Weaver's Week 2009-08-02

Anyway, Guesstimation is hosted by Who Dares Wins and Last Choir Standing host Nick Knowles. It's played by two teams of four players, all sharing some sort of familial connection. The introductions struck us as rather long – they're only about four minutes combined, but those seem to be four very long minutes. One of the people is the appointed team captain, and they have a free pass to the final of each round.

Before the final comes three preliminary rounds. In round one, each captain chooses two of the other people from their team; the other two will play in round two, and any two players can be selected for round three. A category emerges from a category board: in theory, these are related to the topic of the questions, but this linkage is often tenuous.

Winning one of the preliminary questions allows the captain to nominate an extra person to join them in the final question of the round. This always takes the form of a physical stunt, performed on the Guesstimation Guesstistage. There's usually some sort of cross-promotion for another BBC programme (hello, people from Strictly Come Dancing) and always some sort of cross-promotion for athletes. That'll be people funded by The Lottery Corp.'s products, appearing on a programme promoting The Lottery Corp. Doesn't that present a mightily huge conflict of interest?

While Nick Knowles does his very best to make the show easy for the viewer to follow, we found it more complex than it needs to be. Two preliminary preliminary rounds before each preliminary final round, then three of these preliminary rounds before the final round. There is merit to the system, giving advantages to the best guesstimators without ensuring the final is entirely without point, but it's not that clear first time through. The line-up of guessers changes for almost every question, though here the viewer is helped by names appearing over the heads of people who are playing. Answers also appear over the competitors' heads, accompanied by a slightly twee starburst effect.

The final round is played by five people across the teams, and is a holiday to somewhere exotic. Winners could be off to hard-rock Helsinki, or walking the Southern Alps in Auckland, or going to the Beijing academy of advanced tank driving. Here, the questions all have some relevance to the destination city or country, and they're revealed with somewhat more fuss than is strictly necessary. Nick insists on saying that so-and-so is in the lead, and delaying the revelation of each answer for as long as possible.

It's that final round that tilts our opinion. Guesstimation would work if it was fitting a half-hour or a 35-minute slot, a la Hole in the Wall. But at 43 minutes (excluding commercials), it's stretched out just that bit too long. There isn't room for a fourth preliminary round, but there is room to make the end-of-round spectaculars that little bit more spectacular. Actually, there's room to make them slightly spectacular: the moment when Martin Offiah is lifted off the ground by accumulated pints of milk was rushed and turned into an anticlimax. There's hope for the show – it's nowhere near as hideously contrived as This Time Tomorrow, or as pointless as Millionaire Manor – but neither is it an instant winner.

Jesus get under way with the next starter, and a set of bonuses of English words that, when suffixed with "shire", form Welsh counties. Clear? As mud, quite frankly. Jesus's history includes lots of stuff for the nobility, and the education of T E Lawrence (Arabia). The working on the question about how many countries there are on an overland route between the UK and China isn't shown: the question specified a route via Brussels, so it's France, B*lg**m, Germany, Poland, Russia, and thence to China. The visual round is on who has the best poker hand: our money's on Victoria Coren, she's the Monday night expert on such matters. Jesus don't do too well on these bonuses, much to the pleasure of their parents, and lead 75-10.

The audio bonuses are on composers marking anniversaries this year, and Jesus do know his Handel. Phew. A later starter question asks after Russian composers of the mid-20th century. If it's not Rachmaninov, surely Stravinsky's worth a punt. The second visual round is on the figure in a religious engraving, and it keeps Clare in the hunt for tonight's win; they've trailed since the second starter, but 150-100 is just retrievable.

Captain Tom Hegarty led the way for Clare, with five starters; his team made 15/27 bonuses, recovering well in the final few minutes. Tom Speller was the best buzzer for Jesus Oxford, nine starters as the side made 19/36 bonuses. There were no missignals in the entire show.

Next match: Nottingham v Girton Cambridge

It's obvious to the History Boys that the first set of four are foods, but not so obvious that they're all restricted to a geographic area; two points. The Rugby Boys respond with last lines from films, and get a remarkable three points. Game on! Ninth symphonies evade both teams, but the Rugby team dodge a bullet with rose and a leopard, they think it's all that rugby, but it's not. Rugby pick up literal translations of German words, and lead by 7-2 at the end of the round.

The Rugby Boys are first into the walls, and begin with types of heels and young animals, then before confirming their ER doctors, spend a few moments sorting out the fourth group. That's confidence, and a well-deserved ten points. In response the History Boys spot four Hungarians, then get some moustaches. With time running down, they have to take a guess on something; they were looking for styles of skirt, and pig___ words. It's five points in total, putting the Rugby Boys ahead by 21-13.

Scores can go down as well as up in the Mssng Vls round, which begins with "They have US states in their name"; it ends 2-1 to rugby. John Steinbeck books is 2-0 to rugby, stock market terminology a 1-1 draw. Terms for heaven is more to the historians' favour, getting the first two answers, but a drop means it ends 2-1 to rugby. Ice-skating moves goes 1-0 to history, all of which means the Rugby Boys have won, 28-17. A team in purple has won, and from this performance, they have to be warm favourites to win the whole thing. And we've not even seen their next opponents!