On nights when my husband and I are watching TV, the after-work ritual is Pointless on BBC1 followed by House of Games on BBC2. But Mondays are special – Mastermind, followed by Only Connect, followed by University Challenge. I love Mondays.
I’ve always enjoyed quizzes and general knowledge and that sort of thing. When we were kids, we had books of quiz questions that we would do as a family during dinner. When I was about 14 my school instigated a general knowledge prize, and I came top of my year group. The mighty Scotrep team scooped top prize a couple of times in the 1990s, and I still remember the weekend in Glasgow that we organised with our winnings.
So I like watching Mastermind and University Challenge and not just getting answers right, but also hearing questions on the sometimes pretty esoteric specialists subjects on Mastermind or the obscure sciencey questions on University Challenge.
But they are all completely over-shadowed by the wonderfulness that is Only Connect. I’ve been trying to work out why I find it so much better than any other quiz show.
If you’re not familiar with it, this summary from Wikipedia is just about spot on:
The show’s questions will cover any topic, and many may require knowledge of both arcane subject areas and popular culture. Questions may also be self-referential, or based on linguistic or numeric tricks, rather than requiring any particular factual knowledge. When presented with the clues, contestants are not told the type of the connection, and as such part of the gameplay involves establishing whether the connection is thematic, linguistic, factual, mathematical, etc.
Firstly, and probably tangentially, I want to be Victoria Coren Mitchell when I grow up. She’s funny, she’s smart, she’s a professional poker player. She wears Stop Staring dresses. She would fit in really well with my group of close friends, I reckon. So I just love watching her host something.
Secondly, there’s a depth to it that you don’t have with the other Monday night shows. Mastermind and University Challenge test what you know. Only Connect tests how you think. And as a fan of cryptic crosswords and all sorts of puzzles, I really relate to that additional level of neural activity.
Further to my earlier post about what learning is, it could be said that the difference between Only Connect and the other quiz shows mentioned is that OC tests skills as much as knowledge – skills such as lateral thinking, discerning patterns or approaching a problem with an open mind.
So why does it matter? Why am I fixating on what could simply be viewed as a piece of weeknight entertainment? I think it’s because it speaks to a bigger problem that we have been wrestling with for a while, around the automation of work. When I was working with the Centre for Workplace Leadership on the future of work, the “received wisdom” was that the jobs that were threatened by automation were the repetitive mechanical ones (Mastermind), and those that required creativity, emotional intelligence (Only Connect) etc would be less easily disrupted. But as Ethan Mollick of One Useful Thing points out (link in the first bullet below), ChatGPT and its ilk are upending that. The jobs being disrupted by AI are also those that only a few years ago we thought would be “safe”.
The fact remains though, that getting the sequence in Round 2 of Only Connect after the first clue is just about as good as life gets.
There are lots of episodes on YouTube if you want to check it out for yourself.
PS – I found this article while searching for a photo. Nice to know I’m not alone! Why ‘Only Connect’ is the best quiz show on TV – The Boar
This post originally appeared on Substack on 10 March 2023.