c4countdown

So...apparently this is one of the specials today. I had no clue this was coming until seeing it aired.

This special features something that I think we knew was coming for awhile, just didn't know exactly when it was airing (at least me). For those who may not know, there are several Countdown couples out there that we can possibly attribute to Apterous. One of these are Ryan Taylor, Series 61 semi-finalist, and Michelle Nevitt, Series 64 quarter-finalist. We'll now see who can claim success amongst the two as they face off.

Join James for the recap later since Jack is on vacation.

Jordan F wrote:Jack is on vacation today as I recall, so James will recap us later.

True, but I also recall that we're now in Series 69.............

Rumour has it that today will be Rychelle's special?

Edited first post because of this.

Awesome. Will have to check it out later.

And old format too - will make Matt B happy but not the C4 ad people presumably.

Dave Spikey was excellant as ever!

Easier way to do 1st numbers (((3x10)-8)x25)+8

Tony Atkins wrote:Dave Spikey was excellant as ever!

Good 9

I may have tried EXEATING for 8 in the TEEING round, valid?

exeating^ not valid, but EXIGENT was there in that round for 7

PISSHEAD as an alt. in the SHADIEST round

Dan McColm wrote:PISSHEAD as an alt. in the SHADIEST round

Only you

Andy Platt wrote:

Tony Atkins wrote:Dave Spikey was excellant as ever!

Good 9

Bad typo...

Andy Platt wrote:

Dan McColm wrote:PISSHEAD as an alt. in the SHADIEST round

Only you

I got that too, I didn't spot SHADIEST.

Well done Ryan and Michelle, a good contest. Were any Countdown contestants invited to Rachel's wedding?

Unlucky about tonemic which used to be valid, but lucky with osterias which is a new word.

Heh, IIRC Michelle was too polite to go with PISSHEAD on the day and instead chose a 'nicer' 8 to go with, although I think Susie or Dave mentioned it.

That wasn't so bad watching it back and the most pleasing thing for me was that in the end chat with Nick about our future plans, all those things came true.

A nice surprise for today. I wonder why they screened it today rather than yesterday? It seems strange that the first game of series 69 was immediately followed by a special.

Great to see Ryan smiling so much. Perhaps he can give Dylan some lessons.

Philip Jarvis wrote:A nice surprise for today. I wonder why they screened it today rather than yesterday? It seems strange that the first game of series 69 was immediately followed by a special.

Great to see Ryan smiling so much. Perhaps he can give Dylan some lessons.

xD

Well done to Rychelle for giving us such an enjoyable game. Glad we got to see it. I was hoping Ryan would go for ARIOSOS just so we could hear Ryan saying ARIOSOS. Also, well done to Ryan for wearing that colourful jumper, *before* Conor and Jack made it all hip and cool.

Philip Jarvis wrote:A nice surprise for today. I wonder why they screened it today rather than yesterday? It seems strange that the first game of series 69 was immediately followed by a special.

No idea. While we have no idea, let's speculate wildly.

I believe there were a few specials recorded, with the intention of showing them in place of horse racing if the race meetings were called off. However, that doesn't apply today - radiotimes.com suggests five episodes with Penny Smith were recorded. The announcer even said "in a change to the billed schedule" when introducing today's show. So it looks like this special has actually replaced another episode.

Occasionally in the history of Countdown, and other shows, episodes have had to be pulled because one of the contestants was found to be a convicted criminal, or involved in an ongoing court case, or some other reason has applied why they suddenly can't appear on television. According to the wiki, in 1997 an edition of Countdown was binned for this sort of reason. Also, I remember watching an episode of Fifteen to One where the announcer introduced the programme explaining that one of the contestants who was eliminated in the first round had been edited out for unspecified, possibly legal, reasons.

Anyway, I hesitate to say this is probably the reason, as it's just as likely to be a completely innocent reason which means my suggestion that one of the unseen contestants might be a rotten ne'er-do-well is a load of sloblock.

Might be a better idea just to believe whichever of the following rumours takes your fancy.

• I heard one of the contestants was caught using an anagram solver on his phone under the desk. He still lost - half his words were in CSW but not ODE, and one was misdeclared. He was only found out when his offering in R13 was the same as his opponent's, and he showed his phone screen across the table to prove it.
• I heard Susie disallowed a mass noun plural and the contestant flew into a rage, produced a handgun from their pocket and shot randomly into the audience, yelling "look, that's one GUNFIRE - and that's two GUNFIRES! See?" He still didn't get his eight points. Susie's quite firm on these things.
• I heard Harry Peters was invited back on. It didn't go well.

Well played both. I paid more attention today than when I was in the audience and it was very enjoyable. Glad they kept the kiss in in R14

This was the last ever episode screened in standard definition for those interested.

Good game. Interesting to see the old 15-round format rearing its ugly head again. Having seen the newer format and going back to this just makes the old format feel really constipated. But anyway, I shouldn't moan. We have a good system now!

Graeme Cole wrote:Well done to Rychelle for giving us such an enjoyable game. Glad we got to see it.

I enjoyed the happy atmosphere they created too

Graeme Cole wrote:Might be a better idea just to believe whichever of the following rumours takes your fancy.

• I heard one of the contestants was caught using an anagram solver on his phone under the desk. He still lost - half his words were in CSW but not ODE, and one was misdeclared. He was only found out when his offering in R13 was the same as his opponent's, and he showed his phone screen across the table to prove it.

@ LOL

Mauro

Lovely

Just come back from holiday and I wasn't expecting this so it was a very nice surprise. Well played both and thankfully you're still together! I would have gone for P***HEAD in round 11 as I missed the other two as I was trying to remember whether it stemmed with T or not.

Thanks for all the nice comments! We had a great time filming it and it was nice to get a chance to watch it back.