Spoilers for Tuesday 12th October 2021 (Series 84, Preliminary 76)

[Ryan Lam]

Channel 4's woes just continue with the screen freezing in the middle of the declarations in Round 9. When oh when will things get back to normal?

[Gavin Chipper]

Well a fire alarm went off only about two weeks ago. It takes a lot to recover from that.

[Paul Anderson]

Yeah, it almost looks like sabotage

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

That Beach character did very well...
...and was cute (in a "kitten" way, as opposed to a "I want to ride him" way).

Have you ever seen a contestant almost break down in tears like that?
You could tell this was someone who was really living out a dream just by being there, and getting the win was beyond his wildest...
...you'd have to root for him to get a few more after that. Would be great if he managed to Octo before Rachael comes onscreen.

[Toby McDonald]

Great debut by Adam!

LARGANDO in R1
BADIANE in R7

[Philip A]

That Beach character did very well...
...and was cute (in a "kitten" way, as opposed to a "I want to ride him" way).

Have you ever seen a contestant almost break down in tears like that?
You could tell this was someone who was really living out a dream just by being there, and getting the win was beyond his wildest...
...you'd have to root for him to get a few more after that. Would be great if he managed to Octo before Rachael comes onscreen.

Adam Beach and Daaniyal Ali have autism and struggle with anxiety; both open up about their struggles on social media. FWIW both should play each other in a special match, they’ve proven to be an inspiration and come over well.

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

God no, Philip. The pity porn angle is not a reason to admire anyone.
I admire both of those players in spite of any alleged social media emotional splurges, rather than because of them.

[Philip A]

Their opening up has won them a lot of support though, particularly on the Countdowners Facebook group.

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

The group admins there would encourage such drippy sentimentality and can be quite forceful in trying to steer the tone of the commentary to align with the values system of the group founder. It has become rather echo chambery, and certainly not a reflection of the real world. Given their censorship policies, any consensus there is to be taken with a grain of salt.

I do agree though that both of those contestants were great on TV and did themselves proud.

[Ryan Lam]

The morning rerun of this episode aired this morning, and Channel 4 aired the part which we did not see due to the technical failures! That's great!