Thursday, September 17, 2020

Day 190, starting with a spoiled British Game Show Stunner

  • Donald Fear from Telford, England, about 30 miles NW of Birmingham, became the sixth Brit to win the one million pound jackpot, and the first on the Jeremy Clarkson version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?     
  • Two rules changes from the classic version:  The first is, due to a lack of an audience, the player can use two Phone-a-Friend lifelines.  (They must provide multiple Phone-a-Friends, and the same one cannot be used for both lifelines.)  Neither were necessary in the championship run -- Fear only used one Lifeline at 32,000 pounds, the 50/50 normally provided.  The fourth Lifeline is that you can Ask the Host for his idea on the question.
  • The other is a far more interesting rule change.  The first safe-haven is set at 5 questions and 1,000 pounds, as normal.  The second safe-haven can be set at any amount past that amount, at the contestant's election, before that question is asked.  You must answer the question correctly to gain that safe-haven.
  • Even more interestingly, Davyth Fear, Donald's brother, appeared on an earlier Clarkson version and received the a million-pound question from Clarkson, but could not answer it.  The Fear brothers have taken 1.5 million pounds from ITV.
  • Clarkson and Donald Fear incorrectly note that Donald is the seventh winner.  He is the sixth -- the cheater, Charles Ingram, is not counted.
  • He is the first British winner since Ingram Wilcox, just two weeks short of FOURTEEN YEARS since the original country of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? crowned a winner.  186 episodes had aired since -- many celebrity versions.
  • Ironically, however, according to a fan wiki, it was only two weeks since another version of Millionaire crowned a top prize, and this country, after an even longer wait.  A contestant named Henny won 1 million Euros in the Netherlands version of the game -- NINETEEN YEARS after the previous winner.
  • In fact, according to the source, no less than six contestants have won the top prize of their version since the first of the year.
  • According to that source, Donald Fear is the 216th worldwide winner, including celebrities and teams.  One of those celebrity teams included former chess World Champion Garry Kasparov.  ... to what should be no one's surprise.   
  • To current knowledge:  Donald Fear is only the second contestant in the history of the format to only need one Lifeline to win the top prize.  The first really shouldn't be counted as that, as it was the famous case of the first worldwide winner, John Carpenter.

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