The Most Challenging/Intellectual Shows Of All Time

[BillCullen1]

There's a British show called "Cleverdicks" that's quite challenging.

[calliaume]

I'm going to put in a word for Split Second, especially the Countdown Round. Most of the other shows here, when answers were needed under a time constraint, it was one answer to one question. For Split Second, you had to choose which of the three clues to respond to, and then give the response--and in the Countdown Round, you had to then think about the next clue. How many contestants lost out by tripping over their own tongues?

[BrandonFG]

I'm going to put in a word for Split Second, especially the Countdown Round. Most of the other shows here, when answers were needed under a time constraint, it was one answer to one question. For Split Second, you had to choose which of the three clues to respond to, and then give the response--and in the Countdown Round, you had to then think about the next clue. How many contestants lost out by tripping over their own tongues?

This is a great one, esp. if you have your mind set on a particular clue (say, the top one), and your opponents who buzzed in a split second before leave you with the one clue you didn't know. I remember seeing several contestants blank as a result.

I know a few people feel the bonus round was out-of-place, but after such a grueling trivia game, I think it was a reward for running such a gauntlet.

I'd also add Whew! to this list. Running that main board is no light work, considering the blocks.

[That Don Guy]

My five:
College Bowl/University Challenge/Honda Campus All-Star Challenge (at least when it used the CB format)
Jeopardy
$64,000/$128,000 Question - I would have liked to see how Our Little Genius handled it, but its two episodes never aired because of irregularities
Mastermind (UK)
and if radio counts, Brain of Britain (also UK; BBC World Service ran this for a while)

By the way, University Challenge is currently in its 50th season; episodes can be seen on YouTube, usually uploaded on Mondays, a few hours after they air

[The Ol' Guy]

I'll throw an interesting one in the mix and see what you think - going along with the Concentration post, one game that called for split second analysis was Bumper Stumpers. Since it was a phonics-based puzzle game, you had just seconds to figure if a 12 was "one-two", "twelve" or "dozen." (12ELKGD - Doesn't he look good). May not have been the most intellectual game, but it was challenging. You had to have some smarts to figure a lot of them out.

[Otm Shank]

Going to throw in the unpopular opinion that The Challengers gets ranked higher than Jeopardy. You really can't cram for Jeopardy, but for Challengers you had to stay abreast of current events. I'll put Split Second a very close third owing to the rapid recall, quick pivots, and pacing. I'll leave it at 3 because it's hard to chose only 2 from the rest

[Fedya]

You really can't cram for Jeopardy,

I'm not quite certain what you meant by this, since cramming for J! seemed to turn out OK for Roger Craig.

[Otm Shank]

Well, you can cram for it, but as a general matter other than brushing up on a few of your weak spots (state capitals, Olympic cities, U.N. Secretaries-General, whatever), I don't see it being very useful for too many. Basically, you either know it or you don't.

On that premise, The Challengers requires you to be knowledgeable in current events, although there were many questions that were merely current-events-adjacent. However, it did behoove contestants to at least be scanning the pages of Newsweek and studying up before their tape date.

[SuperMatch93]

Well, you can cram for it, but as a general matter other than brushing up on a few of your weak spots (state capitals, Olympic cities, U.N. Secretaries-General, whatever), I don't see it being very useful for too many. Basically, you either know it or you don't.

I guess it depends on how much you need to cram for. Mort Kamins said once that "you can't start from scratch" and that it's best to study things that are unchanging; presidents, art, classic literature, etc.

[Fedya]

Or as Brad Rutter could tell you, First Ladies.

[Neumms]

I'm going to put in a word for Split Second, especially the Countdown Round.

A couple of the few Kennedy Countdown Rounds are just crazy, and in that round you have to buzz first.

I wonder about buzzing strategy in the other two rounds. It seems counter-intuitive but if you don't know the topic, you should try to buzz first to get a shot at the easiest part, and if you know the topic, you may as well stay calm and wait for the last part.

[JasonA1]

I wonder about buzzing strategy in the other two rounds. It seems counter-intuitive but if you don't know the topic, you should try to buzz first to get a shot at the easiest part, and if you know the topic, you may as well stay calm and wait for the last part.

I think a stronger strategy in regards to this exists on The Challengers. If you don't know the topic at all, it behooves you to pick a dollar amount you think another player will pick, as that's the only time the rules allow you not to answer, and not risk losing money.

On Split Second, there's not a strategy per se, but a behavior you should engage in. For the Kennedy run anyway -- on Monty's version, none of this matters, and you should simply hammer the button the moment you can. But in the earlier format, the only thinking you should have is to buzz-in as soon as you think you know where the question's going, and steal the best part. There's no time to really strategize, IMO. And the moment you hear ANYONE ring in first, just ring in to be second, because you'll get the whole question, and perhaps even one wrong guess taken off the table. I can't think of a time I'd ever want to wait, because even if I know all 3 parts of a question, I'd want to leave the harder ones for whoever buzzed in behind me. Waiting around to prove I know the most difficult piece doesn't increase my scoring potential.

-Jason

[Neumms]

I think a stronger strategy in regards to this exists on The Challengers. If you don't know the topic at all, it behooves you to pick a dollar amount you think another player will pick, as that's the only time the rules allow you not to answer, and not risk losing money.

On Split Second, there's not a strategy per se, but a behavior you should engage in.

That's a great way to put it on Split Second.

On Challengers, it seems dicey to try to outguess the other players that way. Aren't you better off just taking the question with the lowest risk?

I'm one of few around here who didn't like that show. The 3 Ws had unique strategy. The updates only made it derivative of Jeopardy.

[calliaume]

On Split Second, there's not a strategy per se, but a behavior you should engage in. For the Kennedy run anyway -- on Monty's version, none of this matters, and you should simply hammer the button the moment you can. But in the earlier format, the only thinking you should have is to buzz-in as soon as you think you know where the question's going, and steal the best part. There's no time to really strategize, IMO. And the moment you hear ANYONE ring in first, just ring in to be second, because you'll get the whole question, and perhaps even one wrong guess taken off the table. I can't think of a time I'd ever want to wait, because even if I know all 3 parts of a question, I'd want to leave the harder ones for whoever buzzed in behind me. Waiting around to prove I know the most difficult piece doesn't increase my scoring potential.

Excellent point regarding ringing in first on Split Second, and here's an example (I'm not putting up a spoiler alert; it's a 46-year-old video). The third-place contestant during the Countdown Round took a chance and rang in before Tom Kennedy even finished reading the text on the board--and nailed all three answers without even knowing what the question was at all.

https://youtu.be/X7H4085GbaQ?t=220

[JasonA1]

On Challengers, it seems dicey to try to outguess the other players that way. Aren't you better off just taking the question with the lowest risk?

Probably. I guess I was leaning on playing it with friends, where the variables are less. If there's a TV category, and the three parts are on Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones and America's Next Top Model, I know among my friends who would lean towards Game of Thrones, for instance. Perhaps with a known champion, this could emerge as well.

But to this point, I also think The Challengers should have let any player decide to pass a question (and thus avoid losing the value to a wrong answer or time expiring), not just the second (and third) player in a buzzer race. If I ended up alone on a question, I think it should be my right to refuse it if I ultimately don't know. I think this is one of the factors that depressed scoring on that show, and ultimately made the payouts look chintzy compared to Jeopardy! (Ultimate Challenge aside).

-Jason