Eggheads, BBC2, 6.00 pm, 15 September 2006.

If there’s one thing the television producer and the psychologist have in common it’s a chequered history in defining exactly what ‘intelligence’ is. Any standard introductory psychology textbook will detail the problems psychometric testers have had in attempting to measure intelligence, and the over-valued status attached to IQ tests (the only thing the tests are guaranteed to measure reliably is an individual’s ability at taking IQ tests).

As an example of the meaninglessness of IQ scores, take the following example. Madonna is reputed to have an IQ of 140 (the average is 100), yet this didn’t prevent her from marrying Guy Ritchie, choosing to star in the career-ending shocker that was Swept Away or recording that bloody awful cover version of American Pie.

In televisual terms, intelligence seems to come down to nothing more than rote memory recall, the ability to use semantic memory (the memory of facts and concepts) to remember all sorts of pointless information such as the capital city of Venezuela being Caracas. Now unless you’re in Venezuela and need to get to your country’s embassy as a matter of urgency, knowing this simple fact will not be of much use to you, nor knowing another several thousand similar useless facts. Yet, in TV terms, knowing the scores of all the FA Cup finals somehow equates to being Einstein.

Still, the quiz show is the staple food of television producers, mainly because they’re cheap and fast to film with multiple episodes being recorded back-to-back. They’re also relatively amusing to watch with the family, as various members take turns to make idiots of themselves by blurting out the wrong answer to such questions as what the capital city of Venezuela is.

Currently running in the ‘unbuckle the jeans and let the dinner go down’ timeslot on BBC2 at 6pm is Eggheads, featuring "the most formidable quiz team in Britain" or, as they’re described in the TKK household, the least charismatic quiz team in Britain (and that’s saying something). The team are so dull that I’ve given them insulting comedic nicknames just to liven them up.

First up is Judith Keppel (‘Posh’), the first winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Her main distinguishing feature is that she pulls a face like a constipated owl whenever she has to think hard about a question.

Next is Kevin Ashman (‘Bus-driver’), a former winner of Mastermind and a man so nondescript he could live in your house for seven years before you noticed him.

After Busdriver is CJ De Mooi (‘Boss-eye’), whose one distinguishing feature is being the weakest link on the team and the Egghead the opposing teams relentlessly go far, sensing easy meat. And he’s not sensitive about it all. Not one little bit.

The penultimate member of the team is Daphne Fowler (‘Dentures’), two time winner of Fifteen to One, and whose distinguishing feature is not having one.

The final member is the unofficial daddy of the team, Christopher Hughes (Amos Brealy as designed by Frank Oz), whose distinguishing feature is his catchphrase "I’m still the reigning International Mastermind champion", which epitomises the smug condescension that oozes from him like sweat from a builder’s arse-crack. Just for the record, there hasn’t been another International Mastermind since 1983 and he isn’t being the least bit self-aware when he says it.

The format is as follows: five-person quiz teams "pit their wits" against the Eggheads. There are initially four rounds before the fifth and final round. In the first four rounds the challenging team are informed of the theme the questions for the round will be on (e.g. sport, history). They select one person from their team to answer the questions, who then chooses a member of the Eggheads to compete against on an individual basis. No conferring is allowed and the loser is ruled out of the final round, in which the remaining members of each team compete on a group basis and are allowed to confer. Each contestant and Egghead has three questions to answer, with a forced choice between three possible answers. If the scores are tied at the end of the round the questions go to sudden death, but with no answers provided.

Before going onto the rollercoaster ride that was the quiz, a word about the competing team for the episode I watched. It takes a lot to make the Eggheads look charismatic, but Black Country boys the ‘Lump-hammers’ managed it in style. Their names alone are enough to suggest the boys’ blandness: Paul, Tony, Gary, Ken, Graham (Did their parents have some form of allergy to syllables?).

The team also committed the cardinal sin of quiz by having such a shit name for their team. Anyone who’s taken part in a pub quiz knows the aim is to have give your team the most ridiculous name possible, so the compere looks like a complete arse when he has to read the scores at the end of each round:

"The Blue Team have 4, The Red Team have 6, and The Urine is Running Uncontrollably Down My Leg Team have no points and no chance of winning whatsoever."

Trust me: after a couple of drinks it’s a hoot an’ a holler.

The first subject is geography and the Egghead was Posh.

Sample question:

The tower called the Scot monument is the feature of which British city?

a) Edinburgh
b) Cardiff
c) Belfast

And no, it’s not a trick question. It really was that insultingly easy.

With questions like the above, it was no surprise all were answered correctly and the scores were tied at 3-3, meaning the round went into sudden death. With no clues as to the answer, the contestants now have to recall rather than recognise the answer. This really sorts out the eggs from the Eggheads.

But Posh loses and, like her namesake, she won’t be seen anywhere when it comes to the grand final.

The next round was arts and books, so step forward Big Daddy Amos to flex the mental muscle.

Sample question:

Which member of the Beatles in 1997 released a symphonic work called Standing Stone?

a) George Harrison
b) Paul McCartney
c) Ringo Starr

Hilariously, the smug twat got the answer wrong with his unnecessarily prefaced answer of "the late George Harrison" (just in case anyone wasn’t aware George died five years ago).

Unfortunately, the Lumphammers fail to take advantages of Amos’s cock-up, and they too had lost a member for the final.

As the quiz progresses, what becomes evident is that for a significant proportion of the time the Eggheads don’t instantly know the answer. Taking advantage of the forced choice format, they tend to go through the answers and eliminate the ones they know are wrong, before arriving at an answer they think is correct, rather than know for certain.

The next round was entertainment, and step forward Mr Bus-driver to entertain you.

Sample question:

Who played the role of Danny Zuko in the stage musical of Greece the first time?

a) Jeff Bridges
b) Al Pacino
c) Richard Gere

Again, Bus-driver wasn’t 100% sure what the answer was, but revealingly commented that "the only name [I have] associated with Greece is Richard Gere". Again the ‘intelligence’ on display was simple associations rather than knowledge.

Bus-driver ran his opponent over, and the Lumphammers (or ‘Lumps’ for short) had lost another man for the final.

The penultimate round was history, and being a history graduate I was looking forward to pitting my wits at home against Dentures. Fat chance.

Sample question:

Which criminal of the Old West was shot by Pat Garrett?

a) Doc Holliday
b) Jesse James
c) Billy the Kid

I didn’t need my history degree for this one; having watched Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was sufficient to give me the answer. As Dentures is around 86, she clearly had an advantage when it came to history and defeated her opponent. That meant there were just two Lumps left for the final.

In the final round the topic is general knowledge, with four Eggs competing against two Lumps. At this point the numerical advantage should come into play, but not with questions as straightforward as the following example:

Which member of the royal family was engaged to Koo Stark?

a) Edward
b) Charles
c) Andrew

Unsurprisingly, again, there were no wrong answers until it came to the final question with the scores at two apiece. For the deciding question the teams were given a line taken from a nursery rhyme:

"Lady bird, lady bird, who hides under the pan?"

To have a chance of beating the Eggheads, the Lumps had to guess who hid under the pan. Was it:

a) Anne
b) Agnes
c) Alison

As nursery rhymes were clearly not their forte, and neither was lateral thinking, the team was completely stumped, but they still had a one in three chance of guessing correctly.

They chose Alison.

Falsehood!

The correct answer was Anne, as the Eggheads successfully guessed. But the reasons as to why they chose their answer revealed the secret of their success: Anne had been chosen because it rhymes with pan, which, being as it was taken from a nursery rhyme, was a common sense logical deduction.

So, as for many of the questions, the Eggheads hadn’t displayed awe-inspiring mental gymnastics but simply used common sense.

And with their nailbiting 3-2 win the Eggheads stretched their winning sequence to 15 unbeaten matches.

And Amos is STILL International Mastermind Champion.

Amongst other things.