8:30pm, BBC4
Series five! To think David B thought there would only be three series in it.
Anyway, this probably doesn’t need a SD post but we’ll give it one anyway. There were plans to be able to play along with the Connecting Walls online originally although that’s gone a bit quiet. Despite this new Connecting Walls have gone up this afternoon, and if you fancy setting an OFFICIAL online Connecting Wall, you can do that via onlyconnect.tv. Puzzgrid remains avaliable for your unofficial third-best-round needs.
All being well, the playalong feature will be enabled later in the series.
That’s interesting. Did they record Victoria suggesting people can play along for every episode, or are they just going to drop a bit of VT in when the time comes?
IIRC, the call to “make your own grids” runs for 8 weeks, and then it’s replaced by “play along at home” thereafter. But yes, there is a ‘non-interactive’ edit on tape for when this goes out at 3.30am in 2016.
I say “on tape”. Actually, it’s all on hard disks these days.
The submit own wall isn’t allowing me to acknowledge I’ve read the t&c and as such isn’t allowing me to submit. Since it’s a flash thing for the submission I’m not sure how much difference browser/OS details could make a difference. Might be the OS, mind, I’ll try it in a virtual box later.
I’ve had trouble with Chrome, if that’s any help. I will be escalating this.
Do let me know if you find the answer so I can forward that on too.
Well I’ve found an answer.
It works in Firefox under Windows, but not under Linux (or at least 64 bit Ubuntu). This suggests a problem with the Linux 64 bit Flash distribution is the problem for me. Which, while historically I’ve found Adobe pretty useless with their 64 bit linux support… I actually thought that particular issue had been sorted seeing as even iPlayer works for me these days. (So, the answer I’m using is ‘open up my VirtualBox XP machine whenever I want to submit a wall’ but if you’re using chrome that won’t work for you)
I see the ‘tradition’ of Paxo going through the opening spiel so sometimes if you’re watching live you need to pop onto iPlayer to find out what, in this case, wasn’t a euphemism, continues. Shame.
Date Countdown was a bit overly easy, even for an opening round match, I felt, the Vegetarians got insanely unlucky with their prime ministers. Worked out that Debit/etc was ‘either on the left or the right’ one clue after but was only able to work out which from the third clue and Mah-Jong tiles was the only Wall connection I got. (Well, I saw five possible ones, so I could probably have comboed it)
All in all, as good as ever, and congratulations to all concerned for what looks to be a fifth wonderful series.
I would have done brilliantly playing on my own this evening, which is unusual.
Enjoyed it, and the Connecting Wall seemed a bit crisper than last series, somehow.
I also liked Victoria’s joke after the time-up tone and am not sure why the situation about which she joked has not come to light. I would, if I oculd.
Yes, I noticed the buttons have dropped their fadiness. David said on Twitter it was to allow them to make more guesses, if that’s true I don’t know how much difference it makes.
It does seem like the wall “releases” faster on a wrong answer, which is fine – more time to poke is probably fair.
It also seemed as if the teams got the next clue in the missing vowels rounds without the “let’s give a chance to the home audience so they don’t feel like a bunch of thickos” delay, which is an excellent change – more questions are always better.
Another possibility for the ‘crisper’ graphics is that we recorded in HD for the first time (it’s on iPlayer in high-def too, if you enable it), so it is not impossible that the graded SD version looks a bit sharper also.
it is not impossible that the graded SD version looks a bit sharper also.
My experience (CRT screen/cable feed) is that HD-originated pictures are always sharper than SD pictures on the same channel. There was a much smaller difference on the DTTV picture, only really noticeable when Victoria brought on the walls.
Was the missing vowels round longer this time? I’m aware it adjusts length based on the teams’ performances, but the teams didn’t do *that* well yet it felt like a very long round. I have noticed that the explanation was dropped, too.
If anything, the vowels round is shorter for the heats this time around.
We are saving time because teams are often buzzing in very early to guess (bad tactics IMHO but what the hey), and also because the teams swap over much quicker at the halfway point in Round 3. And occasionally we don’t do the full monty explanation in Round 4, although maybe it would have been politik to do so for show 1.
Ratings just in: 610,000 average, peaked at 627,000 (2.6% share).
Nice one, although it’s a shame it seems to have reached a sort of glass ceiling at the 650k-ish level.
That’s by far the best ratings we’ve had for programme 1, so I’d hope it would get towards the 0.75m level later on.
From memory, that’s well up among your list of best ratings of all time – and excellent news! Even the rather waspish reviewer in the Guardian was as close to complimentary as is custom.
See also: http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/ratings/only-connect-unites-600000/5030886.article (do the Google News trick if it doesn’t work)
Their comment about Safebreakers is interesting. Loosing one-third of the slot average is “Slightly down” in their dictionary.
Whose idea was it to monsteriously simplify the description of what the ABC is? Calling it ‘an Australian television channel’ is being rather unkind.
4 tv channels, 8 national radio stations (mix of analouge and DAB) plus a very comprehensive network of local radio channels make it more than one solitary tv channel.
Surely saying ‘it’s the Australian version of the BBC’ would be far more accurate – and probably have taken around a second more of airtime.
Fair point, although how I’d put that in the caption more succinctly I’m not sure.
Like this…?
Australian
tv/radio
broadcaster
Hey, It’s all in the past now.
That was the only small fault I could find with the show (and at least the piccie researcher found out the current ‘twisted tubular’ logo to use).
Looking forward to 8.30 next Monday. At least I know OC won’t be parked around the schedules of BBC Four unlike the much heralded repeats of Top Of The Pops…
Has the set changed slightly this season? Something about seems different.
Not that I know of. They keep twiddling with the lighting a bit each season but there’s certainly no major new set elements, even because of HD.
I noticed we lost the little jib shot going into the connecting walls, that’s the only change I noticed in this episode.
It’s interesting, loads of people declaring the opening episode “a bit easier than normal”. Only Connect now trying to appeal to the post-pub crowd, clearly.
The first round matches always tended to be a bit “easier” if I remember.
Yes I accept that, but even within the confines of a round one match.
I don’t reckon it was easier than normal. But then, I can be a bit thick.
I went through every single tweet for #onlyconnect and “only connect”. About 15-20 found it harder than they remember, about 3-4 said it was easier.
The truth is that none of it is planned – we just get the 120 questions we like and put the easiest ones in the round 1 shows.
I think there are some quite tricky round 1 grids in certain shows, and the vowels get quite hard early on in the series.