University Challenge S53E35 - Imperial vs. Trinity, Cambridge

Hi all, this is Ryan, the captain of the Trinity College team. Since this is our final appearance, I just wanted to say a “few” words to wrap up this journey. Firstly, I just want to say thank you for all your support and kind comments on here and elsewhere. It’s been great to see so many people become fans of the Trinity team and cheer us on through the competition. We very much enjoyed reading through all your comments and loved seeing you talk about all the small things we did from the way we all turned to Sarah for the music questions to us going to shake our opponent’s hands at the end. So once again, thank you. In terms of this specific match, this was probably my worst match. It was bound to happen, when you’re up against such strong players or the questions don’t fall your way. I had my first incorrect interruption, and also my first match where I didn’t get any starters - but at least I got to tick those off the UC bingo. I definitely should have been quicker on “atom economy” and “pyrophoric” given that my PhD is in organic chemistry!! I really didn’t want to buzz incorrectly and ended up getting out-buzzed instead. Then, after the frustration of getting outbuzzed all game, I buzzed a fraction too early with the cortisol/adrenaline question, and I fumbled it at the end. Ultimately, though, Imperial just were the stronger team, and it was a privilege to go up against them. Going into the match we knew we would need all the stars to align for us to win, such was the reputation of the Imperial team. Reflecting on my time on this show, I have to say it’s been one of the most unique and oftentimes surreal experiences, and I’ve had such a great time with the best teammates/friends a captain could have asked for in Sarah, Agnijo, and Jeremi. Our games have mostly been scintillating affairs and we of course loved being known as the team with the flair for the dramatic. Personal highlights for me include the caramel buzz in the Warwick game, just due to the timing and importance of that answer and any of the other non-science questions I managed to squeeze out like renegade or Prague, as well as some of the answers I had no right in getting (Cairo Station!!). A particularly fond memory is from the Birkbeck game when I could not identify the South Korean city, ended up swearing, and the good laugh we had about that in the studio, during and after the filming. We’ve had a tremendously enjoyable run, and we can only hope that we have played some part in brightening up your Monday evenings. We’ll gladly take the 7 episodes - people were probably getting tired of hearing our same introduction by now!! I guess you usually end up rooting for the team that beat you to win the competition, but we’ve already lost to all the other semi-finalists (has this happened before?!) - so, whatever happens, we can confidently say that we lost to the overall winners. Still, we will be rooting for Manchester since we all ended up being good friends after the first episode and practised together for all our subsequent games. It’s a shame because we so wanted to meet again in the finals for the perfect full circle. I don’t know if they will read this here, but I don’t have anywhere else to post this. I wanted to extend a massive thank you to Amol, Roger, Clare, Richard, Muaaz, and all the others involved in making this show happen. I can only imagine how much work it takes, especially with students who have no TV experience, to produce such a colossal show - and they did everything they could to accommodate us and make us feel comfortable. Now I can go back to following the series just like everyone else again, albeit with the insider knowledge of how it all works. Maybe, when I get nostalgic, I’ll come back and revisit these episodes to relive the glory days…. so keep the comments coming😅 RJDK

This is Justin from the Imperial team. Thanks to Cosmic Pumpkin for uploading so promptly, and thank you to all of you viewers as well. This was a fiercely anticipated game by many, but especially for me. Trinity comprises of three people I’ve known in previous quizzing encounters, as well as their captain, a much better organic chemist than I can hope to become. They were some of the nicest people I’ve met, and it’s an honour to play them. They’re also my favourite team to watch, and some of my family members share this opinion! I spent the latter half of the day before filming doing my typical preparations: browsing Wikipedia for random bits of history (fun) and memorising the names and structures of all 20 essential amino acids (less fun), but overall the stress of the competition didn’t really kick in until the buzzers were in front of us. A part of our victory stems from luck - we got lucky with our bonuses, and I would have completely blanked on Mariannes. Six years ago I haven’t even heard of the show, so the way to the final has been a most entertaining journey for me and the team as a whole. (As well for Trinity, having taken the winding path up here!) Have a nice Easter break, and see you in two weeks!

Lee the rightful successor to Imperial’s Max Zheng

This is Agnijo here. I knew from even before the series started that this match would be an incredibly tough one, since I had played many quiz tournaments against an Imperial team containing Justin and Adam and at that point they seemed almost invincible. But even so, I’m very glad I managed to get several nice buzzes against them, and I definitely think Trinity have had a good run. It felt like this time it was clear that Imperial were the stronger team without a doubt, so good luck to them in the finals! Quite often I felt like I didn’t have time to even understand the question before someone (usually Justin) buzzed in first, so I guess I just had to think as quickly as possible as soon as I recognised something. I had only heard of a camera lucida from a KZhead ad. There were a few buzzes I might have been able to get (I was meant to know Shakespeare but in the moment my mind went blank and I couldn’t remember any Twelfth Night characters other than Viola and Malvolio, and I had heard of C. P. Snow’s Two Cultures but couldn’t remember its name in time) but even so, with how strong Imperial were, it wouldn’t have been nearly enough to win, at least with this question set (and even with any other, this would still have been an extremely difficult match). The bonuses were unfortunate (they definitely did get harder but I think we would have done much better on some of Imperial’s bonuses than on our own). Being on UC has been a childhood dream of mine ever since I started watching with my family. It’s been a wonderful experience, and I’m glad I could share it with Sarah, Ryan, Jeremi, and our reserve Will! And of course to all of our opponent teams, who have all also been very nice (and, more often than not, given us incredibly close matches). Again, a massive thank you to Amol, Roger, and everyone else who worked behind the scenes to make this show possible. And also, a massive thank you to Cosmic Pumpkin for uploading this so people around the world can enjoy!

henderson here! adding my own not-so-brief few words in supplement to Ryan’s: it’s been a crazy few months watching all our episodes get broadcast, but we’ve finally come to the end of the road - huge congrats to imperial on a super game today and a fantastic run all series!! not my best performance today, got unlucky with the classical music content that came up (though i have no excuse for not getting chopin…), but hopefully have proved myself sufficiently on that front earlier in the series! in any case, imperial simply were the better team and even if everything had gone our way we would have had a very tough time beating them. thanks so much to my wonderful teammates Ryan, Agnijo & Jeremi who made this whole experience so fun and enjoyable - could not have picked a lovelier team to quiz with. thank you also to the wonderful teams we have played along the way (and best of luck to Imperial, UCL & Manchester for their remaining matches!), and to Amol, Roger and everyone behind the scenes at the studio without whom none of this could’ve happened. finally, thanks to everyone who has been watching & supporting us along the way! i hope you’ve loved it as much as we did :)

Banerjee's smile will be missed .😔

Imperial and an Asian prodigy on the far left side of the bench, name a more iconic duo

Imperial Lee is an actual machine. The team could have gone out for a cigarette and left Lee to go solo.

Everyone be talking about Banerjee's childlike smile but don't miss Debnath's grin when Bengali five spice for the bonus round was introduced 😂

Not only the British watch this episode, but people from Hong Kong, Canada, India, Korea and Poland also enjoy it. 👏👏👏

HoLee moly! Lee looks unstoppable on buzzers once he gets going. The entire Imperial team is so strong on their topics.

I have dreaded this match. My two favorite teams :(

And Adios to the Happiest Boy ever on UC.

The losing team got some very obscure questions I thought. Sad to see them go but the winners were good. Thank you CP.

"Sounds like Toronto!"🍁Go Hong Kong and Canada, Imperial Lee!

Shout out to Trinity for being such an entertaining team to follow along the way. Solid run, nothing to be ashamed of losing at this point in the competition.

I liked especially that Imperial did not dawdle - some teams have a habit of trying to run out the clock once they have a good lead. Thanks CP - I look forward to Monday nights as one of the markers of the week.

It just wasn’t Trinity’s night tonight, except for Banerjee, who really came into his own! It has been fun watching them, and they were my favorite team. All credit to Imperial though, they were amazing and Lee was unstoppable!! Haddad is an excellent captain, and everyone contributed right answers with almost no guessing. They are my favorites to win now. It’s sad to see any team go at this point, but it has been a very exciting season so far. 😅

Imperial LEE is wise and fast, JONES is confident and calm, DEBNATH smiles are cute and lovely. Enjoy watching you❤❤❤

Brilliant - a real nail-biter of a performance. I just love how with great ease Mr Lee answers questions almost rapid fire. Both teams are brilliant, but Imperial are simply outstanding. Well done to all.

Great match. Imperial has managed to maintain a 200+ average throughout. This level of playing at this stage is phenomenal. And, everyone in the team contributed some cracking answers. Looking forward to the finals now.

MATCH STATS BELOW *Imperial: 240* *Trinity College - Cambridge: 110* *Starter Questions Stats* IMPERIAL: 115 Lee = 8/13 {80 minus 10} Jones = 3/4 {30} Haddad = 1/3 {10 minus 5} Debnath = 1/1 {10} Starter Success Rate: 61.90% TRINITY COLLEGE - CAMBRIDGE: 85 Henderson = 0/1 {0} Banerjee = 6/7 {60} Kang = 0/2 {-5} Jaksina = 3/3 {30} Starter Success: 69.23% *Bonus Questions Stats* IMPERIAL: 125 Bonus Success Rate: 64.10% (25/39) TRINITY COLLEGE - CAMBRIDGE: 25 Bonus Success Rate: 20.83% (5/24)

Lee was on fire 🔥. But that definitely doesn't hide the fact that Imperial are a great team. At 18:25 all 3 bonuses were given by 3 didferent teammates. This shows their team dynamics and how they are all ready to support each other. For Trinity I think Banerjee was the lone warrior. But I will definitely miss their sportsmanship at the end of the matches.

Thanks, Cosmic P, as always! Well, great match from Imperial. Speed on the buzzer made the difference in this match and is reflected in the score differential. It's interesting to note that 3 of the 4 from Imperial are from abroad and in this match 5 of the 8 appearing were! Good representatives of their earlier education!

Was very proud of how Trinity handled the last two weeks, you win with class and you lose with class.

KHACHATURIAN!! I screamed at the top of my lungs 😅 Greetings from Armenia 🇦🇲

Would have been sad for whoever lost this one, both great teams to watch Imperial were super slick though, Haddad is a great captain, and Lee is a bank of knowledge

How does Lee do it? He seems to know so much! Imagine if he and Zeng were on the same team, they would pretty much guarantee the team would take the title.

Extraordinary UC performance: Lee's general knowledge is pretty hot but his geographic knowledge is phenominal. But the final score really didn't reflect the minimal difference between these two remarkable teams, rather, that inevitable luck in being faster and the right place at the right time for amenable questions!

That winning score is insane for a semifinal 🤯🔥 Thanks CosmicPumpkin for the upload!

what's just happened in this episode, imperial is on fire I love it! I love both teams they're all amazing I like it when Suraiya and Debnath smile (when it comes to spices) and also when they smile at Banarjee it's a great episode thank you cosmic pumpkin

Thanks again, CosmicPumpkin! The winning team looks unstoppable at this point. To go from a deficit to complete domination aginst a very good team is just utterly amazing. You could run out of superlatives describing this team...and they're not done yet/ One more game to go. They have to be considered the clear favorites at this point. My best to both teams, and to each individual.

Lee is unstoppable. I had the privilege to play with him in a team in quizbowl.

Trinity have been my favourite team this year. I'm glad to see that when they did eventually go out, they did so nobly with a decent score, simply beaten by a better team. Imperial look unstoppable.

Thank you CP - what an outstanding match from both teams. I'm so grateful to you for posting this every week - it's a wonderful Monday night treat!

As an Asian, I can't imagine being Lee’s neighbor and being compared to by my parents 😅😬

Sad to see Henderson go!... As usual, someone is always shouting an answer, somewhere (lol), in my case: CORTISOL!!!!!!, but, of course, the only reason is because I'm a veterinarian =P

Thanks very much, Cosmic Pumpkin. Both teams have had a good run and it's a shame one of them can't go on through. Sometimes it comes down to getting the right questions as much as getting right answers. An experience many of might relate to when we thought we had prepared for a major exam. That said, it looks like it would have been difficult to find very many "wrong questions" for Mr Lee.

CosmicPumpkin, thank you so much for posting the programs for all of us non-UK people to enjoy.

I'll miss the Banergee's big smile. I can't believe the Imperial London is an unbelievably a strong team. 😞

Lee could have taken this on his own. Historic Performance.

Canadian Content at 8:29 -- but East York isn't a neighbourhood, it's a whole borough.

Thanks for the upload

Proud as a part of Imperial! ❤

It was time for them to go but I'll miss Banerjee! What a likeable fellow, glad he did well in this episode

Lee: the 'star' in starters.

Imperial has been the toughest draw from the get-go and given the caliber of human speed in terms of buzzing, they are very quick to buzz before their opponents can have a chance to do so. A match up against this team would mean an almost certain defeat.

Thanks for the upload ✌️🖖🙏

Dear cosmic pumpkin, thank you for letting me and my dad watch university challenge on KZhead because we can not access it. You really make us laugh and intrigue us 😊 thank you 🙏

What a match. Gutted to see the losing team leave, but I doubt anyone stood a better chance. Also wow, weird trolls are still doing their thing out here huh? Some way to spend the gift of time on earth. It’s a full moon out there, and there’s a lot of little joys in the world amidst the /gestures vaguely/ I hope you find little joys in your day today. Look after each other! Even if it’s in the comments of a KZhead video.

Lee is a monster, wow

Congratulations Impreial on winning UC for the 5th time

The most recent opera I've seen was in Istanbul where Rossini's Maometto II (2nd) was performed. The plot concerns the conquering of Constantinople (the only possible reason they would bother staging this turgid work). Once again opera gets me quiz points even when it's not opera. As for the classical music starter... Janacek...that was hard even for classical music fans, not at all a well known piece.

We're at the point in the series where I'm really rooting for both teams! They both have such incredible personality and have been stunning in the competition. That said, one of these teams is among the strongest I've ever seen... We'll see if my prediction comes true...

I loved the Trinity team, but they eliminated Birkbeck Mcmillan, and now they have to pay the price.

Imperial LEE, Justin is a super talent 💯💯💯

From the Day 1 I expect this team to win the Uni Challenge (the team who won this semifinal). They're building a legacy for winning this challenge, you know!

As an ex-Imperial I'm so proud of the team. Lee is phenomenal 😊

That was nice and zippy in terms of speed; the last three matches I think had slacked off in terms of pace - we got through 22 correctly answered starters for 10 today which is nice. For Trinity it was the unfortunate adage 'one, two, three strikes you're out'; just didn't happen today for them with a very low 5/25 on the bonuses. Very impressive though from Imperial; Mr. Lee did do the heavy lifting but it was nice that they all got at least one starter, and 25/39 on the bonuses was a great conversion too. 1175 is almost exactly what the 2019-20 team had after five games; can they follow in their footsteps (and the 2021-22 team as well)? We'll just have to see.

At 18:04 you can see both Henderson and Kang getting outbuzzed! Ahh, very sad to see such a fun team go… But many congratulations to Imperial, they truly are the team to beat

As a kiwi and someone who has lived in Bougainville there were a few rounds knew all the answers to. (Very rare for me at this stage haha)

Thank you sir

debnath's mum is gonna kill him for getting the second one wrong on the bengali spice mix questions 😂

Wow Lee!

Just curious, does anyone know if there has been any great quizzers on music in previous years? For this series, the one that stands out to me is Henderson (despite her missing some of the music bonuses in this match).

Interview with the Trinity, Cambridge team _and_ Imperial’s Justin Lee on “UNUSUAL PRACTICES - Quizzy Monday 25th March 2024” starting at about 17 minutes in.

I was practically shouting the answer to the gymnastics question as a gym fan - that was painful for me to see 😔

As always, I'll start with thanks to CP for the upload. As for the game - holy rummoli! Lee was a one-person wrecking ball. Amazing. Trinity just ran into a brick wall, which can happen to any of us on any day. (I'm a one-time Jeopardy winner - the first half if my second show was a catastrophe from which I couldn't quite recover, so i kinda know what it's like.) Very much looking forward to the last couple of shows. It's been a terrifically enjoyable season.

Mr Lee soundly beat Trinity! What is his specialist subject? He seems to have a very wide knowledge.

Two Banerjee thumbnails in a row!

When they didn't get Sonic Youth, I knew it was over.

Will miss Banergee's big smile

Excellent performance by Imperial..Lee very much making it his game. Trinity seemed to have lost their former spark. Congrats to everybody for getting so far in the competition..no mean feat. Thanks CP!

MATCH STATISTICS AND COMMENTS BELOW S53/E35 Note: individual team member stats are towards the bottom. 22 rounds (21 rounds completed; the game ended as the first bonus question in the 22nd round was being asked) 26 starter questions (22 answered correctly + 4 additional starter questions on the occasions when neither side answered a starter question correctly) 63 bonus questions (21 rounds x 3; no bonus questions in the 22nd round) 89 questions in total (26 starter + 63 bonus) 575 points available in total (26 x10, plus 63 x 5) 60.9% of the 575 points available were scored ((240 + 110)/575) Imperial 41.7% of the total points available (240/575); Starters 13/26; Bonuses 25/39 (64.1%); Penalties x3 Trinity 19.1% of the total points available (110/575); Starters 9/26; Bonuses 5/24 (20.8%); Penalties x1 IMPERIAL 240 POINTS (starters 115 points + bonuses 125 points) STARTERS 115 points Haddad (Capt.) 1/3 less penalties x1 = 5 points Lee 8/11 less penalties x2 = 70 points Jones 3/4 = 30 points Debnath 1/1 = 10 points TRINITY, CAMBRIDGE 110 POINTS (starters 85 points + bonuses 25 points) STARTERS 85 points Kang (Capt.) 0/2 less penalties x1 = Minus 5 points Henderson 0/1 = 0 points Banerjee 6/7 = 60 points Jaksina 3/3 = 30 points Two very nice - and extremely talented - teams. My heart was warmed by the way that the two teams greeted each other at the end of the match. Can anybody stop the Lee-Jones juggernaut?

Imperial looking pretty.. imperial. One day we may need them to save the world.

I had been expecting a strong showing from Imperial but their performance tonight completely torpedoed Trinity out of the water. Good luck to their opposition in the final.

Jeremy would never have told us the final answer.

Heartbreaking to see Trinity leave, but Imperial's performance was next level.

Lee is great as usual but Debnath and Jones are no slouches either. Overall, they seem to be the frontrunner to win it all.

TORONTO!!!

Jones reminds me of Wil Arnett

Lee is worth his weight in gold, grabbing so many starter questions.

So sad, I thought Trinity would win the whole thing.

My two favourite teams!!! Oh no!

Haddad v Sawh in the Final.

Imperial Lee is on the Buzzer = Everyone else might just go home already. 😃 What a GREAT game!!

Hugs from Haddad - so warm and friendly. She'll be a great physician I'm sure.

Jones' answers cant be translated because he is the softest spoken🥺😂

IMPERIAL LEEEEEEEEEE!

jesus christ lee single handedly crushed this one

Lee, son of Zeng, son of Brandon.

Yeremee Yaksheena more quiet than usual

The questions seem to have lost their charm in the last 2-3 years, there used to be a great deal more art and humour in their construction

Lee's knowledge of historical arcana is just phenomenal

Please slow down when asking questions, and speak more clearly.

Imperial are better looking and have much better hair!

"The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth: for kings are not only God's Lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called Gods." King James I "It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do: good Christians content themselves with His will revealed in His Word." King James I

If that Haddad girl answers two.. JUST TWO questions correctly in the final, I'm gonna ask her to marry me..

It seems our universities are educating the rest of the world.

How can someone so mediocre in chemistry pursue a PhD in organic chemistry anywhere? Let alone at Cambridge? I thought they had some standards…