Once again, it’s our old friend The Million Pound Drop, because apparently it is very difficult to create multiple-choice questions where only one of the answers is definitively correct:
“Which actor played Doctor Who for the longest period?
- Sylvester McCoy
- Paul McGann
- Christopher Ecclestone
- David Tennant”
The correct answer, and the one that the couple left free was David Tennant, the reasoning being that he was the Doctor for four series. But hang on, the question does not ask who had the most series as Doctor Who, it asks who was the Doctor for the longest period, in which case (looking around) the correct answer is Sylvester McCoy who played him from 1987, had a break, then appeared in the Paul McGann movie in 1996 giving him a period (what the question is asking) of nine years. I did idly wonder if McGann would be the answer, seeing as he’s technically the doctor from the TV movie until the first Christopher Ecclestone episode but I think that would be a year shorter.
Only Endemol can etc etc.
The format’s already good at looking generous while actually usually giving away ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. If the reason for trick questions is to reduce the payout (and I can’t see that not being so) then there’s no need.
So is that two games that now need to be replayed for the show to not be unfair? It is, isn’t it? Crikey, when was the last time a UK game show that wasn’t call-and-lose was this manifestly unfair?
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? made four errors throughout the shows history but all admitted their errors.
1999 – The tennis question for £64K. The contestant gave the right answer but wasn’t the answer but let the correct result stand.
2001 – The Sheridan poet question also for £64K. The contestant gave the incorrect answer but revealed after that there were two correct answers. He was invited back later in the series and was awarded £64K, decided to not to go for £125K.
2001 – An animal question for £32K which also had two answers. The contestant answered correctly the result stood.
2006 – The Llewelyn-Bowen’s and that US question which cost them £468,000 but there was no correct answer.
The bowen question mentioned last did have a correct answer it was just that the answer they gave could of easily been considered a second answer making it a trick question – and considering tarrant rants on about no trick questions it would be a bit off especially for charity
Most of us knows that Endemol couldn’t give a shit. I’d bet the pair last night just smiled and walked home. I will be very surprised if Davina mentions it on tonight’s show.
I notice on Digital Spy many are agreeing to what we’ve said but a couple of posters suggested they should’ve used the words “in production” in the question.
Add the words “Most episodes” and it’s quite a good question, not to mention surprisingly close. As it is however…
The correct answer is Peter Cushing – the only actor to have played a character called Doctor Who.
Bonus points for you!
That thing about “He should only be called The Doctor” is a myth. He has been called “Doctor Who” in the credits.
Wikipedia’s pretty good on the ins-and-outs of the topic:
“In the early years of the spin-off comic strips, books, films and other media, the character was initially called “Doctor Who” (or just “Dr Who”) in the stories as a matter of course. This usage declined as the years went by.
“Perhaps complicating the matter is that, from the first television serial through to Logopolis (the last story of Season 18 and also of the Tom Baker era), the lead character was credited as “Doctor Who” (or sometimes “Dr Who”). Starting from Peter Davison’s first story, Castrovalva (the first story of the series’ Season 19) to the end of Season 26, he is credited simply as “The Doctor”.
“This format is continued in the 1996 television movie for Paul McGann’s credit, while Sylvester McCoy’s incarnation is credited as “The Old Doctor”. For the 2005 revival starring Christopher Eccleston, the credit reverted to “Doctor Who”. However, in “The Christmas Invasion”, and subsequent stories featuring David Tennant, the character is once again identified in the closing credits as “The Doctor”, with “The Parting of the Ways” being the only episode to feature David Tennant in which he is credited as playing “Doctor Who”. According to Doctor Who Magazine #367 this reversion was specifically requested by Tennant.[10] The lead character credit has remained “The Doctor” for Matt Smith’s tenure as the eleventh incarnation.”
Knew that one would crop up here.
I think we can safely conclude that this has proven how difficult it is for question-setters, and that the more you move towards ‘clever’ questions that are legitimately a tiny bit deceptive, which for many formats – MPD included – is the right way to go, the more you risk ending up setting an inadvertent ‘trick question’, which unequivocally *is* bad.
Travis, you’re right about those four errors, and note that in each case the production company reacted in a manner favourable to the contestant. As you admit in a later post, Endemol are not that kind of production company. Make of that what you will; personally, I much prefer Celador’s approach.
I’m going to say something nerdy (what’s new there, then?) and point out that the Fifth Doctor, one Peter Davison, not only played the character from 1981 to 1994 but made appearences, in character as the same incarnation of the Doctor, in 1993 and 2007.
I do not claim that this makes him the answer to the question, or that there isn’t a Doctor with an even stronger claim to the title; I’m just being nerdy.
Very true, but as he wasn’t one of the four options (I think even in Endemol’s defence the ‘of the four options’ is implied) I don’t think there is a problem.
I confess to not being a massive Doctor Who fan, or even a quiz buff particularly, but what I do ask is that each question – especially in a show like this – has one, definitive correct answer. Two sloppy questions in the space of six episodes (when there is only about 8-10 questions an episode – so half the amount of questions total you’d see on one episode of Weakest Link, for example, and if they’re happy to fact check each question…) is really not good enough, and very unfair on the players. In both cases, a few extra words of clarification or some explanataion from Davina would eliminate all problems.
Does anyone know how last night rated?
Two sloppy questions in the space of six episodes (when there is only about 8-10 questions an episode – so half the amount of questions total you’d see on one episode of Weakest Link
This.
And when Endemol have a history of playing at least a little bit fast and loose with the integrity of the game to make ‘good television’… that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you get it right, there’d be plenty who’d argue DoND is far better for not playing to a rigid ruleset, for a start, but as Weaver has argued before, it is not enough for the game to be fair, it has to be seen to be fair.
These questions violate, at least, the latter condition.
1.9m last night, about a million down on last week.
I’m not going to lie, I’ve always wanted someone to see someone stop the precedings of a game to ask for a clarification on a question. This or WWTBAM would be the ideal cases in my mind, where there are ticking clocks that require a fast answer under severe pressure, but the contestant is so much on top of the question that they already know two answers possible from how the question is phrased.
Davina: “The clock is now ticking.”
Contestant: “Yeah, well, stop the damned clock, I need to speak to your adjudicator.”
It would have to be Million Pound Drop (Live!). If it happened on any other show, it would get edited out.
I agree- this is just a badly worded question, especially since there was a long period in between a couple of them. “most episodes” would have worked a lot better.
A similar situation could be in a question like this:
“Which of the films in the Lord of The Rings trilogy had a running time of over 3 hours?”
The problem in the wording of this question is that it doesn’t specify if they mean the original films or the special expanded editions of the films.
If you go with the original cuts of the films, there is a correct answer- Return of the King is 201 minutes, The Two Towers is 179 minutes, The Fellowship of the Ring is 178 minutes. But if you go by the special expanded editions, there is NO correct answer (ROTK is 251, TTT is 223, FOTR is 208).
So you have to be specific- you must say “In their original theatrical releases, which of the films in the Lord of The Rings trilogy had a running time of over 3 hours?”.
Right, lets have a look at this question. From Wikipedia: the eleven
canonical TV Doctors and the dates each was in the role. This doesn’t include special appearances such as Davison’s 2007 appearance.
The Doctor Portrayed by Duration
First Doctor William Hartnell 1963–1966
Second Doctor Patrick Troughton 1966–1969
Third Doctor Jon Pertwee 1970–1974
Fourth Doctor Tom Baker 1974–1981
Fifth Doctor Peter Davison 1981–1984
Sixth Doctor Colin Baker 1984–1986
Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy 1987–1989, 1996
Eighth Doctor Paul McGann 1996
Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston 2005
Tenth Doctor David Tennant 2005–2010
Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith 2010-
(I really hope that comes out properly…)
Anyway, looking at that in terms of time the longest continuous period as the Doctor was Tom Baker, with 7 years, which is the actual correct answer if that was the question they wanted to ask. Out of the given choices, Tennant is indeed the longest continuous Doctor, but as pointed out extra appearances such as McCoy in the movie and Davison in the 2007 special can confuse this further.
If the question was meant like this, I’d have asked ‘Which actor spent the longest uninterrupted continuous period as Doctor Who?’ to which the correct answer would be Tom Baker. The ‘uninterrupted’ part gets rid of confusion around periods of time when Doctor Who was not being broadcast.
If they did mean number of series, then A) they should have said that and B) it would again actually be Tom Baker, who (surprise surprise) was the Doctor for 7 series.
Given that they wanted Tennant as the answer, the question should have said ‘Which of these actors…’ not ‘Which of these…’ otherwise Tom Baker is the correct answer, whether they wanted continuous time, number of series of even number of episodes.
So basically, taking their stated logic of ‘most series’ I’d have asked this:
Which actor played Doctor Who in the most series?
Tom Baker
David Tennant
Christopher Eccleston
Peter Davison
To which the correct answer is Tom Baker, with 7 to David Tennant’s 3 (the specials last year don’t count as a series), Eccleston’s 1 and Davison’s 3
Yes, I’m a Doctor Who fan.
It’s a really, really peculiar question, actually… And there’s been some fun discussion online about it in the past…
Who played the Doctor for the longest period of time really, really depends on how you define ‘longest period’ (Mainly relevent to ‘when did their era end’ for both Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann) and how you define ‘time’ (…Which gets very peculiar)
I forget the last time the figures were run, but, the usual criteria:
i) Most series
ii) Most years
iii) Most episodes
iv) Most stories (Since
v) Screen time [Basically the same as Most Episodes but takes into account that all since Eccleston, and one year for Baker II, were 45 minute episodes.
The question asked could easially either refer to i or ii, with only a slight change it could have been asking iii, iv or v.
…And given that David Tennant isn’t the answer to either series or years (I think he starts competing on screentime and stories, thanks to having 10 (Or 9 in some years, depending on if you count Utopia as part 1 of 3 or a standalone that leads into a two parter; Same with Turn Left [Personally I go with ‘part 1’ for Utopia and ‘standalone’ for Turn Left, but…]) a series and 1 per special, and 45 (With a few decently longer) minute episodes), and the answer to series isn’t on… Years (At which point ‘either Sylvester McCoy or Paul McGann’) is the way I’d have jumped on that question. [Also, technically, Tennant played the Doctor for 3 series [2-4] and a few specials, which… Actually is the same as Sylvester McCoy, although since he played the Doctor in more specials that could count as a tiebreak…]
I defended Endemol with the daylight question last week – but I’m not going to bother this time – it is far too ambigious.
But here’s a thing – given that Ofcom have gone smashing in big time on false quizcall style questions (included nailing a Swedish quizcall channel broadcast from the UK about a ‘count the triangles’ question, in the lastest slap wrists issue this week) I wonder, would they have grounds to investigate this, if someone brought it to their attention, under the title of ‘misleading and inaccurate’?
Last night’s rating.
Channel 4: 1.87m (10.7%)
Channel 4+1: 211k (1.9%)
Unbelieveably poor scheduling from C4, taking it off air as it had just built momentum and losing a million viewers in the process.
MPD relies on momentum and people basically getting hooked – and far easier to break an addiction when shows air weekly rather than nightly.
I must admit, expensive though it might be for a Monday 10pm show, running it for, say, 9 days consecutively makes much more sense than this new arrangement. They were getting good ratings, why mess with it?
What are you talking about?!? 2 million is good ratings and similar to how the first week rated. It’s a success.
This website is very anti-MPD for some reason!
If we were anti-MPD, we wouldn’t be talking about it. It’s just a shame that there is some poor question writing.
Sorry, I am not in the employ of Endemol. I am not here to be your friend, I’m here to tell you why you’re rubbish. It’s not personal though!
Why are you calling me rubbish? What have I done :S
Come along Joe, I said it was nothing personal – I like your boundless optimism. But I’m certainly not going to let production people spin their line on my site without a bit of scrutiny – I did call the ratings “decent for Channel 4” on the Board of Excitement, look.
Broadly, I don’t like Endemol’s game shows. With exceptions, I think their heart is in the wrong place and they focus on a very negative sort of entertainment for their novelty. This is probably because the people responsible creatively, well, just are prepared to be pretty loathesome. (Yes, with exceptions, but definitely more often than not, and definitely more so than most companies.)
However, there must be some good people working for Endemol – or at least Endemol subsidiary Remarkable Television – because their Freak Like Me is a remarkable and heart-wearmingly, gloriously liberal, anti-conformist, “you’re OK, I’m OK” take on the freak show tradition of old, wrenching it out of its endemic conservatism. Not a game show, but very good in its way.
Which was the other dodgy question? I thought “Who’s show is on Radio 1 right now?” was slightly wonky as someone was standing in for Pete Tong, although to be perfectly pedantic the question was worded correctly as the BBC still bill it as Pete Tong’s show.
The sunset one from the other week.
Watching MPD on a recording this evening, I hope it is good.
Honestly, with this one and the last one…
…Surely this is only a problem because only one answer is taken as correct? There’s no reason the concept of ‘place stuff on answers, lose stuff that’s not on the correct answer’ can’t handle questions with multiple correct answers, provided contestants only lose stuff on answers that are actually incorrect.
Of course, with only four options to pick between, there’s not much room for maneouver on that front.
Erin, possibly of the Sparks, has outdone himself with his latest home version of The Mole (though, sadly, I’m not completely convinced that the URL that I have just given you will work as a proper playlist). Some of the game design is inspired; the whole thing is elaborate, the standard of the camerawork and graphical presentation has come on in leaps and bounds since he started This Sort Of Thing years ago, and it clearly is a labour of love which represents a very consdierable achievement. YouTube has gone – to use a technical term – floopy on me at just the wrong moment and so I have not yet seen the big reveal at the end of Part 6, so I am yet unspoiled. You can see more of Erin’s work here.
I am convinced that Erin’s activities are THE FUTURE~! and that he is right, by being a doer rather than a viewer, as they used to say on Gladiators, and everyone else is wrong. Besides, this thread ain’t big enough for both of us… and it ain’t me who’s gonna leave!
If we’re to believe Digital Spy and/or the Daily Mirror, then the logic hole has been pointed out and producers are looking into it.
Readers will wish to supply their own salt.
(My money would have been on McGann, as nine years less a month is longer than McCoy’s nine years less three-and-a-half months.)
In other words, we will look at the question but we’ll do nowt about it.
May be of use for their question team:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/p45.pdf
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1327676/Channel-4-hand-Million-Pound-Drop-couple-325k-admits-wrong-Doctor-Who.html
Oh dear…
Good spot, thanks Chris.