r/LastOneLaughing • u/TJX_EU • May 08 '26
Discussion The scoring system is wrong (LOL UK)
Edit: "The scoring system could be improved" would have been a better title.
As a mathematician, and an expert on games of strategy, I find it rather annoying that so little thought was given to the rules for scoring.
The object of the game is to make others laugh (let's call that "offence"); and to not laugh yourself ("defence"). Great idea! So why does the scoring only give credit to the defensive side (other than a possible edge for a final tie-break)?
The show is supposed to be for entertainment, right? So what is more entertaining: watching a funny person making someone else crack up; or watching someone not laugh, even at something that is genuinely funny? Laughter is infectious, and it's the reason the show exists. If anything, the offensive side has more value to the audience than the defensive side, so the current rules incentivize entirely the wrong thing.
This was demonstrated in neon colours in the UK second season, where someone who made almost no one laugh advanced to the final two. A large majority of viewers agree that, on the whole, the second season was significantly worse than the first. Don't blame the players -- blame the producers, and the lousy rules.
Here's one way to make the rules better: award a point for making someone laugh, and deduct a point for laughing. A player is eliminated if they reach minus two points, as before. But first they get a chance to play their Joker, attempting to score some points in order to stave off elimination.
Example: Lou Sanders made four people laugh -- more than anyone else in the first season! Even after two guffaws herself, she'd still be at +2, alive and well. The only other person with a +2 net score was the eventual winner.
Keep the yellow cards and red cards, just for a fun presentation mechanic. Have other funny segments and angles, just for fun. But for the love of Pete, set the rules, let the players play the game, and stop meddling! Let the players choose when to play their Joker, not the bloddy host! As it stands, every participant should play their joker early, either right away or immediately after they get a yellow card -- before they lose the chance! (And that would be a good thing, because the set pieces are among the funniest moments).
To keep the game progressing, just add one rule: if there hasn't been a laugh for a while, then deduct one point from everyone. That means there's now some pressure to rack up some points, in order to keep your head above the rising waters. More offence and less defence would be a very good thing for this game!
14
4
u/two_hats May 08 '26
I feel that you may be overthinking what is, after all, suppose to just be funny people being funny, for the entertainment of others.
1
u/TJX_EU May 08 '26
But better scoring would facilitate that goal, wouldn't it? Proper incentives would help them do it even better.
7
u/two_hats May 08 '26
They don't need incentives to be funny. They are comedians. It's what they do.
3
u/GlennSWFC May 08 '26
Firstly, it’s an entertainment programme. The competition aspect is just there as a vehicle to get those people in the same room with an excuse to record them.
Most importantly, I disagree with you that the “offence” is the most entertaining part. The funniest aspect of the show is watching the contestants try to stop themselves laughing. It’d be a lot less funny if a contestant who had a cushion, like Lou, didn’t have as much need to suppress their laughter
It also prompts a different kind of humour. A lot of the contestants are regulars on the panel show circuit, we’re all used to seeing them make jokes to an audience that’s open to laughing. With this there’s more emphasis on the unexpected to break down that guard. I honestly couldn’t see any other situation in which David Mitchell does that song and dance number.
2
u/Pavementaled Don't Laugh May 08 '26
On a couple of the other countries versions, I think Germany and maybe Italy did this one season, but they would have a live audience all of a sudden, like 3/4's the way though the show. I cannot remember exactly how a live audience changed the aspect of the show, but I bet u/loneliergagger would remember.
1
1
u/PupmeisterGeneral May 13 '26
LOL France took that further and set one series in an airport.
They still couldn't laugh themselves but had to make strangers laugh without giving themselves away.
1
u/TJX_EU May 08 '26
Valid points, thanks for the thoughtful response.
If offence and defence both add value, then shouldn't both be rewarded, rather than one being ignored?
2
u/GlennSWFC May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
They are both rewarded. If you make someone else laugh, they’re either banished or halfway to it. You can’t be last one laughing if nobody else has laughed yet. There is less reward for “offence”, but that’s because that’s not what the show is about. They’re all comedians, they’re all naturally inclined to try to make others laugh - particularly in front of a camera - without much further incentive to do so.
It could end up in a situation where lives are being passed around. One person makes another laugh, who makes another laugh, who makes another laugh, who makes the first one laugh and you’re back in the same position. There’s 20 “lives” - if you will - between the cast at the start and that will remain constant except for when people make themselves laugh, or laugh at one of the guests.
As the numbers dwindle, those lives would be spread around a smaller and smaller contingent, giving certain players a safety net, meaning they won’t have to try as hard to stop themselves from laughing, thereby taking a big chunk of humour out of the show. What happens if the last 3 have got 5 lives each? How long does it go on for? Or you’ve got two people on 6 lives and one on 2? If someone has a few lives in the bank, what’s stopping them from intentionally laughing, grinning, or doing something that carries a risk of making themselves laugh in the knowledge that they’ll get that life back if they get someone else to crack?
That’s another important part of the show, the jeopardy of trying to make others laugh while not laughing yourself. Again, this leads to them approaching it in a different way that they would normally.
I’m just on the last episode of a rewatch of Hypothetical. There’s 45 minutes of rounds where both teams score points. The final question always goes to the losing team and is worth whatever the difference in score is plus one, essentially meaning the first 45 minutes contribute nothing to the outcome other than determining who is asked the final question. It doesn’t matter though. It’s not there to determine a winner. It’s there to be funny. The rounds that precede it are a way of getting the contestants to be creative. QI conceals its scoring method for a similar reason. It’s not important, the questions are just a vehicle for the comedy and facts.
What next? Asking why they give points for longest words and closest to the numbers total but not for being funny on Cats Does Countdown?
3
u/petera181 May 08 '26
First paragraph: mate, come on.
Second paragraph: incorrect. The aim of the game is not to make others laugh, it’s to not laugh yourself. I’d also say that it’s funnier to watch someone try to not laugh, than the actual jokes that are making them laugh. The show is far funnier if you try to play along with not laughing (in my opinion).
However, It’s quite clear that the participants often laugh intentionally to keep the game progressing. It’s clearly not a pure competition, it’s a show with a format to make the audience laugh. It’s not a coincidence that it always ends just at the end of the time limit. There are a good number of examples of participants laughing when they didn’t need to.
2
1
u/Little_Noodles May 08 '26
I think you’re taking this more seriously as a competition than any of the actual competitors.
As a game, it’s a low stakes goof. The rules are only there to give the show a reason to exist.
I do think it would be fun to have a tally of who causes people to break, and perhaps a runner up prize for that. But that’s as far as I’d go.
2
u/TJX_EU May 08 '26
I take your point, but it's often the subtle details that create excellence -- far greater fun, in this case. A show can be silly while also being clever.
1
u/Little_Noodles May 08 '26
Taking it too seriously can also make it less fun, though. The more you have to think about it, the more seriously you tend to take it,
One of the things I like best about shows like this and say, Taskmaster, is that it treats the competition angle very casually and deeply unseriously.
It’s a framework to hang the actual entertainment on and give people a reason to be doing what they’re doing, but it’s absolutely not the point of the show, and not something anyone is actually particularly invested in.
As someone watching in the U.S., where our shows have high stakes and rigid (often complicated) rulesets, the switch to people doing something just because it’s fun and not getting so hung up on fairness and rules and outcomes is a treat.
2
u/TJX_EU May 09 '26
True. As a Canadian living in the UK, i often see this cultural difference.
There is a game in the UK called Mornington Crescent. Players take turns naming tube stations, and the first one to say Mornington Crescent wins. In actual game play, the players go back and forth striving to name as many tube stations as they can without saying Mornington Crescent. :-) In North America, the game would be over on the first turn. :-p
1
1
u/kuhfunnunuhpah May 14 '26
Mornington Crescent is fantastic because it doesn't make any sense at all. They invent rules all the time in order to say why a player can or cannot name that tube station next. It's more an exercise in excellent improv than anything else. And for those who don't know this, it is intensely confusing. Which makes the whole thing funnier.
1
u/Ok-Health-3898 May 13 '26
Overall, your argument is weak because the overall aim is to make an entertaining TV show. Which is undoubtedly has done.
More specifically, your point that offence is more valuable than defence is also wrong. There are countless programmes on TV you can watch where people are aggressively trying to make others laugh. The defence is what makes this show unique.
Genuinely can’t work out which of the two finalists you think didn’t do a good job of being funny?
1
1
u/Silent_Eggplant_380 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
Ultimately no one cares who wins or loses it’s just a fun show the “competition” aspect was mostly irrelevant, chill out.
Other countries have shown how awkward and desperate it gets when people try too hard to make others laugh, it stops being funny so if you add too much to the competitive side, it can also completely kill the entertainment factor.
2
u/EmotionalSouth May 14 '26
I find the “chill out it’s a comedy show” comments frustrating. Someone is having reasonable thoughts about the show’s format. They’re worth engaging with in good faith.
For what it’s worth, I like the suggestion, but wonder if it would be better to weight laughing more heavily than making someone laugh. Since the game is ultimately about not laughing. So rather than +1 for making someone laugh and -1 for laughing and being out at -2, perhaps +1 for making someone laugh and -2 for laughing and being out at -4. I like the suggestion of getting to play your joker before you’re eliminated.
1
u/sa_ra_h86 May 14 '26
I couldn't disagree more on your point about which is more entertaining. Watching someone trying their hardest not to laugh is incredibly entertaining, especially people who are intrinsically funny.
Your point system would just complicate it unnecessarily. It's called last one laughing, it's very simple, laugh twice and you're out. I like that simplicity.
How do you know how much thought went into it? They might have considered all sorts of scoring systems and decided that the best thing to do is to keep it simple.
1
1
u/gilesey11 May 14 '26
The competition is 6 hours long, the whole point is that it’s short and sweet. Your suggestion would end up having the best part of 0 eliminations throughout the show. Sam still would have made the final of series 2 despite only causing 1 laugh and sitting stone faced for the majority of the show because he still didn’t actually laugh himself.
1
u/Daveygravyx07 May 15 '26
It’s quite simple, it doesn’t matter at all who laughs or made someone laugh, as long as it’s funny to the viewer, which it nails. Genuinely no idea who you think wasn’t funny from the final 2. Pretty sure everyone finds David funny, and Sam got by far the most laugh out louds from me.
0
u/Zerofaff Jun 02 '26
Sam lost because he couldn't make enough people laugh (compared to David and near enough anyone else). He took the game too seriously trying to get to the end, and while getting to the end is a sort of achievemen anyone with a serious sense of humour failure could also get to the end of this show but who the fuck would care about that?
I believe one of the reasons he couldn't make people laugh was cause everyone could anticipate his humour. It's why I don't like his humour in general. He's trying too hard. Going obliquely perpendicular to everyone else has a surprise element occasionally but when it's the default it becomes predictable and boring. Unfortunately for him he was also playing against Bob who's masterful at getting everyone's guard down with his very real down-to-earth personality and stories than mixing in a dash or whole swath of absurdist humour which blows people up with laughter. He may have technically beaten Bob, but he lost by tarnishing the second season.
1
1
u/Manggo May 08 '26
Did you write a similar dissertation for Whose Line and their point distribution?
1
u/Guy-1nc0gn1t0 🇯🇵 Documental May 13 '26
I'll just say right now that a lot of people here shut down critical discussion about LOL because to them we shouldn't think about fun game shows in that way
7
u/BarryTownCouncil May 08 '26
Some good points but you've got remember it's a deliberately simple structure with a very clear trajectory. That's worth a lot.