When it comes to quiz shows, there are few that are more iconic than Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but the format of the ITV show can often be brutal.
While more modern quiz shows might see you go up against an expert or bizarrely have to push some coins out of a machine while you're answering questions, Who Wants to be a Millionaire is old-fashioned in the sense that it's just one person answering as many questions as they can, with their general knowledge rewarded with some huge sums.
Unless you find a way to cheat, as Charles Ingram famously did on the show back in 2001 as his wife coughed in the audience to clue him in on the right answers, it's rare to see people getting anywhere close to the magnificent million pounds.
While we did see some success last week when Roman Dubowski smashed all 15 questions to become the first winner in six years, risk-taking is essential on the show and it often backfires.
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That was certainly the case with last weekend's episode, which saw Jen Essery Lillikakis become memorable in other ways, after she lost £186,000 when failing to answer the £500,000 question.
Now, it's not all bad news for the product manager, as she took home £64,000 to help pay for a honeymoon, after setting her safety net at that amount.
However, it could have been £250,000 had she skipped the £500,000 question, which she was still left unsure on after calling her father for help.
She showed off some impressive Greek mythology knowledge on the £250,000 to answer that it was Cassandra who was cursed to utter true prophecies that were never believed, but it all came unstuck on the next question.
Jen was asked: “According to Guinness World Records, which of these has travelled at over 260 miles per hour during a competitive game or match? Tennis ball/Ice hockey puck/Badminton shuttlecock/Table tennis ball."
After calling her dad who wasn't much help, she ended up guessing that it was the ice hockey puck but she was out of luck, and it was in fact the shuttlecock that brought a stop to her game.
Host Jeremy Clarkson told her: “Oh my God you have just lost £186,000! It is unbelievable you took a punt on that. You need a bravery award for that.”
She took a rather casual approach, saying: “Well, that’s fine. I've also won £64,000." Perhaps we could all learn a lesson from that positive outlook on life.
Things went even worse for later contestant Arunan Jeyakumar who managed to land himself just £1,000 after using up three different lifetimes early doors, eventually failing on a capital city question after suggesting that Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, wasn't a capital after all.
He'd already asked the host, the audience and used up a 50/50 on other fairly simple questions, which led Clarkson to issue a pretty savage response.
The presenter said: "I think that the basic problem is you don't know very many things. This maybe was the wrong show for you to be on."
Topics: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, ITV, Jeremy Clarkson, TV, Entertainment
James Moorhouse