Ep 109: Jodi Knight, Matthew Thomason (May 23, 2016; originally aired December 30, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


Jodi Knight returns for her second game, and Richard notes that Jodi is involved in an indigenous education program.  He asks for more details, and Jodi responds that she works as an Aboriginal education worker at a high school from "where [she is] from".  She works on anything that they need help with, which is mostly mathematics and English.

There's also a little more of a chat with Jodi later on in the show, at the start of the last third.  Richard refers back to yesterday's talk where it was mentioned that Jodi coaches cricket, and asks if she is doing any of that at the moment.  Jodi responds in the affirmative; in fact, she is coaching two teams: a local under-12's boys side, and a regional representative primary girls side.

Tonight's challenger is Matthew Thomason, a TV writer and director who has created shows about everything from travel to backyard science experiments, and once wrote scripts for Michelle Obama.  Richard naturally asks how that came to be about.  Matthew explains that he works for the company that produces Mythbusters, and they are doing an alternative version incorporating backyard science and Q&A's based on science.  In addition to their regular presenter, they also included some special guest presenters, of which one was Michelle Obama.  She wanted to talk about fighting childhood obesity, so he wrote some scripts for that.  (Unfortunately, I cannot figure out what that show would have been; it was most likely part of her Let's Move campaign, which would place it in 2010, but I haven't found a good match for the available information.)

Richard adds another snippet here, that over twenty years ago he and Matthew worked together.  Matthew describes it as Richard doing "in-flight videos for a very well-known commerical airline", and Matthew was the producer of those videos.


Jodi found an excellent word in the first game, but was blown out of the water by Matthew's even better find of a full monty.  Another good find from Matthew in the second round put him a daunting 25 points ahead, and that ended up being just too much to recover from.  It was mostly level-pegging after that, with Jodi making a couple of small pickups but not quite enough.  She needed to solve the last numbers round to have a chance, but it was too hard and Matthew was safe going into the conundrum.  Neither managed to solve it, and Matthew won with 46 points to Jodi's 34.

I was just a fraction too slow to see two words tonight, including that full monty.  But the remaining rounds provided enough fodder for me to come back, particularly a couple of challenging numbers rounds.  I was just safe going into the conundrum; I was a bit slow to solve it, but got there, and was rather relieved to get the win after missing that full monty.  It always makes such a big difference!

Ep 108: David Waddell, Jodi Knight (May 20, 2016; originally aired December 29, 2010)

Rounds: Here.


David Waddell gets his turn in the champion's seat tonight, and Richard reveals that it is David's wedding anniversary tonight.  (I'm guessing that was the airdate rather than the date of filming, although they would have been fairly close at that point -- the show's organisers only found out quite late that they were being renewed after the end of the first series.)  Four years ago he married "[his] lovely wife Jen".  He proposed to her during a climb of the Sydney harbour bridge, right at the top of it.

Tonight's challenger is Jodi Knight, a radiography student and education worker who describes herself as "sports crazed".  Jodi plays basketball and tennis, and coaches cricket.  That's all we find out -- it was a strangely short introduction.

To avoid confusion between the Davids, I will be referring to David Astle as DA for the rest of this writeup.


Jodi took a small risk in the first round that paid off, and then the next round was split.  Both contestants rather strangely ended up with invalid answers to the first numbers round, but then Jodi stretched her lead with an excellent find in round 4.  Shared rounds followed -- the remaining numbers rounds were too easy to be useful -- and again both contestants had invalid answers in round 7.  Jodi was safe going into the conundrum, and with neither solving it the scoreline remained at 48 to 33 in her favour.

I was not able to find my best options that well, and only those invalid answers from Jodi kept me close.  Thanks to those I was just a point behind going into the conundrum, and fortunately managed to solve it to scramble home to the win.  Phew!