MASTERMIND

The 31 episodes of Mastermind continue on BBC Knowledge (channel 251 on DStv) every week day at 18:00.

For over 20 years, Mastermind has prided itself on setting the most difficult questions of any television quiz and, no matter who takes to the fearsome black spotlight chair, the tension is always palpable. Round One gives four contestants one minute to answer as many questions as possible on their chosen specialist subject. Round Two sees each answer questions on general knowledge for a further minute.

The winner of each Mastermind contest is the player with the highest number of points at the end of the second round. If final scores are tied, then the winner is the contestant who ‘passed’ on the fewest questions. The winner of each contest goes forward to the next knockout phase of the competition. Here contestants are all previous winners and they all have to answer questions on another specialist subject and, again, general knowledge. This means contestants need to be experts in up to three areas if they hope to get to the Mastermind final – and that contests get closer and more nail-biting throughout the series.

This series of Mastermind was originally shown in the UK in 2009, and specialist subjects include the Twilight novels of Stephenie Meyer, British Indie music, Bill Hicks, Tim Burton, Handel, and angels.