KEY POINTS:
A contestant who failed to win a single cent on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? has blasted the show for setting unfair questions.
Christchurch school teacher Courtney Washington has been nicknamed Miss Zero by pupils at Cashmere High after falling at the $500 stage. She was unable
to tell host Mike Hosking that BMW had provided New Zealand's new fleet of ministerial limousines.
"I thought my questions sucked," she said.
"I don't want to seem like a bad sport, but to [answer] that question you had to have been watching the news on that particular night."
The 30-year-old, who is also a jazz singer and entertainer, was the first contestant on the Kiwi version of the worldwide hit.
She had already used one lifeline, asking the audience for help with the $200 poser: "In New Zealand, which of these terms is used to mean a teetotalling prude?" The answer was Wowser.
Washington used her 50-50 lifeline on the $500 question and then phoned a friend, Cashmere High deputy principal Blair Johnson to choose between BMW and Mercedes.
"I'd just be guessing, Courtney," he said.
"It's one I don't know, I'm afraid."
Washington picked Mercedes and went home a loser.
She told the Herald on Sunday she asked 150 people the question before the episode screened and only two knew the answer.
Washington's criticism wasn't confined to the questions. She found Hosking "arrogant" and "off-putting".
Hosking said his role was not to help or hinder any contestant and it was "impossible" for him to be off-putting.
"I ask a question, I give you four options, answer one or not, or use a lifeline or not. What else can I do?"
Washington's performance was among those to kickstart debate in the letters columns of the national press. In the week that Wellington hospice worker Kristin Castle got to within two correct answers of the grand prize, Washington found an ally in Joanna Calvert.
The self-confessed Millionaire addict argued that the TV One version of the global format was tougher than its British or Australian counterparts.
"The [British] version's first questions [to £1000] are fun and easy ones," Calvert said.
"It makes it fun. But the first ones on our version are hard."
The Auckland resident said a $300 question about what David Lange claimed to smell on someone's breath during a debate in Oxford, was too hard. Uranium was the answer.
TVNZ refused to comment on how the show set its questions.
But Hosking said he would hesitate to say they were too easy or hard because "unless you've been there and done it you don't know".
"Nothing beats the real thing. Anyone who's done the real thing, it's a completely different experience than sitting on your sofa answering the questions."
Castle was not surprised some people found the questions hard.
"You can't swot for it. You either know it or you don't. That's what makes it exciting."
Will she make it to a million?
The question: Does Wellingtonian hospice worker Kristin Castle, above, win $1 million? The answer: Tune into TV One on Tuesday night.
Castle was tight-lipped about whether she took out the top prize on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? when contacted by the Herald on Sunday but her excited giggles suggested she was happy with her final payout.
Castle has already won $250,000, but would drop back to $32,000 if she gets either of the final two questions wrong. Even patients and staff at Mary Potter Hospice, where she works, are in the dark. "Everyone's so excited," she said.
Castle said she planned to pay off the rest of her mother's mortgage and her brother's student loan, so he can put all his savings into buying a first home. She said she didn't study for the show.
THE QUESTIONS
Compare the first three questions Britain's first Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? £1 million winner faced with those put to Kiwi contestants.
Britain:
Question 1 (£100)
Complete the phrase. Sick as a
a) Partridge
b) Puffin
c) Parrot
d) Penguin
Answer C
Question 2 (£200)
Which legal document states a person's wishes about disposing their property after death?
a) Would
b) Shall
c) Should
d) Will
Answer D
Question 3 (£300)
Complete the James Bond film title The Man With The Golden
a) Tooth
b) Gun
c) Eagle
d) Delicious
Answer B
New Zealand:
Question 1
What is often wooden and believed to scare vampires?
a) A bookcase
b) A chair
c) Keanu Reeves
d) A crucifix
Answer D
Questions 2
What is the first name of NZ Olympic swimmer Burmester?
a) Mess
b) Mass
c) Moss
d) Lichen
Answer C
Question 3
A raconteur is a what... teller?
a) Story
b) Bank
c) Automatic
d) Fortune
Answer A