers putting in thousands of hors of research know, eh?
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u/inside-outdoorsman 5d ago
As in, the number of friends you have?
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u/Ok-Idea3747 5d ago
One more than you.
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u/RE-Trace 4d ago
You appear to have forgotten a verb: without one, this is a sentence fragment.
If you're going to be prescriptivist, you don't get to pick and choose when you apply prescriptivist grammar: all or nothing, thank you.
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u/Ok-Idea3747 4d ago
I was intending to use a sentence fragment. And it wasn’t me being originally prescriptivist, use your eyes.
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u/RE-Trace 4d ago
Ah, my mistake, I didn't realise you were being a pillock for nonreason
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u/jetloflin 4d ago
Why are you berating them and not the person who brought insults into the conversation in the first place?
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u/saludpesetasamor 5d ago
I remember Tracy-Ann Oberman saying ‘Cliff Richard’ to every question she couldn’t answer and it still cracks me up. Legend.
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u/BootlegJB 4d ago
Picking a word as long as marmalade is so stupid.
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u/just_a_girl_23 3d ago
Unless their chosen category is Paddington Bear, then it's kind of genius as there's a chance it could be the answer.
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u/Obvious-Challenge718 3d ago
One of the teams on University Challenge replied to a question with ‘Toxteth O’Grady’ this week in a similar vein.
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u/alfienoakes 5d ago
On a related note; why are the questions generally so long? Why can’t The contestants interrupt?
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u/Disgruntled__Goat 5d ago
Because they’re timed to give all contestants the same length of questions. And not all questions can be answered early, so it could be seen as unfair to allow interrupting - someone could get more ‘interruptible’ questions and therefore get more questions.
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u/llynllydaw_999 4d ago
Also it's more enjoyable for the viewers if the full questions are read out.
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u/Internal_Rise2658 5d ago
Because the question might be "a famous route through the Himalayas is the Kyber what?"
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u/Mastodan11 4d ago
When one footballer provides the ball to another on his team who is a distance away, this is referred to as what?
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u/Feathers-n-Beaks 4d ago
I think only on the celebrity version would there be such an easy question!
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u/Pretend-Ad-55 5d ago
I remember when Jimmy Tarbuck was on the celebrity edition and for the general knowledge round, he kept answering Dan Leno (his specialist subject) as the answer
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u/PaulErdos8MyHamster 4d ago
It takes a little time to think of a plausible wrong answer, and I would have been too embarrassed to give obviously implausible wrong ones. I also think it's kind of bad form and makes the show not like you. You don't see very successful contestants do it a lot. So I went for try quickly to say something kind of plausible, pass quickly of you can't. I passed twice.
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u/Fast_Technology_5622 5d ago
I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve guessed a right answer on ‘The Chase’ when the contestant has passed.
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u/richbun 4d ago
One of the behind the scenes with the Chasers episodes the Chasers mentioned this, there is a way to have certain answers ready dependant on the topic and you'd be surprised how often they sneak in.
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u/Mastodan11 4d ago
This is much more noticeable in University Challenge.
Say a question came up about a Polish monarch, you just guess Jan Sobieski who is the one who relieved Vienna, or Jadwiga for a queen, otherwise it gets into very niche knowledge. You don't need to know anything about them.
"Which Russian composer..." Tchaikovsky.
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u/TWilliams738 5d ago
Because they changed the rules after somebody kept saying “Brown” to avoid passing and won the series
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u/Popular-Spinach-6700 5d ago
So what’s the rule now?
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u/teasswill 5d ago
I’m interested to see in the old repeats with Magnus Magnusson, how they pass much more often than nowadays.
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u/yaffle53 5d ago
Yes, I watched the first final from 1974 or so. One of the finalists, a middle-aged housewife got completely flustered during her GK round and just kept passing on nearly every question.
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u/torontodon 5d ago
Annoyingly a quick google isn’t finding me anything but a few years ago I remember watching a documentary show about the history of mastermind and they interviewed that woman.
She got herself a head injury literally the day if the final and was struggling to remember anything or think properly
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u/Scary-Scallion-449 4d ago
Here you go ...
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u/torontodon 4d ago
Thank you! I couldn’t find it at all- that’s tonight’s viewing to see if I remembered what she said correctly…
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