8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown (Series 3, Ep 1)- 06/06/2014

[James Laverty]

Catsdown recap for Friday 6 June 2014.

Greetings c4c for my recapping debut.

After a lack of a regular episode today due to horseracing (again!), Tonight sees the start of a new series of 8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown. You all know the drill by now so I'll cut to the chase.

Host: Jimmy Carr

Team 1:
Roisin Conaty- A comedienne who co-stars with Greg Davies in Man Down.
Sean Lock- Regular 8 out of 10 cats captain.

Team 2:
Jon Richardson- 8 out of 10 cats captain who has brought along his goldfish, Terry, who is said to be "brilliant" at Countdown.
Jonathan Ross- Chat show host who infamously pranked called former DC guest Andrew Sachs with Russell Brand.

DC: Susie Dent and David O'Doherty- making his third appearance on Catsdown, having appeared once in DC before and once as a contestant.
RR: Rachel Riley- Rachel claims inbetween series of Catsdown her and Susie do similar jobs on a show called Countdown! No doubt some unfunny bloke with a beard will be around later to give her some "help".
OT: Other words or solutions.
Instead of the usual teapot, tonight's victors will go home with a Countdown Toaster.

R01: R E T C I F U T R
R02: 9, 7, 8, 10, 25, 100. Target: 387.
TTT: RUDENOBS- "People like these after a break up."
R03: Q I N V H E U S L
R04: 3, 8, 9, 50, 100, 75. Target: 316.
TTT: HELLOPOO- "Help in a sticky situation."
R05: T A G N E S I B E
R06: 10, 3, 9, 9, 6, 50. Target: 437.
R07: L D X R O A U E N
R08: N O O N E F A R T

And now a brief interlude before our main feature:

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Enjoy the show.

Round 1 (Picked by Jon and Jonathan): R E T C I F U T R
Jimmy's distraction: Arranging flowers, the end result reading "I <3 BOOBIES"

Roisin: TUFT (4) / Sean: fetter
Jon: - / Jonathan: TUFT (4) / FRET (4)
DC: FRUITER (7) CRITTER (7) FRITTER (7)
OT: RECRUIT (7) RUTTIER (7) TUFTIER (7) TURFIER (7)
Score: 4–4 (max 7)

Plenty of 7's available but all missed by our contestants. Jon claims that Terry has found him a 9 but due to the short term memory of goldfish, he's forgotten it. Sean actually had FITTER but wrote in down as fetter and fails to score for his team.

Round 2 (Picked by Roisin and Sean): 9, 7, 8, 10, 25, 100. Target: 387.

Roisin: 0/Sean: 0.
Jon: 390. ((100/25*8)+7)*10 (7)/Jonathan: 400ish.
RR: 387. ((100/(10-8))-7)*9 (10)
Score: 4–11 (max 17)

Jon is the only one to declare anything near enough and this takes him into a 7 point lead. As ever, Rachel is on hand to show us perfection.

David O'Doherty brings out the "Yahama Portasound PSS260" singing a song with "made up facts that sound like they could be true" on a theme of nature to take us into the first break.

TTT: RUDENOBS --> REBOUNDS

The next two rounds are solo efforts, with Roisin and Jon tackling the letters on their own.

Round 3 (Picked by Roisin): Q I N V H E U S L
Jimmy's distraction: Complete with a tedious, higher pitched arrangement of the music, a group of cheerleaders take to the stage, with Jimmy joining in.

Roisin: news
Jon: UNVEILS (7)
Score: 4–18 (max 24)

With a little help from Terry, Jon UNVEILS the darrenic max to extend his lead. Roisin uses a phantom W.

Time for Sean and Jonathan to tackle the numbers.
Round 4 (Picked by Jonathan): 3, 8, 9, 50, 100, 75. Target: 316.

Sean: 317. (3*100)+9+8 (7)
Jonathan: 308.
RR: 316. (75*3)+100-9 (10)
Score: 11–18 (max 34)

After Wossy, Rachel and Sean argue over the difficulty of the various numbers games, an easy 3L comes out and both our contestants miss the target. Jonathan complains that he thought he had to use all the numbers, but alas this isn’t Omelette. Unusually Jonathan gives his method after Sean closes the gap with his 1 away method.

David explains that Countdown is his "second favourite" show on Channel 4, and performs a song dedicated to his favourite, Grand Designs.

TTT: HELLOPOO --> LOOPHOLE

As expected, Joe Wilkinson makes an appearance despite his firing in the last episode of the last series. Joe seems to be experimenting in human cloning, with one of his clones taking residence behind the letters board. Rach looks a bit uncomfortable at this.

Round 5 (Picked by Jon and Jonathan): T A G N E S I B E
Jimmy's distraction: Jimmy wears a fake beard and proceeds to take a series of selfies with Joe and a new clone he is working on.

Roisin: NEST (4) / ice cream
Jon: BEATINGS (8) / Jonathan: BEATINGS (8)
OT: BEASTING (8) BEIGNETS (8) BETAINES (8)
Score: 11–26 (max 42)

Roisin and Sean can't match the brain of Jon's goldfish and take more BEATINGS with Sean rather confusingly offering ice cream, despite it being two words and half the letters being missing (Rachel suggests he was trying to spell it ISEGBEAN). Jonathan was also toying with tangiest but it would have been invalid due to the lack of a second T.

Round 6 (Picked by Roisin and Sean): 10, 3, 9, 9, 6, 50. Target: 437.
Joe produces an old TV and declares he wants to watch Taggart.

Roisin: 437. (10*50)-(9*6)-9 (10)/Sean: 436.
Jon: 437. (9*50)-10-3 (10)/Jonathan: 435.
RR: 437. (10)
Score: 21–36 (max 52)

Roisin gets there with a bit of help from Jimmy and Rachel in another easy numbers game.

In a response to Joe's cloning experiments, David talks about being tweeted that people know lookalikes of him, showing a series of pictures of lookalikes from various times in history.

TTT: BUMFLING --> FUMBLING
Quite possibly the easiest TTT ever due to 6 letters being in the same position.


Round 7: L D X R O A U E N
No distraction, but the camera shows Joe worn out from having helped Rachel put up the vowels.

Roisin: DRONE (5) /Sean: NODULE (6)
Jon: unradox (7) /Jonathan: UNLOADER (8)
DC: NODULAR (7) EUROLAND (8)
OT: RONDEAUX (8)
Score: 21–44 (max 60)

Not for the first time this week, the letters produce UNLOADER/EUROLAND. Jon/Terry's illegal 7 is allegedly inspired by Jon having to "unradox" Terry's bowl after washing him. Susie tells him that if a word, it would have had a capital R and invalid anyway. Sean chicken's NODULAR but would have made no difference to the score as Jon and Jonathan secure victory.

RONDEAUX is the plural form of RONDEAU. A poem of ten or thirteen lines with only two rhymes throughout and with the opening words used twice as a refrain.

Before the conundrum, Sean tries to play his "joker" of double points but as Jimmy points out, he still wouldn't be able to win under this rule.

Round 8: N O O N E F A R T

Sean buzzes on 28 seconds to say FANOONETAR which is incorrect.
Jon buzzes on 29 seconds to say FARTERNOON which is incorrect, but Jonathan then declares AFTERNOON which is deemed correct and takes the points.
Score: 21–54 (max 70)

So a convincing victory for the JR's, albeit with help from the goldfish and a bit of favourtism on Jimmy's part in this recappers opinion. Catsdown is back next Friday at the same time with appearances from Rhod Gilbert and Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff, and Henning Wehn in Dictionary Corner. Meanwhile, next Friday also see the start of the Series 70 finals, so don't miss that.

Before all that there is the last of the prelims to go through, so join fellow new recapper Sean Fletcher for that on Monday. Hopefully I will be recapping again some other time, but until then, Ciao!

[James Robinson]

I make the max as 70, James.

You seem to have upped the max by 18, instead of 8 between rounds 4 and 5.

But, apart from that, well done on your first go.

[James Laverty]

I make the max as 70, James.

You seem to have upped the max by 18, instead of 8 between rounds 4 and 5.

But, apart from that, well done on your first go.

Edited, cheers Robbo