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Only Connect
- 332 statements
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Only Connect (2008-) is a BBC Game Show hosted by Victoria Coren Mitchell. Two teams of three players, who come up with a team name based on their common link, must figure out what connects four apparently random clues. The quiz is unapologetically difficult and tests both knowledge and lateral thinking, each to a high standard. Teams compete throughout the each series in a tournament set up, with recent series taking a cue from University Challenge to have a double-knockout tournament, the complexities of which confuse Victoria from time to time. The quiz is split up into the following rounds: | |
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Dropped link to Bones: Not a Feature - ITEM | |
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Dropped link to Troll: Not a Feature - IGNORE | |
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Nerds Are Sexy | |
| Only Connect / int_14a5a8e2 | comment |
Nerds Are Sexy: Victoria counts herself among those who see University Challenge ace Alex Guttenplan as an example of this; when he and two of his Emmanuel College, Cambridge teammates appear in a 2011 special against Only Connect Champion of Champions winners the Crossworders, Victoria keeps trailing off during her opening interview with Guttenplan. Subsequent series sometimes feature Victoria professing her love for a quizzer after a particularly impressive correct response. | |
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Overly Narrow Superlative | |
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Overly Narrow Superlative: From the opening of a 2013 episode: | |
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Breaking the Fourth Wall | |
| Only Connect / int_1e7487cd | comment |
Breaking the Fourth Wall: In series 13. "Fourth wall. I've never really understood what that means. Breaking the fourth wall. What even is that?" Victoria asks looking directly at the camera. | |
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Literary Allusion Title | |
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Literary Allusion Title: Taken from a much-quoted line in E.M. Forster's Howards End: "Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted." Explicitly referenced at least Once a Season. | |
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Bilingual Bonus | |
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Bilingual Bonus: In the first appearance of the Celts, a team whose common connection is that they're from Wales, Victoria conducts the pre-game chat with the team captain entirely in Welsh, with no subtitles nor any other concession to audience members who don't know the language. (In the following episode, she attempts the same thing with the captain of the Francophiles, only for him to admit that despite admiring the French he doesn't actually speak their language.) | |
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The Dreaded | |
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The Dreaded: The music questions often get an Oh, Crap! reaction from those unfortunate enough to pick them. Special mention goes to David Mitchell for the 2013 Comic Relief special: | |
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Yet Another Christmas Carol | |
| Only Connect / int_2ec6e90f | comment |
Yet Another Christmas Carol: In one of her opening monologues, Victoria says she's been visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come, seeking to make her mend her ways. Apparently they drop by every year but haven't had any effect on her yet. | |
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Evolving Credits | |
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Evolving Credits: The hieroglyphs replaced the Greek letters in the title sequence from Episode 4x02 onwards (the hieroglyphs were first used in 4x01, but the opening sequence retained the Greek letters so as not to spoil the surprise.) The colours were also changed after Series 1, with the white-to-very-pale-blue background from S1 replaced with a dark-blue-to-black background from S2 onward. | |
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Actor Allusion | |
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Actor Allusion: One sequence question in series 18 was about Taskmaster champions. After the question, Victoria asked who'd want to win that show anyway, in a reference to her last-place finish in series 12. | |
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Celebrity Edition | |
| Only Connect / int_3a4f1e40 | comment |
Celebrity Edition: There have been various celebrity specials for the Comic/Sport Relief and Children In Need appeals. One featured Victoria's husband David Mitchell as a contestant. | |
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Noodle Incident | |
| Only Connect / int_3c0a4666 | comment |
Noodle Incident: Most of the things Victoria says about the contestants when introducing them involves some amusing events that are given little or no context. | |
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Skewed Priorities | |
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Skewed Priorities: In the semifinals of series 18, Victoria refers to the 3rd-place playoffs as being more prestigious than the finals. | |
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Congestion Speak | |
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Congestion Speak: In a Christmas special with a "Cold" theme, one sequence is "Bed, Boulders, Bees, Bows", with the purported connection being that it's the first line of the the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" as sung by someone with a bad head cold. (To Victoria's astonishment, the team presented with this puzzler actually figures it out.) | |
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Take That, Critics! | |
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Take That, Critics!: In the first three series the teams chose from sets of clues identified by Greek letters. At the start of the fourth series Coren said that viewers had complained that the use of Greek letters was snobbish, pretentious and silly. She announced that the Greek letters had therefore been abolished...and invited the first team to choose an Egyptian hieroglyph. | |
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Take That, Audience! | |
| Only Connect / int_3ea462d7 | comment |
Take That, Audience!: Frequent jokes about how incredibly geeky the target audience is. For example: Closing the show on 3rd December, 2012: Closing the show on 18th July 2016: | |
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Blatant Lies | |
| Only Connect / int_40bb59d0 | comment |
Blatant Lies: When LlanfairÂpwllgwyngyllÂgogeryÂchwyrnÂdrobwllÂllanÂtysilioÂgogoÂgoch Railway Station comes up in the Series 19 final, Victoria declares that of course she could say it perfectly, but why should she waste time doing it when they could be getting on with the quiz? She takes enough time over this that it probably would actually have been quicker to say the full name, but let's not get into that. | |
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Unexpectedly Obscure Answer | |
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Unexpectedly Obscure Answer: For the Sequences Round, it's not uncommon for Victoria to have to accept alternate answers if the team can provide a sound reasoning for the fourth item in the sequence. One recent example is from Series 11 when one team had the sequence: "1.0, 2.0, 3.0" ⟶ "95, 98, Me", and answered with "7, 8, 8.1" for successive major releases of Microsoft Windows (the third clue would have been "2000, XP, Vista"), which Victoria said was an acceptable answer, even though their question writers had given the answer as "7, 8, 10". | |
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Metaphorgotten | |
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Metaphorgotten: Victoria opens a 2015 episode by noting that competitors will need the observational acuity of a hawk and then getting sidetracked into an account of the hypothetical hawk's history of eye trouble. At the end of the episode, the same thing happens when she compares the mental agility of the competitors to the physical agility of a mountain goat. | |
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Paper-Thin Disguise | |
| Only Connect / int_48b9731f | comment |
Throughout season 14, Victoria repeatedly implies that the two question editors, David McGaughey and Mr. Waley-Cohen, are the same person in a Paper-Thin Disguise. | |
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Early-Installment Weirdness | |
| Only Connect / int_4f4372e9 | comment |
Early-Installment Weirdness: The first three series featured the lower case Greek letters Alpha (α), Beta (β), Gamma (γ), Delta (δ), Epsilon (ε), and Zeta (ζ), as categories rather than the Egyptian hieroglyphs Two Reeds (𓇌), Lion (ð“ƒ), Twisted Flax (ð“Ž›), Horned Viper (𓆑), Water (𓈗), and the Eye of Horus (ð“‚€) The style of introducing contestants with Noodle Incident-type factoids also took a few series to develop, and in the first series the teams introduced themselves rather than Victoria doing it. The first series made a big deal of including red herrings to lead teams to incorrect answers (which nowadays only feature in the connecting walls) while the predominant colour of the show was green (which the opening credits, graphics and the set behind Victoria all displaying this) before being changed to blue. The players were originally given notepads and so spent a lot of time scribbling things down. This was dropped after the first series. For the first couple of series, they also tried to pair up connected (or at least complementary) teams in the first round (e.g. Travel Writers vs. Science Writers, Urban Cyclists vs. Country Walkers) although not all of them worked (Lapsed Psychologists vs. Knitters?) and they stopped doing this in S3. Teams did not originally lose a point for an incorrect answer in the missing vowels round; that rule was introduced at the quarter-final stage of S1. | |
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Bragging Rights Reward | |
| Only Connect / int_55e5b37c | comment |
Bragging Rights Reward: The only physical prize is a trophy for the series champions, but such is the show's reputation for difficulty that the bragging rights are considerable. | |
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Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut | |
| Only Connect / int_57a937f1 | comment |
Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut: The connection in a musical question in series 9, where the answer was Grätüïtöüs Ümläüts. One of the teams in Series 10 was the Nørdiphiles. When they faced a team whose name also contained an o, it proved contagiøus, with their opponents being listed as the Bibliøphiles in all onscreen graphics. | |
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Tiebreaker Round | |
| Only Connect / int_5900e30d | comment |
Tiebreaker Round: In the event of a tie, there is one last missing vowels question with no category provided, for team captains only. A correct answer wins; an incorrect answer automatically forfeits. | |
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Big Eater | |
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Big Eater: In addition to jokes about herself as a Lady Drunk, Victoria often jokes about her eating habits, particularly during her first pregnancy. In the 200th episode, a special commemorative cake is put on the dais, and while the first team is looking at the first set of clues, Victoria procures a large knife and cuts into it, and proceeds to eat more of the cake during the first round. By the time of Missing Vowels, nearly all the cake has been eaten. | |
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Nintendo Hard | |
| Only Connect / int_62259825 | comment |
Nintendo Hard: Only Connect prides itself on being the toughest quiz on television. Even within the show, the music questions tend to be notorious for being difficult. And if that weren't enough, there are the music sequence questions. | |
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Christmas Creep | |
| Only Connect / int_64b42bc4 | comment |
Christmas Creep: In one of the her opening monologues, Victoria complains that she's been visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come even though it's only September. | |
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Author Appeal | |
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Author Appeal: Victoria is a professional poker player. Several questions and clues on the show have been related to poker. One Missing Vowels round had "Presidents of Footlights" as a category, seemingly just so that one of the answers could be David Mitchell, who is, of course, Victoria's husband. Victoria's father, Alan Coren, has also been a clue on the show; one set of clues in the 2011 Children in Need special was "Lemon, Coren, Muggeridge, Bird": Victoria's brother, Giles Coren, has also been a clue in a couple of episodes. Victoria herself has appeared in a few clues: "People named Victoria", "People whose names are capital cities", the sequence { 6 ⟶ Connecticut ⟶ Heraldic gold ⟶ (e.g.) Iowa } spells out "VI.CT.OR.IA", and when "OC trivia" was used as an anagram as part of a cryptic crossword clue (the connection was that all four clues had "Victoria" as their answers). In the Champion of Champions of Champions special, the Sequences round included the sequence { Row 1 = Blue ⟶ Row 2 = Green ⟶ Row 3 = Purple ⟶ ??? } completely flummoxing the two returning teams who have already won their own series tournaments and are in the final round of having won against other former winning teams of other series. The answer? "Row 4 = Turquoise", the fourth color on the Only Connect Connecting Wall. This leads to a humourous rant from Victoria: In one Missing Vowels round, the answers are all members of Only Connect's crew with whom the contestants were all introduced before filming that day. In Series 19's third-place game, the musical sequence in Round 2 consisted of the same songsnote different parts of the songs in the same order as the music question in Round 1. | |
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Only One Name | |
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Only One Name: Dennis, one of the Crustaceans in Season 18. | |
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Variations on a Theme Song | |
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Variations on a Theme Song: Series finals have featured the theme tune played on a barrel organ, and sung live by an a cappella group. | |
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Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks | |
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Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks: The subject of a Connections music question, playing clips of Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda", Jennifer Lopez' "Booty", Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass" and Destiny's Child's "Bootylicious". | |
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Think Music | |
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Think Music: A soft music bed plays during the questions (except for the music questions, naturally). | |
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Bait-and-Switch Comparison | |
| Only Connect / int_7b2118c5 | comment |
Bait-and-Switch Comparison: Lampshaded and then subverted in an episode outro where Victoria refers to Only Connect by the abbreviation "OC", then says that it's important not to get it confused with The O.C.. In Series 18 episode 22, Victoria mentions Jonny Lee Miller playing John Major in The Crown. | |
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Right for the Wrong Reasons | |
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Right for the Wrong Reasons: It's possible for teams to get credited for an unintentionally valid sequence, or an unintentionally correct Missing Vowels answer. In fact, because you get the points for providing the fourth answer in a sequence, not for explaining it, it is possible to guess and be right — not merely for the wrong reasons but for no reason at all. It happens surprisingly often. | |
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Bait-and-Switch | |
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Bait-and-Switch: From the end of the 100th episode: From an episode intro: | |
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Speed Round | |
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Speed Round: The Missing Vowels Round. | |
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Wiki Walk | |
| Only Connect / int_943f7a7e | comment |
Wiki Walk: Word of God, courtesy of the question editor, is that this is a useful tool for question writing Only Connect questions. Complete with a link to the relevant xkcd strip. That Other Wiki, however, is not accepted as a credible source for OC question writers. | |
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Shaped Like Itself | |
| Only Connect / int_94680696 | comment |
Shaped Like Itself: Occasionally, a clue in the missing vowels round appears undisguised, having contained no vowels in the first place, such as when "V." appeared as a Thomas Pynchon novel, or "PM'' as a Radio 4 programme. (Neither of which was got by the teams - it seems nobody had heard of the former, and time ran out on the latter before anyone could buzz in.) | |
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13 Is Unlucky | |
| Only Connect / int_9a692ae9 | comment |
13 Is Unlucky: Noted by Victoria in the first opening monologue of the thirteenth series, kicking off a Running Gag of the opening monologues in that series having some kind of spooky element. | |
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AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle | |
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Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Victoria sometimes reads clues from the Connecting Walls in this style to try to preserve some ambiguity. | |
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Only Connect / int_9b57f005 | |
| Only Connect / int_a188ac4b | type |
Overly Long Gag | |
| Only Connect / int_a188ac4b | comment |
Overly Long Gag: Reading out a list of alternate answers that would have been accepted for a question where the set of acceptable answers amounted to 'Any thing or person with the initials PS'. | |
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| Only Connect | hasFeature |
Only Connect / int_a188ac4b | |
| Only Connect / int_abe0f934 | type |
Dissimile | |
| Only Connect / int_abe0f934 | comment |
Dissimile: From an episode intro: | |
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Only Connect / int_abe0f934 | |
| Only Connect / int_ae3d6438 | type |
Deadpan Snarker | |
| Only Connect / int_ae3d6438 | comment |
Deadpan Snarker: Victoria Coren Mitchell. | |
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Only Connect / int_ae3d6438 | |
| Only Connect / int_aff1ee2e | type |
Small Reference Pools | |
| Only Connect / int_aff1ee2e | comment |
Small Reference Pools: Inverted. There have been questions involving knowledge of everything from the Kubler-Ross model of grief and the odes of John Keats to the creator of Beavis And Butthead, the Twilight novels, types of Pokémon, and the Bristol stool chart. This kind of behaviour is actively encouraged on the website's "Create Your Own Connecting Wall" feature. | |
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Only Connect / int_aff1ee2e | |
| Only Connect / int_c4d09d24 | type |
Couch Gag | |
| Only Connect / int_c4d09d24 | comment |
Couch Gag: VCM's opening piece to camera before introducing the teams. | |
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Only Connect / int_c4d09d24 | |
| Only Connect / int_c691d3f4 | type |
Offscreen Teleportation | |
| Only Connect / int_c691d3f4 | comment |
Offscreen Teleportation: The Connecting Wall round is edited to give this impression: Victoria tells the first team their score, turns to say a few words to the audience, and by the time she's turned back the second team is already in position. | |
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| Only Connect | hasFeature |
Only Connect / int_c691d3f4 | |
| Only Connect / int_c75df49a | type |
Shout-Out | |
| Only Connect / int_c75df49a | comment |
Shout-Out: In the first episode of the twelfth series, one of the categories in the missing vowels round is "What do points mean?", with the four phrases being "driving penalties", "railway line junctions", "fielding positions in cricket", and "prizes". In episode 7 of series 12, the Bardophiles guessed 'Central African Republic' as the answer to a sequence (of former names for the Democratic Republic of Congo). Victoria noted that it's "never as strong a guess here as it is in some other places". In a 2016 episode, the answer to one sequence had to be a TV show hosted by Fiona Bruce, giving Victoria an opportunity to name-check Hive Minds, the show developed to replace Only Connect on BBC Four after it moved up to BBC Two. Came with a spot of Self-Deprecation, as Victoria asked rhetorically how sad you'd have to be to want to host a quiz show on BBC Four. In a 2017 episode, the first three categories in the final round are "Planes", "Trains", and "Automobiles" (and the fourth is "Films with transportation in the title"). Similarly, in a 2018 episode, the first three categories in that round are ""Rod", "Jane" and "Freddie" (and the fourth lampshaded it with "Lists of three", though the round ended after only one clue so we never found out whether "Rod, Jane and Freddie" would have been among them). And a 2020 episode had "They snap", "They crackle", "They pop" and "Cereal mascots". One of the spooky-themed intro monologues from Series 13: Victoria's opening monologues through the first few episodes of Series 19 are based on the conceit of her writing a mystery novel; one references The Thursday Murder Club by describing her having the idea for the series only for Richard Osman to have already written three of those novels, and a later episode sees her riff on her still being a quiz show host instead of giving it up for writing (as Osman did, stepping down from Pointless to focus on the series). | |
| Only Connect / int_c75df49a | featureApplicability |
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1.0 | |
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Only Connect / int_c75df49a | |
| Only Connect / int_c9597a03 | type |
Self-Deprecation | |
| Only Connect / int_c9597a03 | comment |
In a 2016 episode, the answer to one sequence had to be a TV show hosted by Fiona Bruce, giving Victoria an opportunity to name-check Hive Minds, the show developed to replace Only Connect on BBC Four after it moved up to BBC Two. Came with a spot of Self-Deprecation, as Victoria asked rhetorically how sad you'd have to be to want to host a quiz show on BBC Four. | |
| Only Connect / int_c9597a03 | featureApplicability |
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1.0 | |
| Only Connect | hasFeature |
Only Connect / int_c9597a03 | |
| Only Connect / int_ce6555f0 | type |
Lighter and Softer | |
| Only Connect / int_ce6555f0 | comment |
Lighter and Softer: The charity specials tend to have relatively easier questions. | |
| Only Connect / int_ce6555f0 | featureApplicability |
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Only Connect / int_ce6555f0 | |
| Only Connect / int_d59baaa7 | type |
JumpTheShark | |
| Only Connect / int_d59baaa7 | comment |
Jump the Shark: Discussed in 4x01, when it came up on the Connection Wall. The contestant jokingly suggested that episode's change from Greek letters to Egyptian hieroglyphs was an example. | |
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Only Connect / int_d59baaa7 | |
| Only Connect / int_d68c925d | type |
Creator Provincialism | |
| Only Connect / int_d68c925d | comment |
Creator Provincialism: Unlike most studio-based shows, which you could watch for years and never know where they're made, Only Connect makes a big deal of being filmed in Cardiff. Victoria often asks the teams what they've got up to during their visit and makes other references to the city and to Wales in general, including a Running Gag of insisting that dragons are real. | |
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Only Connect / int_d68c925d | |
| Only Connect / int_d89c1e6 | type |
Longest Pregnancy Ever | |
| Only Connect / int_d89c1e6 | comment |
Longest Pregnancy Ever: Due to the compressed filming schedule, Victoria was visibly pregnant for all 27 episodes of Series 11. Referenced in a late episode when a question about gestation periods came up. | |
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Only Connect / int_d89c1e6 | |
| Only Connect / int_dbca2c99 | type |
Red Herring | |
| Only Connect / int_dbca2c99 | comment |
Red Herring: In the first couple of series, it was not uncommon for the first two clues in a question to suggest a spurious connection that will be utterly demolished by the third clue, to catch out teams who try to answer early. Nowadays the question setters generally play fair in the first two rounds, though the nature of the quiz means that teams will sometimes spot unintended spurious connections anyway. The Connection Wall will almost invariably have a couple of items that could belong to multiple themes but will only be accepted as one. Sometimes, even an entirely non existent category will be included (meaning that some answers could belong in a special category but all have to go someplace else), e.g. in one 2015 episode the actual categories were "places of worship", "famous Benjamins", "forensic dramas", and "nationalities with an additional letter". The items included "Kirk"note The Scots word for "church" in common use in Scotland, "Chapel", "Spock"note American pediatrician Benjamin Spock, "Bones" and "Scott". Naturally, the teams went for the red herring first. | |
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Only Connect / int_dbca2c99 | |
| Only Connect / int_dd9fba61 | type |
A Rare Sentence | |
| Only Connect / int_dd9fba61 | comment |
A Rare Sentence: Combined with Real Dreams are Weirder when the Missing Vowels round finishes with a question about soups unanswered: | |
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Only Connect / int_dd9fba61 | |
| Only Connect / int_e0d20ea6 | type |
Intentionally Awkward Title | |
| Only Connect / int_e0d20ea6 | comment |
Intentionally Awkward Title: After Only Connect began having its broadcasting schedule affected by another programme on BBC Four hosted by television presenter and former Conservative Member of Parliament Michael Portillo, Victoria began ending the show by saying the next show would be a special hosted by Portillo with some ridiculous title. Some examples include a competition program about art gallery curation titled Michael Portillo's Well Hung, an interview show with British expats which that week featured Ben Elton titled Michael Portillo: Ben's Over, or the history of optometry discussing how eyeglass frames used to be made of oak, elm, or ash titled Michael Portillo: Eye Wood. | |
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Only Connect / int_e0d20ea6 | |
| Only Connect / int_e1c796e9 | type |
Diegetic Switch | |
| Only Connect / int_e1c796e9 | comment |
Diegetic Switch: At the beginning of the grand final episode of the 2015/16 series, when the title sequence fades away to show the studio, there's a string quartet set up in the middle of the set, which plays the last bit of the theme music live. | |
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Only Connect / int_e1c796e9 | |
| Only Connect / int_eb6da8ef | type |
Crossover | |
| Only Connect / int_eb6da8ef | comment |
Crossover: A January 2011 special pitted Only Connect Series 1 and "Champion of Champions" winners the Crossworders with the 2010 University Challenge champions from Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The Crossworders won. A January 2012 special saw the Crossworders facing three former Mastermind champions (Stephen Allen (1991), Gavin Fuller (1993), and Nancy Dickmann (2009)). The Mastermind theme (and that show's time-up signal) was used in the missing vowels round instead of the usual tension music. The Crossworders won again. A January 2013 special set three of the title quiz aces from Eggheads (Chris Hughes, Pat Gibson, and Barry Simmons) against three members of Only Connect series-winning teams, all named David (David Stainer of the Crossworders (Series 1), David Bill of the Gamblers (Series 3), and David Lea of the Analysts (Series 5)). The three Davids won. One team on the 2014/15 series is the 'QI Elves', who are, well, three of the QI elves. Going the other direction, during the 2014 QI "L" series, when Victoria Coren Mitchell appeared on the episode "Literature", Stephen Fry hosted a round modeled after Only Connect. An "N" series episode posed the question, "Name some common Egyptian characters," to which Victoria responded, "The Eye of Horus" to get the Klaxon. New host Sandi Toksvig corrected her, saying Hieroglyphs were used for special occasions in ancient Egypt, and Hieratic was the more common written form. Victoria argued that there were "many special occasions" in ancient Egypt and that it was a "rarefied klaxon", only for Alan Davies to remark that the QI Elves had set up a trap especially for her. She then recalled the story about how viewers of the first few series of the show complained that their original categories of Greek letters were too pretentious, only to switch to the Egyptian hieroglyphs the show is now famous for. When serving as guest presenter for Have I Got News for You in October 2014, Victoria Coren Mitchell introduced a replacement for "Odd One Out" which she called "Simply Link", based on the second round of Only Connect (for Ian Hislop and Katherine Ryan, the sequence was Amal Clooney's causes célèbres, while for Paul Merton and Janet Street-Porter, it was Prime Ministers with moustaches). | |
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Only Connect / int_eb6da8ef | |
| Only Connect / int_ee7a60e9 | type |
One-Steve Limit | |
| Only Connect / int_ee7a60e9 | comment |
One-Steve Limit: Brilliantly averted with the Davids in the Eggheads vs Davids special - an all-star team comprised of three captains of other champion teams, all of whom were named David. Also averted by Season 18's champions the Strigiformes, two of whom shared the name Jonathan. | |
| Only Connect / int_ee7a60e9 | featureApplicability |
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Only Connect / int_ee7a60e9 | |
| Only Connect / int_f9f2c33 | type |
Running Gag | |
| Only Connect / int_f9f2c33 | comment |
Running Gag: The seventh series, which introduced a new system where teams who lost their first match got a second chance and could still end up in the final, had a running gag about Victoria being unable to get her head around it. Similarly, the move to BBC2 for the 2014/2015 series greatly expanded the field and the length of the series from around 13-15 episodes to a whopping 37. Victoria commented on it several times. In the end, both teams in the final had lost once already. Victoria attempting to get both teams to collectively sing the fourth clue in the musical sequences question. This is because the fourth clue is the answer in this round, therefore no clip exists of it. Jokes about Victoria's attraction to Michael Portillo, and the question editor's attraction to Joanna Lumley. Throughout season 14, Victoria repeatedly implies that the two question editors, David McGaughey and Mr. Waley-Cohen, are the same person in a Paper-Thin Disguise. In Season 19, Victoria continually plugs her new murder mystery novel that was in no way influenced by Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club. | |
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| Only Connect / int_fdb3b2b5 | type |
Lady Drunk | |
| Only Connect / int_fdb3b2b5 | comment |
Lady Drunk: Among other things. Victoria Coren Mitchell likes to play up the idea of herself as a drunk in comments during her introductions and asides. Occasionally she'll add casual drug use to that. While talking about uses for Amyl Nitrate, she murmured "That's not what I use it for..." The 2016/17 final saw her consume four glasses of champagne over the course of the first two rounds. | |
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Only Connect / int_fdb3b2b5 | |
| Only Connect / int_fe0330fb | type |
Brick Joke | |
| Only Connect / int_fe0330fb | comment |
Brick Joke: Sometimes a sequence or a missing vowels question will refer back to things that happened earlier in the show. Once, a second-round sequence was consecutive answers from the first round; on another occasion, it was things mentioned in Victoria's opening monologue. "Previous answers in this show" turned up as a missing vowels category in a 2020 christmas special. Two consecutive shows had the missing vowels category "Impressionists". In the first, it referred to people who do impersonations, in the second it was painters. Since the contestants were different on the two shows, they wouldn't have known about this brick joke until they saw it on TV. | |
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| Only Connect / int_fea27091 | type |
Buffy Speak | |
| Only Connect / int_fea27091 | comment |
Buffy Speak: In the fourth series, Victoria is not above referring to the hieroglyphs as 'squiggles'. | |
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Only Connect |
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