British Shows Make Me Feel Stupid: Only Connect
Honestly, this post is sort of a continuation of my series “the British are Better than Us,” but this show fits into so many categories. On BBC4, there’s a show called Only Connect. It takes a lot for a show to make me feel completely useless and stupid. No show in the US is really hard enough to do that. Some of the big quiz shows in England like Countdown or Mastermind don’t do it either. But Only Connect makes me feel like I’ve sat and picked my ears for the past few decades, not paying attention to anyone.
Only Connect‘s premise is pretty easy. One to four items are given to your team; you just have to find how they are connected. It’s brutally hard, obscure connections. At least in the finals, which you see above (we’ll put the rest up this weekend). Nothing fancy here. Set’s barren, music’s standard, graphics are as opposite of flashy as you can get. I still feel like a moron watching, but I can’t stop. It’s almost hypnotic. Also, this show feels like a radio show they put on the air. I could completely see this on public radio.
What do you think of Only Connect?
Don’t forget that, difficult, though this show may seem, it may be not quite as hard as it looks because of the British bias of the questions. I think that this wasn’t made with a foreign audience in mind, and sticks pretty much to the upmarket British quiz curriculum, as an American version would stick to its American equivalent.
And Victoria Coren is a poetry-quoting, poker-playing goddess with a sense of humour drier than a foxhole in Iraq. Be in no doubt of that.