WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 You know that feeling when you are just absolutely 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:05.960 100 % certain you're right. Maybe you're at a 00:00:05.960 --> 00:00:08.000 pub quiz or in some debate and you just know 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:10.619 it. You slam the answer down. Yeah. And then 00:00:10.619 --> 00:00:13.859 just silence. The awkward silence. Exactly. The 00:00:13.859 --> 00:00:16.210 one where everyone sort of looks at you. And 00:00:16.210 --> 00:00:18.429 it turns out you weren't just wrong. You were 00:00:18.429 --> 00:00:21.149 like spectacularly, embarrassingly wrong. Not 00:00:21.149 --> 00:00:23.230 even in the right ballpark. Not even on the same 00:00:23.230 --> 00:00:26.750 planet. And that specific feeling, that difference 00:00:26.750 --> 00:00:29.250 between a simple mistake and a complete break 00:00:29.250 --> 00:00:32.130 from logic is the engine behind the show we're 00:00:32.130 --> 00:00:34.350 diving into today. It's a British quiz show called 00:00:34.350 --> 00:00:36.670 Impossible. Or if you want to get technical with 00:00:36.670 --> 00:00:39.329 the onscreen graphic, it's .impossible with the 00:00:39.329 --> 00:00:41.579 exclamation point at the front. Right. It ran 00:00:41.579 --> 00:00:44.659 on the BBC from 2017 to 2021, hosted by Rick 00:00:44.659 --> 00:00:46.880 Edwards. And looking at the research we've got 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:49.560 here, this thing is not just a trivia show. It 00:00:49.560 --> 00:00:52.159 honestly feels more like a psychological test. 00:00:52.479 --> 00:00:54.640 That's the perfect way to put it. Our mission 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:57.240 for this deep dive is to really unpack the mechanics 00:00:57.240 --> 00:00:59.820 of this show because they did something genuinely 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:02.659 new with the whole idea of a wrong answer. I 00:01:02.659 --> 00:01:04.700 mean, in most game shows, it's binary, right? 00:01:04.780 --> 00:01:06.379 There's a right answer, there's a wrong one. 00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:08.739 You get the point or you don't. But Impossible 00:01:08.739 --> 00:01:12.109 introduces this. this third category it really 00:01:12.109 --> 00:01:14.230 complicates things yeah and it makes for some 00:01:14.230 --> 00:01:17.230 incredibly tense tv so let's just jump right 00:01:17.230 --> 00:01:19.290 into that core concept because everything else 00:01:19.290 --> 00:01:22.329 sort of hangs on it in a normal quiz you've got 00:01:22.329 --> 00:01:24.709 the correct answer and you've got distractors 00:01:24.709 --> 00:01:28.010 which are designed to you know look right right 00:01:28.010 --> 00:01:30.849 they're plausible if the question is who was 00:01:30.849 --> 00:01:34.400 the second u .s president The options might be 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:37.200 John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin. 00:01:37.459 --> 00:01:39.939 Well, Jefferson and Franklin are wrong, but they 00:01:39.939 --> 00:01:42.239 feel right. They're founding fathers. They fit 00:01:42.239 --> 00:01:44.439 the category. But impossible just throws that 00:01:44.439 --> 00:01:46.760 whole rule book out. Completely. So in this game, 00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:49.920 nearly every multiple choice question gives you 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:51.560 three flavors of answer. You've got the correct 00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:53.840 answer, obviously. Then you have the wrong answer, 00:01:53.959 --> 00:01:55.980 which is that plausible but incorrect option. 00:01:56.239 --> 00:01:58.819 And then you have the impossible answer. And 00:01:58.819 --> 00:02:01.019 this is where your brain has to do a double take. 00:02:01.420 --> 00:02:04.099 The notes have this fantastic example about Scottish 00:02:04.099 --> 00:02:06.280 geography that just nails it. I think we should 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:08.000 just walk through it. Yeah, it's the clearest 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:12.039 way to get it. So imagine the question is, which 00:02:12.039 --> 00:02:15.060 city in Scotland is its capital? Okay, got it. 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:18.520 Option A is Edinburgh. That's the correct answer. 00:02:18.659 --> 00:02:21.719 Easy peasy. We get the point. Option B is Glasgow. 00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:25.039 Now think about Glasgow. It's in Scotland. It's 00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:28.060 a huge, famous city. A lot of people might even 00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:30.819 guess it's the capital, but it's not. So it's 00:02:30.819 --> 00:02:33.819 wrong. It's factually incorrect, but it's logically 00:02:33.819 --> 00:02:36.099 consistent. It's a forgivable mistake. It's in 00:02:36.099 --> 00:02:38.620 the right set of Scottish cities. Precisely. 00:02:38.620 --> 00:02:41.460 But then you get option C, Swansea. Which is 00:02:41.460 --> 00:02:44.860 not in Scotland. No, Swansea is in Wales. So 00:02:44.860 --> 00:02:47.689 it is geographically in... you know, logically 00:02:47.689 --> 00:02:49.990 impossible for a city in Wales to be the capital 00:02:49.990 --> 00:02:51.330 of Scotland. It doesn't matter how famous it 00:02:51.330 --> 00:02:53.530 is. It's in the wrong category entirely. That's 00:02:53.530 --> 00:02:55.550 the impossible answer. See, that's what's so 00:02:55.550 --> 00:02:57.870 interesting. It forces a totally different kind 00:02:57.870 --> 00:03:00.389 of thinking. Usually you're just hunting for 00:03:00.389 --> 00:03:02.550 the truth for Edinburgh. Here you have to run 00:03:02.550 --> 00:03:04.610 this background check for absurdity at the same 00:03:04.610 --> 00:03:06.669 time. They're using negative knowledge. You're 00:03:06.669 --> 00:03:09.490 not just asking what's true. You're also asking 00:03:09.490 --> 00:03:12.530 what can't be true. And that is the absolute 00:03:12.530 --> 00:03:15.250 core of the show, because the penalties for mixing 00:03:15.250 --> 00:03:19.909 up wrong, and impossible are, well, they're worlds 00:03:19.909 --> 00:03:22.090 apart. Let's get into that gameplay then. It 00:03:22.090 --> 00:03:24.610 all starts with this massive pool of contestants, 00:03:24.710 --> 00:03:27.569 right? Huge. In the early series, you had 30 00:03:27.569 --> 00:03:30.110 people in the studio. It looked more like a university 00:03:30.110 --> 00:03:32.849 lecture hall. They're all competing in this qualifier 00:03:32.849 --> 00:03:35.210 round just to get a shot at the main game. And 00:03:35.210 --> 00:03:37.189 this is just five quick questions. Five multiple 00:03:37.189 --> 00:03:39.810 choice questions, yeah. Everyone plays. And here's 00:03:39.810 --> 00:03:41.689 where the impossible mechanic draws first blood. 00:03:42.229 --> 00:03:44.270 If you pick the correct answer, you get a point. 00:03:45.229 --> 00:03:49.370 If you pick the wrong answer, nothing. Nothing 00:03:49.370 --> 00:03:51.509 happens. No penalty. Right. You just don't score. 00:03:51.810 --> 00:03:54.449 It's a safe way to fail. But if you pick the 00:03:54.449 --> 00:03:56.569 impossible answer. You're out. You are immediately 00:03:56.569 --> 00:03:58.849 eliminated from the game for the whole episode. 00:03:58.909 --> 00:04:01.370 You're done. Wow, that is brutal for a first 00:04:01.370 --> 00:04:03.270 round. You could just slip up, hit the wrong 00:04:03.270 --> 00:04:05.710 button, and you're gone. Or just have a momentary 00:04:05.710 --> 00:04:08.689 brain freeze. And failing to answer also counts 00:04:08.689 --> 00:04:11.509 as impossible. So if you hesitate for too long, 00:04:11.669 --> 00:04:15.849 gone. It's a filter. You know, designed to get 00:04:15.849 --> 00:04:17.750 rid of anyone who isn't thinking critically under 00:04:17.750 --> 00:04:20.189 pressure. So it's survival of the most logical. 00:04:20.550 --> 00:04:23.490 It is. And since you have so many people, there 00:04:23.490 --> 00:04:26.610 are always ties. The tiebreaker is speed. So 00:04:26.610 --> 00:04:28.889 you have to know instantly that Swansea's absurd 00:04:28.889 --> 00:04:32.009 and lock in your answer. No time to second guess. 00:04:32.250 --> 00:04:34.709 Okay, so let's say you survived the purge. You're 00:04:34.709 --> 00:04:37.069 the top scorer. You come down to the main floor 00:04:37.069 --> 00:04:40.149 to face the grid. A grid, yeah. It's a massive 00:04:40.149 --> 00:04:43.310 wall of nine answers. And here, the whole strategy 00:04:43.310 --> 00:04:46.120 flips on its head. In the qualifier, you were 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:48.100 trying to avoid the impossible. Now you have 00:04:48.100 --> 00:04:49.759 to hunt them. Wait, you want to pick them now? 00:04:49.920 --> 00:04:53.120 Yes. The board has one correct answer, three 00:04:53.120 --> 00:04:56.339 wrong ones, and five impossible ones. The host 00:04:56.339 --> 00:04:58.300 reads only the first half of the question. Just 00:04:58.300 --> 00:05:00.779 a fragment. Just the premise. Something like, 00:05:00.920 --> 00:05:03.959 which of these are? And based on that alone, 00:05:04.300 --> 00:05:06.639 you have to find those five impossible answers. 00:05:07.079 --> 00:05:09.680 Each one you find adds 100 pounds to the pot. 00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:12.180 Ah, I see. So you're clearing the minefield. 00:05:12.220 --> 00:05:14.209 You're saying... I don't know the exact question 00:05:14.209 --> 00:05:16.529 yet, but I know for a fact that that answer makes 00:05:16.529 --> 00:05:18.970 no sense in this category. Exactly. It's category 00:05:18.970 --> 00:05:21.910 verification. If the prompt is, which of these 00:05:21.910 --> 00:05:24.449 are actors who played James Bond? And you see 00:05:24.449 --> 00:05:26.949 Mickey Mouse on the board, you hit that immediately. 00:05:27.089 --> 00:05:28.629 You're clearing out the noise. That actually 00:05:28.629 --> 00:05:31.230 sounds really satisfying. It is, but it's so 00:05:31.230 --> 00:05:34.189 risky. Because if you accidentally hit the correct 00:05:34.189 --> 00:05:37.189 answer or wrong one while trying to find the 00:05:37.189 --> 00:05:40.490 impossibles, your turn just ends. And here's 00:05:40.490 --> 00:05:42.310 the kicker. The runner up from the qualifier 00:05:42.310 --> 00:05:44.910 gets a chance to steal. So the person who came 00:05:44.910 --> 00:05:47.649 in second has to stay completely locked in. Oh, 00:05:47.670 --> 00:05:49.810 yeah. They're just sitting there hoping you mess 00:05:49.810 --> 00:05:52.069 up so they can take your spot. Yeah. Once the 00:05:52.069 --> 00:05:54.509 five impossible answers are gone, the host reads 00:05:54.509 --> 00:05:56.209 the rest of the question. And now the player 00:05:56.209 --> 00:05:58.370 has to find the one correct answer left. Yep. 00:05:58.529 --> 00:06:00.889 One correct, three wrong. Pick the right one 00:06:00.889 --> 00:06:03.009 and you move to the final. It's a lot of hoops 00:06:03.009 --> 00:06:05.509 to jump through. Which brings us to round two, 00:06:05.670 --> 00:06:09.129 the final. And if you thought the grid was stressful. 00:06:09.660 --> 00:06:12.920 This is where the game just goobing. It becomes 00:06:12.920 --> 00:06:16.439 a video game. This is the live system. I was 00:06:16.439 --> 00:06:17.899 reading about this and I don't think I've seen 00:06:17.899 --> 00:06:20.040 anything like it on another quiz show. It feels 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:22.259 like a fighting game. It's so unusual. You've 00:06:22.259 --> 00:06:24.920 got the three remaining contestants. They each 00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:27.980 start with 10 lives and they're on buzzers head 00:06:27.980 --> 00:06:30.560 to head. 10 lives sounds like a lot. It sounds 00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:33.100 like it, but they vanish. The scoring is vicious. 00:06:33.319 --> 00:06:37.240 If you buzz in and get an answer, correct. Both 00:06:37.240 --> 00:06:39.560 of your opponents lose a life. Oh, I love that. 00:06:39.620 --> 00:06:41.620 It's not about helping yourself. It's about hurting 00:06:41.620 --> 00:06:44.439 them. It's pure attack mode. But if you buzz 00:06:44.439 --> 00:06:46.560 in and give a wrong answer, you lose a life. 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:49.040 So you can't just guess wildly. But the real 00:06:49.040 --> 00:06:51.939 twist here, this is the crazy part. Up till now, 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:54.860 the answers could be impossible. In the final, 00:06:54.920 --> 00:06:57.420 the question itself can be impossible. This is 00:06:57.420 --> 00:06:59.279 the gaslighting round. Give us that example from 00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:01.360 the notes because it's so good. Okay, the example 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:05.339 is, which European city hosted the 1996 Summer 00:07:05.339 --> 00:07:07.800 Olympics? Okay, so my brain immediately goes 00:07:07.800 --> 00:07:11.600 1996 Olympics, Atlanta. Right, you've got the 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:13.920 fact. But then you have to run that second check. 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:17.420 Is Atlanta in Europe? Nope, it's in the U .S. 00:07:17.420 --> 00:07:20.180 So the question's premise is false. There is 00:07:20.180 --> 00:07:24.100 no European city that hosted in 1996. The question 00:07:24.100 --> 00:07:27.100 is impossible. So what do you do? You just shout, 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:30.100 impossible! At the host. You have to. You buzz 00:07:30.100 --> 00:07:32.699 in and you yell impossible. And it takes so much 00:07:32.699 --> 00:07:34.240 confidence to do that. You're basically accusing 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:36.720 the show of lying to you. You are. And the reward 00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:39.680 is huge. If you're right, both of your opponents 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:42.360 lose two lives. It's a double damage hit. But 00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:44.199 the risk must be massive. What if you're wrong? 00:07:44.459 --> 00:07:47.279 You lose two lives. And if you try to answer 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:49.839 an impossible question like it's real, so you 00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:53.170 panic and guess Paris. You also lose two lives. 00:07:53.329 --> 00:07:55.470 The paranoia must be immense. You can't just 00:07:55.470 --> 00:07:57.230 trust your own knowledge anymore. You have to 00:07:57.230 --> 00:07:59.930 validate the question itself first. You see them 00:07:59.930 --> 00:08:02.050 hesitate, their hand hovering over the buzzer. 00:08:02.050 --> 00:08:04.490 It totally changes the dynamic. And this goes 00:08:04.490 --> 00:08:07.050 on until only one player has any lives left. 00:08:07.410 --> 00:08:10.089 That person goes to the jackpot round. For the 00:08:10.089 --> 00:08:13.910 big 10 ,000 pound prize. And the set design here 00:08:13.910 --> 00:08:17.819 is great. It is. There's a giant physical exclamation 00:08:17.819 --> 00:08:21.500 mark on stage, and it's filled with 10 ,000 actual 00:08:21.500 --> 00:08:24.300 one -pound coins. Very on the nose. I like it. 00:08:24.339 --> 00:08:27.220 So how do you win it? It's one last grid, nine 00:08:27.220 --> 00:08:29.939 answers for a single category, and it's symmetrical. 00:08:30.500 --> 00:08:33.620 Three correct, three wrong, and three impossible. 00:08:33.700 --> 00:08:36.299 And the time limit is insane. Ten seconds. Ten 00:08:36.299 --> 00:08:38.639 seconds to read nine things and pick three. That 00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:41.480 is... That's almost impossible itself. It's frantic. 00:08:41.500 --> 00:08:44.159 You have to find the three correct answers. That's 00:08:44.159 --> 00:08:45.879 the only way to get the 10 grand. You lock them 00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:48.080 in, the hatch opens, the coins drop. It's a great 00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:49.919 moment. But what if you fail? This brings back 00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:52.600 that whole hierarchy of wrongness. It does. If 00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:56.000 you pick, say, two correct answers and one wrong, 00:08:56.120 --> 00:08:59.820 one plausible kind, you still win the daily prize 00:08:59.820 --> 00:09:02.860 pot, usually about 1 ,500 quid. So being wrong 00:09:02.860 --> 00:09:05.200 is forgiven. You still get a decent prize. Yes, 00:09:05.220 --> 00:09:08.509 but... If you pick even one single impossible 00:09:08.509 --> 00:09:10.570 answer. You get nothing. Absolutely nothing. 00:09:10.649 --> 00:09:12.990 You walk away with zero. Devastating. All that 00:09:12.990 --> 00:09:15.789 work. Just lose it all on one logical error. 00:09:16.029 --> 00:09:18.750 It's the ultimate punishment for not being precise. 00:09:19.669 --> 00:09:23.129 Now, the show ran for a while, 225 episodes. 00:09:23.850 --> 00:09:26.879 Did they tweak the format much? A few things 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:30.100 changed, mostly due to, you know, reality. We 00:09:30.100 --> 00:09:32.120 mentioned the 30 contestants at the start. To 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:34.820 the lecture hall. Well, by 2021, because of COVID, 00:09:35.019 --> 00:09:37.100 they had to cut that down to just 12 contestants 00:09:37.100 --> 00:09:40.039 to keep everyone distanced. Which totally changes 00:09:40.039 --> 00:09:42.799 your odds of winning. Massively. And they also 00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:45.639 stopped replacing contestants midweek. In the 00:09:45.639 --> 00:09:47.580 later series, if you got knocked out, your chair 00:09:47.580 --> 00:09:49.639 just stayed empty. Oh, that's kind of haunting. 00:09:50.220 --> 00:09:53.240 The ghosts of players past. Exactly. But it let 00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:55.299 you get to know the remaining players a bit better. 00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:57.120 And they did a celebrity version too, right? 00:09:57.179 --> 00:10:00.759 Impossible Celebrities. They did. 18 celebs playing 00:10:00.759 --> 00:10:03.340 for charity. And they actually made one rule 00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:06.460 meaner for them. Really? Yeah. In the final, 00:10:06.539 --> 00:10:09.080 if a celebrity gave an impossible answer, the 00:10:09.080 --> 00:10:11.539 daily prize pot for their charity was cut in 00:10:11.539 --> 00:10:14.139 half. Oh, wow. So your mistake literally costs 00:10:14.139 --> 00:10:16.000 the charity money. That's some serious pressure. 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:18.580 Can you imagine? The shame would be immense. 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:21.419 I also wanted to mention one really thoughtful 00:10:21.419 --> 00:10:24.000 detail from the notes about accessibility. Oh, 00:10:24.059 --> 00:10:26.600 for the visually impaired contestants, yes. It's 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:28.720 a show that relies so much on reading a grid 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:31.580 of text, but if a contestant was blind or had 00:10:31.580 --> 00:10:34.659 low vision, the host, Rick Edwards, would just 00:10:34.659 --> 00:10:37.860 read every answer out loud, one by one, and the 00:10:37.860 --> 00:10:39.559 player would just say yes or no. It's a simple 00:10:39.559 --> 00:10:41.700 change, but it's brilliant and makes sure the 00:10:41.700 --> 00:10:44.299 game is testing logic, not eyesight. Exactly. 00:10:44.919 --> 00:10:47.539 So for anyone listening in the U .S. because 00:10:47.539 --> 00:10:49.340 the show is not on the air anymore, where can 00:10:49.340 --> 00:10:51.919 you find it? It has a really healthy afterlife 00:10:51.919 --> 00:10:55.000 on the free streaming services. Those fast channels. 00:10:55.299 --> 00:10:59.220 Exactly. Plex. Zumo, the Roku channel, they have 00:10:59.220 --> 00:11:01.960 these dedicated channels that just loop impossible 00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:04.539 24 -7. It's so easy to get sucked into those. 00:11:04.559 --> 00:11:06.340 You plan to watch for five minutes and suddenly 00:11:06.340 --> 00:11:08.940 it's three hours later. So let's zoom out. We've 00:11:08.940 --> 00:11:11.080 gone through the rules, the rounds. What's the 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:13.139 big takeaway here? Why does a show like Impossible 00:11:13.139 --> 00:11:15.840 matter? Well, I think it taps into a skill that's 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:18.120 more important now than ever. We live in this 00:11:18.120 --> 00:11:21.440 age of just information overload. And most of 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:23.389 how we're taught... is about finding the right 00:11:23.389 --> 00:11:26.009 answer. Right. We're trained to be data retrievers. 00:11:26.149 --> 00:11:28.929 But impossible makes the case that negative knowledge, 00:11:29.110 --> 00:11:32.409 knowing what isn't true, is just as valuable. 00:11:32.730 --> 00:11:35.049 The ability to look at a list of options and 00:11:35.049 --> 00:11:37.330 immediately discard the ones that are just nonsense. 00:11:37.950 --> 00:11:40.590 That's a survival skill. It's filtering. It's 00:11:40.590 --> 00:11:42.610 defensive thinking. It's saying, OK, I don't 00:11:42.610 --> 00:11:44.490 know the answer yet, but I know for a fact that 00:11:44.490 --> 00:11:48.039 this is wrong and that is impossible. It clears 00:11:48.039 --> 00:11:50.480 your mental workspace so you can focus on what's 00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:53.340 actually plausible. I love that. It makes skepticism 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:55.639 a superpower. It's not about being a know -it 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:57.860 -all. It's about having a really well -tuned 00:11:57.860 --> 00:12:00.659 BS detector. Exactly. The person who wins impossible 00:12:00.659 --> 00:12:02.960 isn't always the one with the most facts in their 00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:04.740 head. It's the one with the firmest grasp on 00:12:04.740 --> 00:12:06.940 reality. A great way to put it, it's a workout 00:12:06.940 --> 00:12:09.340 for your critical thinking. And a good reminder 00:12:09.340 --> 00:12:12.600 that being wrong is fine. It's human. But being 00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:16.779 impossible, that's the real danger zone. Maybe 00:12:16.779 --> 00:12:18.799 a good reminder to double check a map before 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:20.679 you declare Swansea the capital of Scotland. 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:25.179 Or before you bet 10 ,000 pounds on it. So here's 00:12:25.179 --> 00:12:27.379 a final thought to take with you. We make so 00:12:27.379 --> 00:12:30.700 many choices every day and we often agonize over 00:12:30.700 --> 00:12:33.600 finding the single best option. But what if you 00:12:33.600 --> 00:12:36.080 flip the script? Instead of hunting for the perfect 00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:38.700 answer, what if you just started by ruthlessly 00:12:38.700 --> 00:12:40.600 getting rid of all the impossible ones first? 00:12:40.940 --> 00:12:43.159 Clear the minefield and sometimes the path just 00:12:43.159 --> 00:12:45.139 shows up. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you 00:12:45.139 --> 00:12:46.039 on the next deep dive.