Spoilers for Thursday 20th June 2024 (Series 89 Quarter-final 1)

[Philip A]

Forget Euros. An all-Octochamp knockout contest begins. Chess player and 900 member Arthur Page vs quizzer and Mastermind champion Isabelle Heward (making her second Countdown finals after 1994).

[Philip A]

Well done, Isabelle, who caught up with Arthur in the last couple of letters games. Phenomenal quizzer to boot.

Well played, Arthur; in great shape. I genuinely thought he did utter ‘tautology’; wouldn’t have realised that he didn’t quite say the ‘t’ at the beginning. Unfortunate, as he’s been working hard on conundrums.

[Fiona T]

Yeah I was pretty confused - got it about the same time and spent the rest of the 30s wondering what I missed! But have just watched back online and he did say autology. If Isabelle also thought he said tautology it would explain why she didn't go for it!

[Ryan Lam]

Finally, after a lengthy flight delay, I'm back home and I've just finished watching this episode as we prepare to wrap up the first half of 2024. Of course, what is a Series with a full house of eight Octochamps without consolations, commiserations especially to Charlotte Robson as per what Colin mentioned, but tbh, her score would not have made her secure a spot even if she had won. Here comes the first match, "Mr A5 and guy who knows so many scientific words he certainly can terrify people" Arthur Page and "2017 Mastermind Champion who is fit as a fiddler here" Isabelle Heward facing off each other. I think Colin has forgotten already, he did mention Isabelle was sick during her Preliminary recordings (I did replay her final episode to confirm this).

Letters: Good start by Arthur with RENEGADO in R1 and then DOGVANES in R5 subsequently. Afterwards, in R7, he had URANOLITE that wowed Susie as 18 more points are added to his score! Isabelle doesn't give up, and fights back in the last three letters round by not only scoring points with Arthur, but also hitting maximums, so not all was lost, good spot of MAGILUS and GLADIUS in R11 (although I wished Susie hadn't gone on with the funny bit of the former word as it was cringy imo)!

Numbers: Arthur has been quite unpredictable in a sense that he has no favourite selection, so he tries 4 Large in R3 and it falls flat. R6 was the tricky one with double "1"s, but this was considered easy for a Finals round and Arthur pulls ahead. Then R9, oh what on earth is going on?? CECIL generating a one-step solution target and if you'd realised, the score was at 75 - 10 going into it, that should have given you a no brainer hint. R14 was another no brainer. Seriously, we don't want easy Numbers Round for Finals like I had mentioned many times over the years now...

Conundrum: As per what Colin says, the conundrum for the Finals are much harder, and we've GOT a LAYOUT on our hands to try and solve the first one.

I genuinely thought he did utter ‘tautology’; wouldn’t have realised that he didn’t quite say the ‘t’ at the beginning.

Arthur attempts "autology" (which was clear as day on my headphones) and I went "Argh!!!", not because I initially knew the answer, but because I counted there were only eight letters so it had to be incorrect. A few seconds later, you could see him sheepishly smile as he realised he had slipped up, and Susie unfortunately had to rub salt into his wounds with the correct answer I have to say I got the answer because of the mistake, so this doesn't genuinely count towards my solves for Finals.

I had predicted this match to have a margin of 70 points with Arthur winning, and it was not far off with the eventual difference at 72 points. Well-played by Isabelle who took her defeat in her stride, smiling all the way on camera and having a lot of fun. It was quite humble of her to admit that the chances of her winning against Arthur were near-impossible, but she was happy to have made it as one of the Finalists. Great comments to Arthur by her at the end from someone with so much experience in quiz shows, hoping that he could follow in her footsteps one day. You may not have won here, but no one can ever take away the title of Mastermind champion from you, well done for giving us a great show!

Excellent game and I still have one more match to catch up even though everyone already knows the result. I'll find out within 35 minutes, if "Dr. Buzz Lightyear whose son was on Junior Mastermind" Mark Finnerty or "Serious crucial conundrum dodger who had to work hard 5/8 times to survive being knocked out (I don't know if any other contestant had to fight as hard though)" Jack Harvey gets through!

Progress:
QF1 (20 June 2024): Arthur Page (#1) vs Isabelle Heward (#8) (123 - 51)
QF2 (21 June 2024): Mark Finnerty (#2) vs Jack Harvey (#7)
QF3 (24 June 2024): Toby Byfield (#3) vs Michael Calder (#6)
QF4 (25 June 2024): Jessica Pratesi (#4) vs Mark Goodliffe (#5)
SF1 (26 June 2024): Arthur Page (QF1 Winner) vs (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (27 June 2024): (QF2 Winner) vs (QF3 Winner)
GF (28 June 2024): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)