A bit premature for this to be considered a classic, perhaps, but certainly, quite literally, worthy of the description Game of the Week! The game between Stephen Briggs and James Aukett is a good example of a match where it looks as though the winner can be quite confidently predicted by the end of Part One, only for the other contestant to make a comeback in the second half.
The game started evenly enough with both contestants scoring 7 with INFUSED, but after having GIRATES disallowed in Round 2 and losing out to James' MOULDER in Round 3, Stephen had slipped 14 points behind by the start of the first numbers game. Both contestants missed out on the American CIGARETS in round 2 (do they really spell it like that!?), as the 'Mighty' Richard Samson pointed out. Round 4 was not the simplest of numbers games (although far from the hardest either), and by the break, James had a seemingly unassailable lead of 24 points, and must have been feeling reasonably confident about his chances, but this is Countdown, and anything is possible...
Some nuggets from 'Tomorrow's World' presenter Anya Sitaram and a few commercials later, Round 5 began, and so did Stephen's comeback - he got 7 points for LETTING, while James could only manage 6 with EATING. The 17 point gap did remain until the end of the letters games however, with both contestants scoring BLINKERS in Round 6 and six points apiece in Round 7. And so we come to Round 8... No funny business from champion Stephen, as he selected the standard "one from the top row, and five from anywhere else", but the target was not an easy one. Even Carol failed to get it spot-on, but Mr Briggs was the closer of the two, and we went into the conundrum with the score at 35-45, so it was still anyone's game!
After two seconds, Stephen correctly unscrambled ATINYPATH, and the scores were level at 45 apiece. An extra conundrum was called for, GLENQUAIL was revealed, which James spotted in just over three seconds. He was the new champion, and punched the air in delight (not that it impressed all the readers of the Channel 4 Reach Forum very much though!). James only one won more game, but it was a tight one (he lost 50-51) with a tough conundrum, and at least he'd done enough to get the teapot!
Stephen James
Rd Selection Briggs Score Aukett
-- ------------------------ ----------- --- --- -----------
1 DCNDUEISF INFUSED 7 7 INFUSED
2 CESRAGTIJ GIRATES x 7 14 CAGIEST
3 LMROAUDWE MORALE 7 21 MOULDER
4 175 (3,2,7,7,10,6) 176 7 31 175
5 LITYATNEG LETTING 14 31 EATING
6 BRNOIELKS BLINKERS 22 39 BLINKERS
7 PUMVAQWER QUAVER 28 45 REVAMP
8 759 (50,8,10,8,4,3) 760 35 45 752
9 ATINYPATH (ANTIPATHY) 2.00s 45 45
GLENQUAIL (EQUALLING) 45 55 3.50s