Eggheads is a UK television quiz programme produced by 12 Yard Productions that first aired in November 2003.
The premise of the game is as follows: a team of quizzing geniuses (the eponymous Eggheads) are challenged in each episode by a team of amateur challengers. If the latter team can win, they take home a cash prize. The prize starts at £1,000 and rolls over by £1,000 for each time a challenging team fails to defeat the Eggheads, thus (for example) if the Eggheads win fourteen games in a row after a loss, the next challengers would be playing for a potential £15,000.
The game consists of two parts - the first involves a number of head-to-head rounds on specific categories, putting a challenger against a chosen Egghead in each. The categories are as follows:
- Arts & Books
- Entertainment (ceased in 2008 and replaced with separate Music and Film & Television categories)
- Film & Television
- Food & Drink
- Geography
- History
- Music
- Politics
- Science
- Sport
The final (General Knowledge) is then played with those who made it through the head-to-head, along with the 'hold-out' (the contestant who wasn't chosen for a head-to-head round). Sometimes, only the 'hold-out' will be representing one team or the other if the head-to-head section went particularly wrong for one team.
All rounds are played over the best-of-five multiple-choice questions, with a sudden death section (where there are no multiple choices) being necessary if the scores are tied.
Throughout the show's twenty-year run on television, the format of the show has not seen any change at all, rather the only changes come with the personalities and networks the series has aired on. When the series first premiered, there were five Eggheads, who appeared in every episode - Kevin Ashman, Daphne Fowler, Chris Hughes, C.J. de Mooi and Judith Keppel. Of these, Ashman stood out as being the most accomplished quizzer (he still holds the record for the highest ever scores on Mastermind and Brain of Britain (for which he was setting the questions when initially hired for this show), and was and is a regular winner of international quizzing championships), while Keppel was the most well-known to the general public for becoming the first-ever jackpot winner on the UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The presenter of the series when it first launched was well-known newsreader Dermot Murnaghan, and it originally aired in a lunchtime slot on BBC One, in the slot that was formerly accompanied by fellow game show Wipeout. In November 2005, the series moved to its well-known 6:00 pm teatime slot on BBC Two that was previously accompanied by The Simpsonsnote , where it remained until the end of the 2010s, with occasional relocations to 6:30.
2008 was when the show saw its first major change. In addition to the "Entertainment" question category being split into separate "Music" and Film & Television" categories, The series saw the introduction of a new presenter - radio personality Jeremy Vine, while Dermot began presenting a spin-off series titled Are You an Egghead?, a tournament where professional quizzersnote , would determine themselves if they would become the next addition to the Eggheads. The series aired from 2008 to 2009, with Barry Simmons and Pat Gibson (another jackpot winner from Millionaire) winning each season and joining the Eggheads. With the addition of Barry, the rotation of Eggheads would alternate in every episode from then on. Dermot and Jeremy would begin alternating their presenting duties on the show. In December 2008, a Celebrity spin-off series began airing, the rather unimaginatively titled Celebrity Eggheads. The series is not in line with the main civilian version and has its own rolling jackpot. Some versions of this have had a slightly different format, such as a longer final. In October 2012, C.J. de Mooi left the series to pursue other roles and was replaced with "Tremendous Knowledge" Dave Rainford, who had previously competed in both series of Are You an Egghead?.
In 2014, a spin-off series fronted by Jeremy Vine - Revenge of the Egghead aired on BBC Two, featuring ex-Egghead C.J. de Mooi playing a role similar to that of the chasers of The Chase. In the main series, Dermot silently left his presenting role and Jeremy became the show's full-time host from then on. That year saw the retirement of Daphne Fowler, who was replaced with the returning C.J., and the addition of a new Egghead - Lisa Thiel, who had been part of a winning team on Revenge.
In 2016, after C.J. left for a second time, another spin-off series, Make Me an Egghead aired on BBC Two, which functioned similarly to Are You an Egghead?, except this time a male and a female Egghead would be chosen to be added to the series. The winners of the series would be Steve Cooke and Beth Webster. Dave Rainford would soon retire from the series in 2018 due to an illness that would cause his unfortunate passing in 2020.
In 2020, the show entered an extended hiatus due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, with Jeremy Vine citing that the show would return at some point. This was soon confirmed in March 2021 on Vine's self-titled talk show, where the series would not return on the BBC, but rather Channel 5. The revived series premiered in October 2021. The revival saw the addition of a brand new Egghead - Olav Bjortomt (an accomplished quizzer and question writer on such shows as University Challenge and The Chase). In the first series of the revival, Chris Hughes was absent, although Lisa Thiel implied that he would return, which he did so the following season. The format gained a change as well, with a new glossier set and the fact that now four Eggheads and Challengers appeared instead of five each, with three question sets before General Knowledge, due to Channel 5's status as a commercial network which would have meant that the show would have been longer if the original format was kept. The spaces between the contestants are also vaster than in the original (this is likely due to it being filmed during COVID-19 restrictions). The Celebrity editions are now part of the regular series rather than being their own. After Season 24 premiered in October 2022, Judith Keppel retired from the series, which leaves Kevin and Chris as the only surviving original Eggheads that are still on the show.
Tropes present:
- The Ace: All of the Eggheads, of course, fit this, but particularly Kevin and Pat. Notably, Kevin's strength on History is such that it took him the best part of a decade to get a single question on History wrong, let alone lose in that category's round.
- Celebrity Edition: Like many other similar shows, there have been many of these.
- Progressive Jackpot: The prize starts at £1,000. If a team fails to win then it rolls over by £1,000 for the next episode. The record jackpot win is £75,000.
- Running Gag:
- Judith, Chris and to a lesser extent CJ being bad on Sport and openly dreading the prospect of being chosen for it.
- Lisa being bad on questions relating to Australia, despite having Australian heritage.
- Judith having certain 'rules' that often seem to work. Amongst these are the 'magic right' (choosing the right hand answer as a guess) and choosing the Pacific Ocean if it's an option (this is probably less of a gag than a half decent bit of quizzing advice).
- Chris' (a former train driver) enthusiasm for anything railway-related.
- Tiebreaker Round: When the scores are tied after the standard set of multiple choice questions, questions with no on-screen choices are asked until a victor is found. It may be the case that, in filming, many rounds have gone on for a significant amount of time, but (due to broadcast timing limits) have been cut down to size when broadcast.
