Would Edinburgh’s mascots, described by quizmaster Amol Rajan as “very strange little frogs”, be enough of a good luck charm against a miniature bust of the English naturalist in a rainbow-coloured bobble hat?
Representing Edinburgh were David Aiton from Glasgow, reading maths; Jess Mellor, west Yorkshire, history; Greg Myles, captain, from Monifieth, near Dundee, studying for a PhD in biomedical engineering; and Caitlin Self, from Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, politics.
Turning out for Darwin were Rebecca McLelland from Essex, studying for a PhD in optical microscopy; Sophie Willis, Derby, PhD in pathology; Harrison Whitaker, captain, from Terre Haute, Indiana, PhD in film; and Rowan Stewart, Edinburgh, linguistics.
In the first round of the competition, Edinburgh started strong then fell away. Darwin, in contrast, had been slow to warm up but sprinted to the finish courtesy of captain Whitaker.
It was Whitaker, the moustachioed man from Indiana, who was first to score this time with a starter on the Musée Carnavalet in Paris.
But his eagerness earned a reprimand in the next starter round when he buzzed and answered a question without waiting for Roger “The Voice” Tilling to introduce him. “We’ll take it this time,” said Rajan, showing mercy.
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Edinburgh got off to the worst possible start when Aiton buzzed with the wrong answer and lost five points. Given the team had yet to score, viewers were treated to the rare sight of a minus sign on the board.
Mellor (Edinburgh) took Edinburg’s score out of the red with an answer on the Oxford English Dictionary. At the eight-minute mark Darwin had 40 points to Edinburgh’s 15.
A last-minute change of answer by Aiton was praised as a “nice save” by his captain and Rajan. But this good fortune was followed by the Edinburgh captain answering Dorothy Hodgkins instead of Hodgkin to a question on women chemists.
“I have to take the answer you gave,” said Rajan, denying Edinburgh the points. The four fought the setback with a barrage of correct answers, bringing the score to 90 for Darwin and 80 for Edinburgh.
A pattern established itself, with Edinburgh catching up only for Darwin to pull ahead again. As the seconds fell away a last rally by Edinburgh, aided by Rajan’s impressive speed reading of the questions, looked promising. Fate had other ideas.
At the gong the final score was Darwin 155, Edinburgh 125.
Edinburgh were first to applaud the victors, with Darwin returning the compliment.
“It was so good of you guys to applaud each other because that was an extremely tense game,” said Rajan.
Addressing Edinburgh, he added: “Until about two minutes from the end I thought you were going to pull off the most amazing comeback. But it just wasn’t to be.”
With Darwin victorious it was left to Edinburgh to go the way of the dodo, from this series anyway.