Grand Slam (British game show)

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Grand Slam is a television quiz show first created for Britain's Channel 4 in 2003. In its first and only series in the UK, the main host was Carol Vorderman. She was joined in the studio by analyst James Richardson. The off-camera "Questioner" was Nicholas Rowe.

Contents

The contestants taking part, all of them previous quiz show winners, were: Dee Voce, Geoff Owen, Olav Bjortomt, David Edwards, Mark Labbett, Clive Spate, Melanie Beaumont, Peter Lee, Gavin Fuller, David Stainer, Graham Nash, Michael Penrice, Michelle Hogan, Laura Richardson, Said Khan, and Duncan Bickley (who lost £218,000 on an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in 2000). Each contestant paid £1000 to enter, which made up part of the prize fund (hence the title, which has a double meaning referring both to the sporting concept of a "grand slam" and to the entrance fee). The winner was Clive Spate.

Format

The structure of the series is a single-elimination tournament, with two contestants competing in each programme. In the first round of the tournament, each heat consisted of five rounds: General Knowledge, Numbers and Logic, Contemporary Knowledge, Words and Letters and then the final round. In subsequent rounds, a Keyword round was added in between the Numbers and Logic and Contemporary Knowledge rounds, with questions having a given word (the keyword) as the common theme.

In each round, each player has a minute to answer his/her questions. The players take turns to answer a question; at any time, only the clock of the person whose turn it is counts down. The question must be answered correctly in order to pass the turn, otherwise the same contestant gets another question. The round ends when one player's clock reaches zero; the other player's remaining time is carried forward to the final round.

The final round uses questions from all of the categories. Initially, both contestants are given 30 seconds. The total time accumulated from the first 3 rounds is then added to this 30 seconds to determine the amount of time on each contestants' clock. Whoever has time left at the end of the final round wins the match.

Each contestant also has three switches to use over the course of the programme, i.e. opportunities to pass the turn (and the current question) to his/her opponent. Switches can be used consecutively to pass the question back and forth between opponents.

Tournament bracket

The listed score is the number of seconds the winner had remaining at the end of the match.

First round Quarterfinals Semi-finals Final
            
Melanie Beaumont2:51.18
Peter Lee
Melanie Beaumont
Gavin Fuller55.54
Gavin Fuller41.35
David Stainer
Gavin Fuller2:22.21
Michael Penrice
Duncan Bickley
Said Khan2:09.60
Said Khan
Michael Penrice44.55
Michael Penrice46.93
Michelle Hogan
Gavin Fuller
Clive Spate 57.79
David Edwards
Olav Bjortomt 1:47.31
Olav Bjortomt
Clive Spate 47.06
Mark Labbett
Clive Spate 1:06.08
Clive Spate 1:43.67
Dee Voce
Dee Voce1:43.05
Geoff Owen
Dee Voce
Graham Nash
Graham Nash 1:42.11
Laura Richardson

Results

Games are listed in the order in which they aired.

First round

ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5
StartEndUsed
Dee Voce26.5425.9347.292:09.761:43.0526.71
Geoff Owen35.731:05.730.001:05.73
ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5
StartEndUsed
David Edwards30.000.0030.00
Olav Bjortomt3.0124.4842.8424.002:04.331:47.3117.02
ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5
StartEndUsed
Mark Labbett30.00030.00
Clive Spate5.795.8145.7313.141:40.471:06.0834.39
ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5
StartEndUsed
Melanie Beaumont38.8030.2950.7255.652:55.462:51.184.28
Peter Lee30.000.0030.00
ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5
StartEndUsed
Gavin Fuller3.566.4636.581:16.6041.3535.25
David Stainer11.8541.85041.85
ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5
StartEndUsed
Graham Nash50.7131.041:51.751:42.119.64
Laura Richardson8.654.4443.09043.09
ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5
StartEndUsed
Duncan Bickley30.000.0030.00
Said Khan2.5835.2725.8346.592:20.272:09.6010.67
ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5
StartEndUsed
Michael Penrice2.145.1327.151:04.4246.9317.49
Michelle Hogan30.291:00.290.001:00.29

Quarterfinals

Starting from the quarterfinals, the Keyword round was added as the third round of the match.

ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5Round 6
StartEndUsed
Olav Bjortomt3.4814.2847.760.0047.76
Clive Spate31.8912.5720.241:34.7047.0647.64

The keyword was "brown" for the Keyword round.

ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5Round 6
StartEndUsed
Michael Penrice19.038.6720.9513.584.601:36.831:06.8330.00
Said Khan30.000.0030.00

The keyword was "great" for the Keyword round.

ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5Round 6
StartEndUsed
Melanie Beaumont1.1031.100.0031.10
Gavin Fuller10.1233.441.146.331:21.0355.5425.49

The keyword was "night" for the Keyword round.

ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5Round 6
StartEndUsed
Dee Voce-----WON
Graham Nash-----

The outcome for each round in this match is currently unknown.

Semi-finals

ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5Round 6
StartEndUsed
Gavin Fuller17.0747.0324.470.0523.592:22.212:22.210.00
Michael Penrice30.000.0030.00

The keyword was "black" for the Keyword round.

ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5Round 6
StartEndUsed
Clive Spate10.1032.2310.660.2735.411:58.671:43.6715.00
Dee Voce30.000.0030.00

Grand Final

ContestantRound 1Round 2Round 3Round 4Round 5Round 6
StartEndUsed
Gavin Fuller14.4815.4259.900.0059.90
Clive Spate9.1316.1432.521:27.7957.7930.00

The keyword was "grand" for the Keyword round.

US TV series

Grand Slam was produced in the US in 2007 by Michael Davies. The initial series, premiering August 4, 2007 on GSN consists of a 16 player elimination tournament.

As with the British series, the US program is presented as a grand championship of game shows. All 16 contestants selected were noted winners on other game shows. Unlike the British series, however, the contestants did not pay an entry fee; they were instead invited for a $100,000 (US) winner-take-all tournament sponsored by Sony, which produced the show. The studio host for GSN's production is Dennis Miller. The analyst is Amanda Byram. Pat Kiernan is the Questioner. Ken Jennings was the champion for 2007. Ogi Ogas was the runner up.

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