Pointless

Pointless is a quiz show produced by Endemol UK for the BBC, hosted by Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman. The show is unique in that it tasks players with finding obscure answers to questions and trying to obtain a low score. The series began airing on BBC Two on 24 August 2009, and was later moved to BBC One in 2011. To date, there have been nine series, plus four celebrity series. The format has been exported to other European countries.

Overview
Pointless is a quiz show in which players are tasked with not only finding correct answers, but finding the most obscure answers among them. The game features four teams (previously five), each consisting of two players. Players must try and survive being eliminated by obtaining the lowest score and make it to the final round for a chance to win the jackpot prize. Teams can appear on the show up to two times, the exception being if they have made it to the final round on their first attempt. The show's assistant is Richard Osman, styled as Alexander's "Pointless friend". During the course of the game, he gives information about the answers that are given, as well as statistics at the end of each round on the most common and most obscure answers.

Prior to the show, 100 people are each given 100 seconds to give as many answers as they can to the questions that will be asked to the teams during the show. Correct answers are assigned a point value equal to the number of panelists who gave them, so that less commonly given answers have lower values than those given by many panelists. Players on the show attempt to give answers worth as few points as possible, aiming to have the lowest score amongst the players in each round.

The eponymous "Pointless" answers are those that none of the 100 panelists gave, making them worth zero points. If a player manages to obtain a Pointless answer prior to the final round, £250 is added to the jackpot. An incorrect answer adds 100 points to the player's score. The current format consists of two elimination rounds, a head-to-head round and the final round. If more than two teams are tied for the highest point value at the end of the first or second rounds, a sudden-death round occurs, with the highest-scoring team losing. The couple that win the head-to-head round are awarded a Pointless trophy and the chance to win the jackpot by guessing a Pointless answer. If the players fail to find a pointless answer in the final round, the jackpot rolls over to the next show and is increased by £1,000. A record jackpot of £24,750 was won in the episode broadcast 8 March 2013.

Format
The format and gameplay changed slightly between series. The game consists of initial elimination rounds (three in the first series, two in subsequent series) to whittle the starting lineup down to the two teams who contest the head-to-head; the winning team of the head-to-head plays in the Final.

Elimination rounds
In the first rounds, the teams are given a subject (such as geography or sport). Each team chooses one player from their team to answer the question first. Then the question within the subject is revealed. The order of play is determined by drawing lots in advance of recording. Play starts with the person at the podium nearest to Alexander and ends at the farthest podium; this forms what is known as the 'first pass'. Then, the players at each podium switch to the second player, and the order is then reversed for the 'second pass'. During each of these rounds, teams may not confer.

Teams gain points depending on how many people answered the question with that answer. If the player gives an incorrect answer, they gain one hundred points.

At the end of each round, the team with the highest score is eliminated from the game. In the event of a tie, the tied teams each give an extra answer each until the deadlock is broken and the team with the highest points eliminated, and the teams are allowed to confer in the tie-break.

To complete each round, Osman reveals all the "Pointless" answers, or lowest popular three if there aren't any "Pointless" answers, plus the top three answers, which would be worth the highest amount to any player.

There are five different formats of the elimination round which can be played: the first was introduced in the first series (and was the only version used in that run), with subsequent series introducing variant formats.

The original format has open-ended questions: contestants are given the question and a free choice of answer—no prompts or preset answers are shown. If contestant's answer is correct, the contestant scores according to the poll results; giving an incorrect answer would score one hundred points. In the first series, this game was played three times, as each of the elimination rounds, then in subsequent episodes the game would be played no more than once. A variant of this format was introduced in Series 7, where a list of categories appeared on the board after a question and players could give any answer that fitted into any of those categories (for example, they could name any member that was in any band on the list).

The possible answers format, introduced as the new second-elimination-round format in Series Two and dropped in Series Six, gave the question and a board of potential answers (between six and eight, commonly seven); each contestant in turn would pick one of the answers shown, scoring accordingly. Following the first pass, Richard would reveal the value of the remaining answers. The other team members would have a new set of answers to choose from. Each set of answers would include at least one Pointless Answer and at least one incorrect answer. Usually, the incorrect answer had some indirect link (often humorous) back to the question.

The third format, clues and answers, was introduced in Series 3. The teams are given a two-part subject, such as "Famous Battles and their Countries", and then a list of names relating to part of the question (for example, a list of historical battles). The contestants must select an item from the list and give the corresponding half of the answer (in this case, the country where the battle took place). All the options have a correct answer, and a more obscure answer will score fewer points. An incorrect answer to any question scores one hundred points. (If the question was "The Battle of Hastings", the correct answer, "England", would score ninety-two points). After the first pass, all the correct answers and their scores are revealed, with a fresh board of names for the second pass. Unlike in "possible answers", there is no guarantee there will be a Pointless Answer on the board.

A fourth format, introduced in Series 5, provides the teams with two closely related categories (e.g. "Boy Bands" and "Rock Bands"). The first category is played on the first pass (by the teams' first player), and the second category is played on the second pass (by the second players). The questions are still played in an open-ended format and, so far, this format has only been played in the first round.

A fifth format, introduced in Series 7, shows the contestants a singular picture containing many people or objects (e.g. cartoon characters) and they had to identify the lowest-scoring person/object in it.

The games which were played in each series were arranged as follows:
 * Series 1 used three rounds of "original format"
 * Series 2 used a round of "original format" and a round of "possible answers"
 * Series 3 used a first round of either "original format" or "possible answers", and a second round of either "possible answers" or "clues and answers" ("possible answers" would not be played twice in the same show)
 * Series 4 and Series 5 used a first round of either "original format" or "possible answers", and a second round of "clues and answers"
 * Series 6 saw the "possible answers" format scrapped. The two elimination rounds are "original format" and "clues and answers" in either order

Whatever the format, the two teams remaining from the elimination rounds would go forward to the head-to-head round.

Series 1
The lowest scoring team overall is given a choice of two categories and picks one, they are allowed to confer. Each team takes it in turns to give as many correct answers as possible to the single question while still keeping their scores as low as possible. The round ends when one team goes above 100 points, after both teams have had the same number of turns. If both teams go above 100, then the team that is nearest to 100 goes through to the final.

Series 2 to Series 5
The format of the head-to-head changed from series 2 to a multi-question best-of-five (best-of-three from series 3).

The remaining two teams face off in a head-to-head battle. The team who acquired the fewest points in the first two rounds gets to go first.

A question is asked which has a minimum of 4 answers, then the teams get to confer and give one answer in turn. The scores for both answers are then revealed and the team with the lower score get a point and the opportunity to answer first on the next question. The first team to get three points (2 points from series 3) wins the Head to Head and enters the final.

Series 6 to present
The head-to-head format kept its previous format of a multi-question best-of-three, but each question is in a "clues and answers" format. There are three kinds of question in this round:
 * A picture question, which if used is always the first question in this round, unless a picture question was used in round 1. Five pictures on a common theme are shown, labelled A to E, and contestants must identify the subject of the picture (for example, if the theme is waterfalls, "A, Angel Falls" would be a possible way for a pair to answer)
 * Facts about a subject. Five clues to these facts (essentially questions about the subject) are presented, and each pair must give an answer to one of them
 * Word puzzles. The answers are typically titles of works, quotations, or names of people, and the clue might be an anagram, an initialism, or all words except one of the quote or title. For example, if the theme is Shakespeare quotes, a typical clue might be "Fire burn and cauldron ____", to which the contestants must supply the missing word "bubble"

After both contestants have submitted an answer, the scores are revealed, and the lowest scoring pair wins the point, as per normal.

Final
The aim of the Final is to get one "Pointless" answer to win the jackpot.

For reaching the final the team receives a "coveted" (as Alexander always describes it) Pointless Trophy, regardless of what happens in the final. Any team that makes it through to the final cannot return for the next show, even if it is their first appearance.

The trophy is made from a 120mm tall block of optical quality crystal, 3D laser-engraved with a stack of 100 Pointless discs and the Pointless logo. It is manufactured by Laser Crystal Ltd, based in Poole, Dorset.

The team is given a choice of five categories (three in Series 1–5, and in these series, the categories stayed either for 5 days or until they were picked. Since Series 6, a new set is seen every day, although unpicked categories regularly reappear as selections, with Armstrong notably pointing out "Spanish Pop" and "Katie Price"). After choosing one, they get the question, and have 60 seconds to give three answers for that category. If any of them are "Pointless" answers then they win the jackpot. If not, then the jackpot is rolled over to the next show and £1,000 is added. If the jackpot is won then the jackpot is re-set to £1,000 for the following game.

Beginning with broadcast episode 501, which aired 7 June 2013, a new format was introduced for the final jackpot. Contestants are given four categories to select from, and are given 60 seconds to find a pointless answer by picking three answers from any or all of three subcategories.

Development
The show's format (originally to be called Obviously) was jointly conceived by Richard Osman and David Flynn, both producers at Endemol UK, in 2009. They envisaged it as a "reverse Family Fortunes....rewarding obscure knowledge, while allowing people to also give obvious answers....a quiz which could be sort of highbrow and populist simultaneously". Osman was not originally intended to be co-presenter, primarily fulfilling the role only as part of a demonstration laid on for the BBC. However the BBC executives asked him to continue when they commissioned the first series. Osman then approached comedian Alexander Armstrong, a peer of Osman's during their university days, to be the main presenter. Armstrong, whom the previous year had been lined up to present Channel 4's Countdown only to back out fearing being pigeon-holed as a presenter, agreed to present what was perceived as a lower-profile show, with the presence of Osman helping to convince him.

The first series aired on the BBC's second channel BBC Two between August and October 2009, with the corporation announcing on the day of the final episode's broadcast that they had commissioned a second series. The series' audience had peaked at 1.69 million viewers, 17.2% of audience share for the timeslot, while averaging around 1 million viewers per episode. The second series saw audiences grow modestly and the format was tweaked prior to the start of series three, reducing the number of rounds and giving more time for banter between the hosts which had previously been edited out. The change saw strong viewer growth with the show subsequently promoted to the BBC's main channel BBC One in 2011. By 2013, the programme was averaging 3.6 million viewers daily, and starting to gain more viewers than ITV game show, The Chase, which also airs in roughly the same time slot.

Episodes
For the main page: Pointless (episodes)