The last Countdown week before a 16-day hiatus!
Rob Barkess or Terence Newnham will face Fiona Wood on Thursday. Terence will be up against it, because Rob has twice scored 120 or above, and has the highest score of the series (126).
Spoilers for Monday 16th December 2024 (Series 90, QF3)
Moderator: James Robinson
Spoilers for Monday 16th December 2024 (Series 90, QF3)
Series 78 Runner-up
Re: Spoilers for Monday 16th December 2024 (Series 90, QF3)
I have to say, I’m not surprised Susie disallowed NOUGATS there. That will have to be yeeted out of Apterous. Unfortunate nonetheless.
R4: SPIKENARD for 9.
I also got the 9s in R1 and R11, but unfortunately went for the invalid slayering x in R7 (a third anagram was SYRINGEAL). Conundrum stumped me.
Very bad luck Rob. A great win for Terence; a well-established lead despite the disallowals. Can he achieve another upset on Thursday?
R4: SPIKENARD for 9.
I also got the 9s in R1 and R11, but unfortunately went for the invalid slayering x in R7 (a third anagram was SYRINGEAL). Conundrum stumped me.
Very bad luck Rob. A great win for Terence; a well-established lead despite the disallowals. Can he achieve another upset on Thursday?
Series 78 Runner-up
Re: Spoilers for Monday 16th December 2024 (Series 90, QF3)
The Christmas idents are up in the day, the studio has the decoration, the intro and Teatime Teasers have the snow effect, you guessed it, we're officially in the week before the most wonderful time of the year (hopefully!) The observant people will notice that there are lights installed on the decorations on the floor, something that was not there last year, I guess the budget has increased which is great! 
Of course, what is Christmas without Pantomime, and so the final guest of Series 88 in December 2023 is back here once more, Christopher Biggins! 
Of interest to note is that Terence had a watch party for one of this episodes in his University theatre during his Preliminaries, and I bet today, the same thing must be happening there! Let's also hope Rob has one too at his local pub where he talked about it briefly in the Intro!
Letters: Rob "The Underdog" takes a back seat from the start as Terence had ERECTION in R1 and then came R2 where there was a heated debate in the Daily Chat regarding the former's declaration:
After the first break, Terence risks HAUNTERS in R5 to take deny Rob the chance for a crucial conundrum with a margin of > 20 points! This is history repeating itself where he could follow in Michael Calder's footsteps last Series where the #6 Seed wins!
What a brilliant R7 with YEARLINGS and SEARINGLY spotted and a plethora of 9s all round for this episode until I joked that Helen McGivern would have probably spotted one of them had she been playing here 
Into the last third, and yikes, in R10 and R11, both contestants gave invalid declarations, with Rob painfully giving unsigned in the former but there's only one "S" , argh . His chance of victory might be over at this rate, and when it came to R13 with MALTOSE pretty much staring at one's face if you know the word, Terence seals his fate and advances into the Semi-Finals comfortably with a century, and R12 certainly did not help Rob since there were so many "7"s out there!
Numbers: Thank you Christopher Biggins for saying out loud after R9 what most of us were thinking over the last three episodes, "The rounds are too easy". Goddamn right, R3 and R6 didn't need much thinking for a Finals match and with Rob still lagging behind in R9, he decides to gamble R9 with 4 Large and CECIL gave us a target in which there were too many ways to count to get the answer, ugh. Terence decides to end the show with 6 Small, and this is the second hardest round thus far of the Finals (finally!), where if you think hard enough, you will find and get the solution. He ends up with one away but Rob steals the limelight with his perfect solution, well done, but alas it was too late for him to advance into the Semi-Finals.
Conundrum: The game might be over for Rob, but let's see if he can have the last laugh with the OCEAN THUD. My thinking is that the producers' strategy going forward after the ODP Cull would be to put compound word conundrums into the Finals to toughen the difficulty, and this one went over my head and I blanked out. This is not easy by any means, but once you see the answer you will definitely go "Oh yeah, why didn't I think of that?" Times up and no one gets it once again sadly
On the basis that Terence had prior experience on the show like Fiona yesterday and given how Rob's performance was somewhat less consistent than his in terms of the Preliminaries, I predicted Terence to edge out only slightly with ten points without a crucial conundrum. It was somewhat accurate with a 13 point difference, and I'm relieved the nougat ruling would not have made a difference and would only have made Rob's loss even more painful especially after going for the phantom "unsigned" word if it had been incorrectly allowed. It's the end of the road for Rob, and having the highest winning score of the Series was not enough to save him here, but let's hope it wasn't all glum for him, for I'm sure he tried his best and matched with Terence for two-thirds of the show. But, just before he takes his leave, guess what, the Christmas Carolers from last year are back and they sang "Ding Dong Merrily on High"! What a nice surprise and I thought it would be left to the end of the week, so yeah, that makes a great early Christmas treat for some of us I bet!
Terence knows Fiona is quite strong having most likely watched her Preliminary matches, and as he prepares to duel her and as we await that match to play out, one last Quarter-Final match still awaits us. Will "Previous Quarter-Finalist and aiming at another shot for the Grand Champion title after 23 Years" David Roe or "Hoping to make his mother proud and praying his Conundrum weakness does not get exploited" Alex Call face off Chris the day after? One more spot left to fill with a week out from Christmas Eve!
Progress:
QF1 (12 December 2024): Chris Kirby (#1) vs Neil Holland (#9) (96 - 68)
QF2 (13 December 2024): Fiona Wood (#2) vs Helen McGivern (#7) (107 - 83)
QF3 (16 December 2024): Rob Barkess (#3) vs Terence Newnham (#6) (87 - 100)
QF4 (17 December 2024): David Roe (#4) vs Alex Call (#5)
SF1 (18 December 2024): Chris Kirby (QF1 Winner) vs (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (19 December 2024): Fiona Wood (QF2 Winner) vs Terence Newnham (QF3 Winner)
GF (20 December 2024): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)
Of course, what is Christmas without Pantomime, and so the final guest of Series 88 in December 2023 is back here once more, Christopher Biggins! Of interest to note is that Terence had a watch party for one of this episodes in his University theatre during his Preliminaries, and I bet today, the same thing must be happening there! Let's also hope Rob has one too at his local pub where he talked about it briefly in the Intro!Letters: Rob "The Underdog" takes a back seat from the start as Terence had ERECTION in R1 and then came R2 where there was a heated debate in the Daily Chat regarding the former's declaration:
Trust me, this went back and forth throughout the whole episode, but we ultimately concluded Susie was correct and a quick search during the breaks from me show a 90-10% Nougat vs Nougats when analysing local supermarket brands and advertisements as to how they display the word, so really unlucky to Rob
After the first break, Terence risks HAUNTERS in R5 to take deny Rob the chance for a crucial conundrum with a margin of > 20 points! This is history repeating itself where he could follow in Michael Calder's footsteps last Series where the #6 Seed wins!
What a brilliant R7 with YEARLINGS and SEARINGLY spotted and a plethora of 9s all round for this episode until I joked that Helen McGivern would have probably spotted one of them had she been playing here Into the last third, and yikes, in R10 and R11, both contestants gave invalid declarations, with Rob painfully giving unsigned in the former but there's only one "S" , argh . His chance of victory might be over at this rate, and when it came to R13 with MALTOSE pretty much staring at one's face if you know the word, Terence seals his fate and advances into the Semi-Finals comfortably with a century, and R12 certainly did not help Rob since there were so many "7"s out there!Numbers: Thank you Christopher Biggins for saying out loud after R9 what most of us were thinking over the last three episodes, "The rounds are too easy". Goddamn right, R3 and R6 didn't need much thinking for a Finals match and with Rob still lagging behind in R9, he decides to gamble R9 with 4 Large and CECIL gave us a target in which there were too many ways to count to get the answer, ugh. Terence decides to end the show with 6 Small, and this is the second hardest round thus far of the Finals (finally!), where if you think hard enough, you will find and get the solution. He ends up with one away but Rob steals the limelight with his perfect solution, well done, but alas it was too late for him to advance into the Semi-Finals.
Conundrum: The game might be over for Rob, but let's see if he can have the last laugh with the OCEAN THUD. My thinking is that the producers' strategy going forward after the ODP Cull would be to put compound word conundrums into the Finals to toughen the difficulty, and this one went over my head and I blanked out. This is not easy by any means, but once you see the answer you will definitely go "Oh yeah, why didn't I think of that?" Times up and no one gets it once again sadly
On the basis that Terence had prior experience on the show like Fiona yesterday and given how Rob's performance was somewhat less consistent than his in terms of the Preliminaries, I predicted Terence to edge out only slightly with ten points without a crucial conundrum. It was somewhat accurate with a 13 point difference, and I'm relieved the nougat ruling would not have made a difference and would only have made Rob's loss even more painful especially after going for the phantom "unsigned" word if it had been incorrectly allowed. It's the end of the road for Rob, and having the highest winning score of the Series was not enough to save him here, but let's hope it wasn't all glum for him, for I'm sure he tried his best and matched with Terence for two-thirds of the show. But, just before he takes his leave, guess what, the Christmas Carolers from last year are back and they sang "Ding Dong Merrily on High"! What a nice surprise and I thought it would be left to the end of the week, so yeah, that makes a great early Christmas treat for some of us I bet!
Terence knows Fiona is quite strong having most likely watched her Preliminary matches, and as he prepares to duel her and as we await that match to play out, one last Quarter-Final match still awaits us. Will "Previous Quarter-Finalist and aiming at another shot for the Grand Champion title after 23 Years" David Roe or "Hoping to make his mother proud and praying his Conundrum weakness does not get exploited" Alex Call face off Chris the day after? One more spot left to fill with a week out from Christmas Eve!
Progress:
QF1 (12 December 2024): Chris Kirby (#1) vs Neil Holland (#9) (96 - 68)
QF2 (13 December 2024): Fiona Wood (#2) vs Helen McGivern (#7) (107 - 83)
QF3 (16 December 2024): Rob Barkess (#3) vs Terence Newnham (#6) (87 - 100)
QF4 (17 December 2024): David Roe (#4) vs Alex Call (#5)
SF1 (18 December 2024): Chris Kirby (QF1 Winner) vs (QF4 Winner)
SF2 (19 December 2024): Fiona Wood (QF2 Winner) vs Terence Newnham (QF3 Winner)
GF (20 December 2024): (SF1 Winner) vs (SF2 Winner)