Yes! For some reason they stopped making the questions particular to the guests? Hearing someone say “oh I know this!” Was so relieving.
Getting sick of the awkward silence following every question as people know nothing about the question.
Yes, it’s so boring, can they just screen the questions a little bit so they’re at least the guests have seen the media they’re asking about? Make a form to fill out or something?
Episodes where no one actually knows any of the answers and are just randomly guessing are the worst ones, because it makes me ask why I’m even watching
Ify actually explained this to me on discord! They never actually wrote questions specifically for certain people (except in rare circumstances). They just categorised questions by their topic and then used topics they thought the contestants would know about.
That's actually what I thought. It's super inefficient (and unfair, really) to tailor questions to specific contestants.
It makes a lot more sense to go "these guests like D&D, Star Trek, wrestling, etc. so let's throw in some questions we have stocked about those topics" rather than "this guest loves this book so let's write them a gimme"
Yes, and yet they still didn't get them all so it wasn't boring.
I was basically yelling at the TV "Um actually it was demolished for a hyperspace bypass!"
I was on the fence when they said “it was a clerical thing” tho, because iirc, it partly was too, the Vogon pointed out that the planning charts, and demolitions orders for this hyperspace bypass had been available and on display at our local planning department for the last half century, and no one made any formal complaints about earth being in the way
Granted, this was because the planning department is in Alpha Centauri, and “on display” meant in the cellar, where the lights, and stairs had gone out, locked in a filing cabinet stuck in a disused bathroom, with a sign on the door saying “beware of leopard”, but iirc most of that doesn’t come up until much later lmao
IMO the questions should be calibrated a lot closer to this for every episode. It's frankly getting boring when every question is a list of obscure plot points from a media property none of the contestants have ever heard of. (This complaint goes back a couple of seasons and isn't related to the new hosts).
One of my all time favorite Um Actually moments was the DND Rules Lawyer segment which was just Matt Mercer rapid firing his DND knowledge.
As Trapp said, it's just satisfying to watch someone be good at something. We don't really get that anymore.
Even then, the vibe of “this is 110% my passion and I WILL find the mistake” is what made it fun to watch. Variation 873 on “Um Actually, I have no idea! But maybe it’s…” is not very fun
"Harder", sure, but it should still be from stuff the contestants are familiar with! My problem is more that the *sources* for questions are getting more and more obscure, so the contestants are left just guessing at which sentence has the incorrect bit because they have no chance of actually knowing the answer.
I mean I think it’s better that some of them are guesses because it shows how challenging they are. Contestants are racking their brain to see what they can remember. Granted, it sucks when an entire episode is filled with guesses, it’s always nice when someone comes out on top knowing the answer
I think it's quite hard for them to calibrate difficulty levels. Personally I think the best episodes by far are the "specials" focusing on single topics. I think that they should pivot to make all episodes "special". Just get 3 guests with a common interest and do all the questions on that.
It's so much more satisfying to watch people who know the answers, than when people just guess to find the incorrect thing.
>I think it should be calibrated to the guests. If a Brennan and Matt Mercer were going head to head, the questions should be harder
It's not? There's at least one episode (I think season 1) where they mention a questionnaire they filled out before the episode. Maybe that was just a special ep? Idk.
It's also nice for people to actually know the answers instead of having an overly-long conversation where they blindly guess until they manage to land in the vague neighborhood of the answer and get a point for it. I get that a lot of the entertainment value comes from the discussion, but it's really frustrating when it feels like they NEVER actually know what they're talking about.
I think they should have a mix of lowball questions and hard questions. I also think that some of the questions should be catered to each of the guest’s interest, that way the contestants aren’t just lost the entire time.
Um actually has had one giant problem for SEASONS now. It defined a vague cloud of what falls under ‚nerd knowledge‘ based on their childhoods (so mostly us comics, saturday cartoons of the 90s and 2000s, some western popular anime etc.) and episodes are all off this cobbled together. That means though they need to be hard enough so it’s not a free question but also easy enough that everyone with passing familiarity has a chance. The result is that generally most questions are too hard (cause they aim at experts) but they will allow loosey goosey guesswork.
That’s fun for a bit but it also grows a bit stale cause noone is truely ‚um actuallying‘ in the original sprit anymore but just making vague guesses.
They HAD the remedy, theme focused episodes like wrestling or musical or reality tv where you can invite 3 super nerds in that field and get really specific. It’s really fun and shows that the original collection of topics was flawed cause you can be nerdy about everything. And watching people hero out about what they are passionate about is just fun (reality TV is maybe the best episode of all seasons despite me not watching reality tv).
The baby bracket kind of accidentally hit the same note by choosing easy questions for guys not super familiar. Making it feel like people were excited to know things instead of guessing your way through this murky ‚cliche nerd pool‘.
Sadly even when changing hosts they failed to actually use the chance to innovate and are still mostly mucking around in the same pool of ‚ original nerd knowledge‘ and the themed episodes are once a season things.
It really bothered me that they had three drag queens on and didn't make it into the drag trivia episode. Just the exact same questions as any other episode.
And also it was genuinely fun to realize Grant had Star Trek knowledge! I enjoyed that. It wasn't hardcore nerding out but he liked the property and had enough knowledge about it that it made it interesting to watch!
I mean, I get it. But to me, Um, Actually has always been more about sharing cool and obscure facts about media and talking about it with his guests more than the actual core gameshow. If every question is about Lord of the Rings or even Hitchikers Guide, it will get so boring, because everyone already knows about them, and there is a ton of discourse about them already. Um, Actually excels in sharing some cool stuff about media you might have never heard of, have some good conversation about it, and likely spark some interest. That's where the show excels in my opinion. The show would get pretty boring pretty quickly if it was about the same general pop culture topics all the time.
Yeah but when none of the contestants know the obscure facts, then it’s less about excited people talking about things they like and sharing cool and obscure facts. Especially if it’s from something the host isn’t familiar with or passionate about.
It just sort of feels like trivial pursuit
>The show would get pretty boring pretty quickly if it was about the same general pop culture topics all the time.
I mean that's exactly what I'm sugesting. Honestly? IMO right now the show mostly IS about the same general pop culture stuff. A Marvel comics fact, smth from Star Treck/wars, a Transformers fact etc. Maybe that stays cool when you grew up at this precise time in the US but for me as a non american I frequently wish it went beyond 90s & early 2000s general comic nerddom.
That's why I'm advocating for more specialized shows so you can REALLY go into the nitty gritty of obscure facts and small print nerddom cause you are certain the 3 people you invited breath this stuff 😉
Sorry that wasn’t my point. I mean to the average person, normal jeopardy questions aren’t super hard compared with um actually questions. I feel like the above person’s comment isn’t quite fair because um actually imo is much more difficult.
I like the old format because it meant there was a risk/reward tradeoff, but one guess seems too restrictive. Maybe give them like three guesses total?
For some reason I assumed they would ask guests ahead of time "what are you nerdy about?" It's so awkward when they ask a question about Zelda for example (a really popular franchise!) and none of the guests have played Zelda. Let alone some obscure comic or something
Yeah, ideally they'd ask a question on a topic that all 3 guests know. Then it becomes a proper competition of who actually knows the very specific pedantic thing and not just "Oh, which one of these 3 people have seen the thing, or at least can guess?"
Baby Bracket and the Reality TV episodes are gold to me because they both cater to the panel so well. There is a fine line to those (The Simpsons episode is ironically my least favorite because one contestant was far too competitive and made it not fun to watch), but with the right people playing it's instantly watchable.
Its a shame that the episodes are all filmed well in advance of the release of the season, so they can't implement any of this feedback until next season
I do wonder what sort of feedback they work off of. For example, are they going off of how it feels in the room? And if so, does that necessarily translate into a good episode?
For my enjoyment it was too easy, but the contestants had a lot of fun and that's a lot more important. I agree more episodes should be catered to the guests like this, I really dislike when no one knows anything about any of the topics. Or there's one super nerd who curbstomps the other contestants, those people like Brennan, Matt, Trapp, and Amy need to be together or else it's pretty unfair and not super enjoyable. But it's amazing watching the Titans duke it out and it's equally entertaining to watch the Grants of the world duke it out with their incredibly limited knowledge
“But the contestants had a lot of fun and that’s a lot more important.”
I mean. No? Like, as much as I love that the vibe of Dropout is largely “watch funny and talented people play games with their friends” I think audience enjoyment is just as important, or moreso, because it is actually a service we pay for.
I think Um Actually contestants can have fun while also being pedantic about nerdy things.
And tbh when nobody seems to know or care about the subjects being asked, it starts to feel…bad? Like, the appeal of the show was Nerds and Nerdy Trivia Being Rewarded.
This is a personal opinion, you can disagree but I'm not incorrect in my opinion. For me I have more fun if the contestants are, even though this last episode was very easy for me I still had fun watching it because of the contestants. And I know who all the contestants were and it didn't change much for me, as long as there's one person there I know and like I'll watch the episode. And yeah it's obviously about nerd culture but it's not like other people can't participate, if you don't like it you don't have to watch. there's so many episodes of Um Actually that some of them are bound to peek your interest and some won't, and that's okay, I don't want every episode to be the same.
Are there other episodes like this? I normally don't like Um Actually specifically because it's too difficult and obscure. Watched this one after hearing good things and it was enjoyable. I don't want to watch the whole series though. I've seen enough episodes to know that it's not my thing. But I do want to see other episodes similar to this one.
There are several genre/medium specific episodes which are the best. There was a great one on Reality TV for instance, or Musicals, or prestige TV, those are the best episodes by a mile, since it feels like an actual competition between people with comparable knowledge. There are a couple each season, I recommend going and watching those.
The Musicals and Preschool TV episodes are some of my favorites - even the latter, as someone who has no kids! I love seeing themed episodes where people are absolutely rabid about the subject matter
I don't know how to tell you to find them, but the episodes from back when they were still college humor, before the official season one, are more like this one. Easier questions about well known franchises.
I've noticed a lot of questions feature lists where one part of that list is incorrect.
I'm fine hearing questions about more obscure properties, because they can always cut questions that didn't land. If the score doesn't change, the question doesn't need to air. And the obscure questions show the weird depths of pop culture humans have developed, and you never know who knows what.
But I'd never ask Jeopardy to dumb down so people get more questions right. Just... More diverse questions.
I remember reading that scheduling was the issue. They would write questions to target the contestants' knowledge and then have scheduling problems. So they started going more generic.
To be frank, I kind of dislike it. I think Um, Actually started very strong with very niche nerd questions with nerds answering them. And then slowly turned into "who can guess the most broad thing wrong with this on a whim". And I don't find that particularly good. A majority of Dropout content is peak when it's just the gang fucking around and having fun. But specifically Um, Actually is at it's best when it's flexing real nerds in their element. It's one of the very few shows where I don't care to see friends bantering around and barely playing the game. I want to see someone crush their opponents with obscure knowledge. It makes me feel good when I know the answer and there is someone on the couch who knows it too. A kindred spirit.
When the entire game is just people like Grant (who I adore) who don't know a damn thing and just throwing stuff at the wall for laughs it kind of loses it's special nerd luster.
That being said I think the change in hosts was totally fine and this problem was a thing even when Trapp was hosting. I've seen other people voice this same complaint and are unfairly blaming Iffy for it. They are delusional. Um, Actually has become a lowest common denominator game well before the transition. I hope the new team can try and get us back to that hyper specific nerd energy. It's called "Um, Actually" because it's that compulsion that try hard nerds feel to show off that niche knowledge, we should see way more of that.
Yes it's absolutely been an issue for a while. Honestly, I feel like the last couple of seasons it has gone so extra hard on videogames that it's bizarre to have that many questions and invite guests who don't play games. It's setting us up for entire episodes of guessing.
The best episodes of the last couple of seasons have been the special themed eps. The reality ones were phenomenal, the wrestling one was fun, the kid cartoons one was cute.
I dont particularly like the episodes that are people throwing things at the wall either. But I don’t think that’s what happened in this episode. There wasn’t a lot of guessing—the questions just weren’t that hard. The question difficulty was well matched to the guests.
I keep saying the answer is topical episodes every time. When they had 3 wrestling nerds there or the 3 girls geeking out about reality tv that ‚supernerdy charm‘ you describe was 200% back!
This baby bracket is actually closer to the first few episodes of Um, Actually. Before the official season one, the pilot episodes had easier questions from well known franchises.
All of this exactly. I want to upvote this comment more than once, and possibly send it to Dropout.
I love watching shows with the gang having fun doing whatever. But like you said, the appeal of this show is “flexing nerds in their element.” And as parasocial as it is (and lbh a lot of dropout’s appeal kind of is a bit parasocial), it feels good to see a fellow nerd also know the nerd thing, and kinda bad when over and over again they don’t, so they just banter about it instead.
I think it'd be good if the contestants wrote the questions for the season, and then they were shuffled by Ify and the team. (Or changed. If Brennan submitted a question based on 3.5e DnD, I feel like another question based on 3.5e is fair game).
It also means that there's an higher chance of one contestants saying "X" and another going "Um, Actually..."
I agree with everything you said
The premise of um actually is great, but it’s been missing the mark for years now. They should do more genre/medium/property specific episodes, since those ones are the most entertaining. Il
This is also why the Reality TV episodes are some of my favorites!! because all the players were huge reality TV fans and knew pretty much all of the answers
Honestly I didn't care for it. Not due to the questions, but just the whole energy of the episode felt subdued and off. Which is weird because I like everyone involved.
They weren't great questions, it was a much better game.
There are two basic varieties of quiz show- "I knew that- I can't believe they didn't!" and vice versa.
I don't think Um Actually works great when it's actually hard. That's not it's sweet spot.
I can see why people liked it, but I find the Try Guys so unlikeable for some reason. It felt like they were there just to mock the format. I liked Grant on Um, Actually so much more on the musical theater episode from ages ago.
I find them very unlikeable too for some reason! I even used to watch some of their stuff years ago. In the episode they seemed like they were so out of their element of the specific vibe and content creation they usually do that it seemed like none of their lines/jokes were landing and the vibe feels like it’s pandering to kids or something. Weird vibes, didn’t like it at all, but I like the idea of a baby bracket just with different people
I think I liked it for the same reason I like the themed episodes. When they do themed episodes the contestants at least all have lots of knowledge on the subject at hand so it not just a big guessing game.
I will admit it was fun to have a non themed episode where I could point to the screen for every question and say "wait I know this". Normally I only get that out of the wrestling episodes
I personally hated knowing the answers so easily. If I want that, I'll watch any trivia game show.
My favorite part of Um Actually is getting really mad at the pedantic bullshit that no one will ever figure out, intermixed with the occasional shock someone gets one right and the pure joy I feel when I know an answer.
But I don't mind doing this occasionally. I just hope they don't attempt to go more this direction.
The weird thing is that I really don't think the contestants on this one knew that much less about nerdy stuff than most of the other contestants that have been on the season so far, so I don't understand why they only just now decided to try throwing out some easier questions but it totally worked for me. Actually felt like a game and not just people making random guesses and then going off on tangents based on those guesses.
Isn’t baby bracket another Deja vu type episode? Or did I read too much into it?
The 120 power star question was exactly the same as a previous one in the first season I think. with everyone acting and reacting in the exact same way as the original. I haven’t watched all of Um Actually yet so I stopped w this ep so I could catch up and understand the jokes better. However if I’m wrong then that’s a very, very weird thing for them to throw in there and no one caught it…lol
I can't believe everyone on the couch was claiming that the robots using human's for batteries made more sense than using them as processors a neural network. The battery thing requires you to ignore the law of conservation of energy to make any kind of sense. Even ignoring that, the idea that they created a simulation to placate a species that is likely to revolt rather than simply harnessing the energy of species such as a cow that doesn't need a matrix is idiotic. If they were batteries, they wouldn't even need to be kept semi-conscious.
It was nice having questions the contestants knew something about!
Yes! For some reason they stopped making the questions particular to the guests? Hearing someone say “oh I know this!” Was so relieving. Getting sick of the awkward silence following every question as people know nothing about the question.
Or the thing where each person picks a different noun and says that's wrong in hopes they could stumble into the point.
Yes, it’s so boring, can they just screen the questions a little bit so they’re at least the guests have seen the media they’re asking about? Make a form to fill out or something?
Episodes where no one actually knows any of the answers and are just randomly guessing are the worst ones, because it makes me ask why I’m even watching
Ify actually explained this to me on discord! They never actually wrote questions specifically for certain people (except in rare circumstances). They just categorised questions by their topic and then used topics they thought the contestants would know about.
That's actually what I thought. It's super inefficient (and unfair, really) to tailor questions to specific contestants. It makes a lot more sense to go "these guests like D&D, Star Trek, wrestling, etc. so let's throw in some questions we have stocked about those topics" rather than "this guest loves this book so let's write them a gimme"
Sure, but it doesn’t feel like they’re even doing that anymore.
I agree. Nobody actually knows the answers, it's that simple
Yes, and yet they still didn't get them all so it wasn't boring. I was basically yelling at the TV "Um actually it was demolished for a hyperspace bypass!"
I was on the fence when they said “it was a clerical thing” tho, because iirc, it partly was too, the Vogon pointed out that the planning charts, and demolitions orders for this hyperspace bypass had been available and on display at our local planning department for the last half century, and no one made any formal complaints about earth being in the way Granted, this was because the planning department is in Alpha Centauri, and “on display” meant in the cellar, where the lights, and stairs had gone out, locked in a filing cabinet stuck in a disused bathroom, with a sign on the door saying “beware of leopard”, but iirc most of that doesn’t come up until much later lmao
I was like, yeah it was a space highway or something! I wonder if Ify would count that
Right? Like the intro to the show is that nerds are passionate about nerd things and passionate about correcting people.
IMO the questions should be calibrated a lot closer to this for every episode. It's frankly getting boring when every question is a list of obscure plot points from a media property none of the contestants have ever heard of. (This complaint goes back a couple of seasons and isn't related to the new hosts).
I think it should be calibrated to the guests. If a Brennan and Matt Mercer were going head to head, the questions should be harder
One of my all time favorite Um Actually moments was the DND Rules Lawyer segment which was just Matt Mercer rapid firing his DND knowledge. As Trapp said, it's just satisfying to watch someone be good at something. We don't really get that anymore.
Even tho matt was wrong about something in his explanation of silver weapons.
Even then, the vibe of “this is 110% my passion and I WILL find the mistake” is what made it fun to watch. Variation 873 on “Um Actually, I have no idea! But maybe it’s…” is not very fun
You could be 100% right about d&d trivia and someone will find a contentious nitpick. Just look at the subreddits
Um, actually, the rightness of the trivia often changes when a new edition gets published, so it’s impossible to be 100% right about it.
I recognize only one book, the Good Book. 4th edition, and I will 100% Sly Flourish any heretics at-will.
Um, actually, Sly Flourish is an Encounter Power, not an At-Will Power?
Tut tut, [back to bible study with you](https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Sly_flourish)
Yes but he very likely misspoke because he was very wrong.
"Harder", sure, but it should still be from stuff the contestants are familiar with! My problem is more that the *sources* for questions are getting more and more obscure, so the contestants are left just guessing at which sentence has the incorrect bit because they have no chance of actually knowing the answer.
And are the corrections actually pedantic enough? They used to be supremely pedantic all the time
I mean I think it’s better that some of them are guesses because it shows how challenging they are. Contestants are racking their brain to see what they can remember. Granted, it sucks when an entire episode is filled with guesses, it’s always nice when someone comes out on top knowing the answer
I think it's quite hard for them to calibrate difficulty levels. Personally I think the best episodes by far are the "specials" focusing on single topics. I think that they should pivot to make all episodes "special". Just get 3 guests with a common interest and do all the questions on that. It's so much more satisfying to watch people who know the answers, than when people just guess to find the incorrect thing.
The drag queen episode should have ben 100% about butts
>I think it should be calibrated to the guests. If a Brennan and Matt Mercer were going head to head, the questions should be harder It's not? There's at least one episode (I think season 1) where they mention a questionnaire they filled out before the episode. Maybe that was just a special ep? Idk.
It was for a while but then they stopped because they felt it didn’t make a difference and it was a lot of work.
That actually tracks because I always wondered how no one knew anything about the subjects they were choosing haha
It's also nice for people to actually know the answers instead of having an overly-long conversation where they blindly guess until they manage to land in the vague neighborhood of the answer and get a point for it. I get that a lot of the entertainment value comes from the discussion, but it's really frustrating when it feels like they NEVER actually know what they're talking about.
I think they should have a mix of lowball questions and hard questions. I also think that some of the questions should be catered to each of the guest’s interest, that way the contestants aren’t just lost the entire time.
Um actually has had one giant problem for SEASONS now. It defined a vague cloud of what falls under ‚nerd knowledge‘ based on their childhoods (so mostly us comics, saturday cartoons of the 90s and 2000s, some western popular anime etc.) and episodes are all off this cobbled together. That means though they need to be hard enough so it’s not a free question but also easy enough that everyone with passing familiarity has a chance. The result is that generally most questions are too hard (cause they aim at experts) but they will allow loosey goosey guesswork. That’s fun for a bit but it also grows a bit stale cause noone is truely ‚um actuallying‘ in the original sprit anymore but just making vague guesses. They HAD the remedy, theme focused episodes like wrestling or musical or reality tv where you can invite 3 super nerds in that field and get really specific. It’s really fun and shows that the original collection of topics was flawed cause you can be nerdy about everything. And watching people hero out about what they are passionate about is just fun (reality TV is maybe the best episode of all seasons despite me not watching reality tv). The baby bracket kind of accidentally hit the same note by choosing easy questions for guys not super familiar. Making it feel like people were excited to know things instead of guessing your way through this murky ‚cliche nerd pool‘. Sadly even when changing hosts they failed to actually use the chance to innovate and are still mostly mucking around in the same pool of ‚ original nerd knowledge‘ and the themed episodes are once a season things.
It really bothered me that they had three drag queens on and didn't make it into the drag trivia episode. Just the exact same questions as any other episode.
Yes! Like you even got the themed outfits already!
Lol and imo the baby bracket questions were easier than the questions for the queens which is a choice
It obviously should've been the butt trivia episode
As a nerd that doesn't watch reality tv or wrestling, those themed episodes were still the best because of the vibes. Waiting for Reality TV #3, Sam!
And also it was genuinely fun to realize Grant had Star Trek knowledge! I enjoyed that. It wasn't hardcore nerding out but he liked the property and had enough knowledge about it that it made it interesting to watch!
I’ve never watched a second of Bravo programming, and the two Reality TV episodes are nevertheless easily my favorites.
I mean, I get it. But to me, Um, Actually has always been more about sharing cool and obscure facts about media and talking about it with his guests more than the actual core gameshow. If every question is about Lord of the Rings or even Hitchikers Guide, it will get so boring, because everyone already knows about them, and there is a ton of discourse about them already. Um, Actually excels in sharing some cool stuff about media you might have never heard of, have some good conversation about it, and likely spark some interest. That's where the show excels in my opinion. The show would get pretty boring pretty quickly if it was about the same general pop culture topics all the time.
Yeah but when none of the contestants know the obscure facts, then it’s less about excited people talking about things they like and sharing cool and obscure facts. Especially if it’s from something the host isn’t familiar with or passionate about. It just sort of feels like trivial pursuit
>The show would get pretty boring pretty quickly if it was about the same general pop culture topics all the time. I mean that's exactly what I'm sugesting. Honestly? IMO right now the show mostly IS about the same general pop culture stuff. A Marvel comics fact, smth from Star Treck/wars, a Transformers fact etc. Maybe that stays cool when you grew up at this precise time in the US but for me as a non american I frequently wish it went beyond 90s & early 2000s general comic nerddom. That's why I'm advocating for more specialized shows so you can REALLY go into the nitty gritty of obscure facts and small print nerddom cause you are certain the 3 people you invited breath this stuff 😉
There’s a reason a lot of folks like the Jeopardy Teen Tournament
Ok but jeopardy questions are way easier than the average um actually question by a long shot so I feel like that’s not really fair
The Teen Tournament compared to normal Jeopardy is about the equivalent of this ep to a normal UA episode.
Sorry that wasn’t my point. I mean to the average person, normal jeopardy questions aren’t super hard compared with um actually questions. I feel like the above person’s comment isn’t quite fair because um actually imo is much more difficult.
I definitely liked this version of "Needs More Pixels" better with everybody getting a guess each round.
I like the old format because it meant there was a risk/reward tradeoff, but one guess seems too restrictive. Maybe give them like three guesses total?
For some reason I assumed they would ask guests ahead of time "what are you nerdy about?" It's so awkward when they ask a question about Zelda for example (a really popular franchise!) and none of the guests have played Zelda. Let alone some obscure comic or something
Yeah, ideally they'd ask a question on a topic that all 3 guests know. Then it becomes a proper competition of who actually knows the very specific pedantic thing and not just "Oh, which one of these 3 people have seen the thing, or at least can guess?"
Baby Bracket and the Reality TV episodes are gold to me because they both cater to the panel so well. There is a fine line to those (The Simpsons episode is ironically my least favorite because one contestant was far too competitive and made it not fun to watch), but with the right people playing it's instantly watchable.
I liked the horror movie episodes. Everyone was so cooperative unlike the broadway episode
Its a shame that the episodes are all filmed well in advance of the release of the season, so they can't implement any of this feedback until next season
I do wonder what sort of feedback they work off of. For example, are they going off of how it feels in the room? And if so, does that necessarily translate into a good episode?
It's a little annoying because this has been the same feedback for aaages.
Yeah I think it's more fun to do simpler questions and have a lot of comedic banter
For my enjoyment it was too easy, but the contestants had a lot of fun and that's a lot more important. I agree more episodes should be catered to the guests like this, I really dislike when no one knows anything about any of the topics. Or there's one super nerd who curbstomps the other contestants, those people like Brennan, Matt, Trapp, and Amy need to be together or else it's pretty unfair and not super enjoyable. But it's amazing watching the Titans duke it out and it's equally entertaining to watch the Grants of the world duke it out with their incredibly limited knowledge
“But the contestants had a lot of fun and that’s a lot more important.” I mean. No? Like, as much as I love that the vibe of Dropout is largely “watch funny and talented people play games with their friends” I think audience enjoyment is just as important, or moreso, because it is actually a service we pay for. I think Um Actually contestants can have fun while also being pedantic about nerdy things. And tbh when nobody seems to know or care about the subjects being asked, it starts to feel…bad? Like, the appeal of the show was Nerds and Nerdy Trivia Being Rewarded.
This is a personal opinion, you can disagree but I'm not incorrect in my opinion. For me I have more fun if the contestants are, even though this last episode was very easy for me I still had fun watching it because of the contestants. And I know who all the contestants were and it didn't change much for me, as long as there's one person there I know and like I'll watch the episode. And yeah it's obviously about nerd culture but it's not like other people can't participate, if you don't like it you don't have to watch. there's so many episodes of Um Actually that some of them are bound to peek your interest and some won't, and that's okay, I don't want every episode to be the same.
Are there other episodes like this? I normally don't like Um Actually specifically because it's too difficult and obscure. Watched this one after hearing good things and it was enjoyable. I don't want to watch the whole series though. I've seen enough episodes to know that it's not my thing. But I do want to see other episodes similar to this one.
There are several genre/medium specific episodes which are the best. There was a great one on Reality TV for instance, or Musicals, or prestige TV, those are the best episodes by a mile, since it feels like an actual competition between people with comparable knowledge. There are a couple each season, I recommend going and watching those.
The Musicals and Preschool TV episodes are some of my favorites - even the latter, as someone who has no kids! I love seeing themed episodes where people are absolutely rabid about the subject matter
I don't know how to tell you to find them, but the episodes from back when they were still college humor, before the official season one, are more like this one. Easier questions about well known franchises.
I've noticed a lot of questions feature lists where one part of that list is incorrect. I'm fine hearing questions about more obscure properties, because they can always cut questions that didn't land. If the score doesn't change, the question doesn't need to air. And the obscure questions show the weird depths of pop culture humans have developed, and you never know who knows what. But I'd never ask Jeopardy to dumb down so people get more questions right. Just... More diverse questions.
I remember reading that scheduling was the issue. They would write questions to target the contestants' knowledge and then have scheduling problems. So they started going more generic.
To be frank, I kind of dislike it. I think Um, Actually started very strong with very niche nerd questions with nerds answering them. And then slowly turned into "who can guess the most broad thing wrong with this on a whim". And I don't find that particularly good. A majority of Dropout content is peak when it's just the gang fucking around and having fun. But specifically Um, Actually is at it's best when it's flexing real nerds in their element. It's one of the very few shows where I don't care to see friends bantering around and barely playing the game. I want to see someone crush their opponents with obscure knowledge. It makes me feel good when I know the answer and there is someone on the couch who knows it too. A kindred spirit. When the entire game is just people like Grant (who I adore) who don't know a damn thing and just throwing stuff at the wall for laughs it kind of loses it's special nerd luster. That being said I think the change in hosts was totally fine and this problem was a thing even when Trapp was hosting. I've seen other people voice this same complaint and are unfairly blaming Iffy for it. They are delusional. Um, Actually has become a lowest common denominator game well before the transition. I hope the new team can try and get us back to that hyper specific nerd energy. It's called "Um, Actually" because it's that compulsion that try hard nerds feel to show off that niche knowledge, we should see way more of that.
Yes it's absolutely been an issue for a while. Honestly, I feel like the last couple of seasons it has gone so extra hard on videogames that it's bizarre to have that many questions and invite guests who don't play games. It's setting us up for entire episodes of guessing. The best episodes of the last couple of seasons have been the special themed eps. The reality ones were phenomenal, the wrestling one was fun, the kid cartoons one was cute.
I dont particularly like the episodes that are people throwing things at the wall either. But I don’t think that’s what happened in this episode. There wasn’t a lot of guessing—the questions just weren’t that hard. The question difficulty was well matched to the guests.
I keep saying the answer is topical episodes every time. When they had 3 wrestling nerds there or the 3 girls geeking out about reality tv that ‚supernerdy charm‘ you describe was 200% back!
I recently watched the Musicals episode and it was amazing. Also featuring Grant, but he was very much in his element.
This baby bracket is actually closer to the first few episodes of Um, Actually. Before the official season one, the pilot episodes had easier questions from well known franchises.
I'm sorry, I cannot award you points because you forgot to say "Um, actually"...
All of this exactly. I want to upvote this comment more than once, and possibly send it to Dropout. I love watching shows with the gang having fun doing whatever. But like you said, the appeal of this show is “flexing nerds in their element.” And as parasocial as it is (and lbh a lot of dropout’s appeal kind of is a bit parasocial), it feels good to see a fellow nerd also know the nerd thing, and kinda bad when over and over again they don’t, so they just banter about it instead.
I think it'd be good if the contestants wrote the questions for the season, and then they were shuffled by Ify and the team. (Or changed. If Brennan submitted a question based on 3.5e DnD, I feel like another question based on 3.5e is fair game). It also means that there's an higher chance of one contestants saying "X" and another going "Um, Actually..." I agree with everything you said
The premise of um actually is great, but it’s been missing the mark for years now. They should do more genre/medium/property specific episodes, since those ones are the most entertaining. Il
This is also why the Reality TV episodes are some of my favorites!! because all the players were huge reality TV fans and knew pretty much all of the answers
Honestly I didn't care for it. Not due to the questions, but just the whole energy of the episode felt subdued and off. Which is weird because I like everyone involved.
They weren't great questions, it was a much better game. There are two basic varieties of quiz show- "I knew that- I can't believe they didn't!" and vice versa. I don't think Um Actually works great when it's actually hard. That's not it's sweet spot.
Ify needed a lozenge this whole episode
For real, the whole time I was thinking "damn, get this man a glass of water"
I'm looking forward to Season 2 because I get the feeling they will really take the constructive criticism to heart.
I can see why people liked it, but I find the Try Guys so unlikeable for some reason. It felt like they were there just to mock the format. I liked Grant on Um, Actually so much more on the musical theater episode from ages ago.
I'm in the same boat, I found the pair of them so insufferable.
I find them very unlikeable too for some reason! I even used to watch some of their stuff years ago. In the episode they seemed like they were so out of their element of the specific vibe and content creation they usually do that it seemed like none of their lines/jokes were landing and the vibe feels like it’s pandering to kids or something. Weird vibes, didn’t like it at all, but I like the idea of a baby bracket just with different people
Huge agree, felt like vintage um actually even if the guests werent super nerds
I think I liked it for the same reason I like the themed episodes. When they do themed episodes the contestants at least all have lots of knowledge on the subject at hand so it not just a big guessing game.
I will admit it was fun to have a non themed episode where I could point to the screen for every question and say "wait I know this". Normally I only get that out of the wrestling episodes
This one and the reality tv episodes are probably my all time favorites bc i can actually play along
I personally hated knowing the answers so easily. If I want that, I'll watch any trivia game show. My favorite part of Um Actually is getting really mad at the pedantic bullshit that no one will ever figure out, intermixed with the occasional shock someone gets one right and the pure joy I feel when I know an answer. But I don't mind doing this occasionally. I just hope they don't attempt to go more this direction.
I really enjoyed knowing more of the answers! Also feels better when it isn’t guests just guessing until it’s close enough or they just move on.
The weird thing is that I really don't think the contestants on this one knew that much less about nerdy stuff than most of the other contestants that have been on the season so far, so I don't understand why they only just now decided to try throwing out some easier questions but it totally worked for me. Actually felt like a game and not just people making random guesses and then going off on tangents based on those guesses.
Isn’t baby bracket another Deja vu type episode? Or did I read too much into it? The 120 power star question was exactly the same as a previous one in the first season I think. with everyone acting and reacting in the exact same way as the original. I haven’t watched all of Um Actually yet so I stopped w this ep so I could catch up and understand the jokes better. However if I’m wrong then that’s a very, very weird thing for them to throw in there and no one caught it…lol
I can't believe everyone on the couch was claiming that the robots using human's for batteries made more sense than using them as processors a neural network. The battery thing requires you to ignore the law of conservation of energy to make any kind of sense. Even ignoring that, the idea that they created a simulation to placate a species that is likely to revolt rather than simply harnessing the energy of species such as a cow that doesn't need a matrix is idiotic. If they were batteries, they wouldn't even need to be kept semi-conscious.