The Brain ( lit. "The Most Powerful Brain") is a Chinese reality and talent show starting in 2014, which was originated from Germany. The show aims to find people with exceptional brainpower. This show is produced under Endemol.Format Distribution - The Brain The Brain (format distribution), Endemol. In 2018, the series were rebooted as The Brain: Burn Your Brain, featuring weekly puzzle-based challenges for teens and adults. It focused on mental skills over prizes.
Overview and format Seasons 1 and 2 Period One: Qualifier Rounds A contestant with special skills (not necessarily brainpower or mental skills) comes to the stage and announces what their "special" challenge is going to be. Each judge (except Dr. Wei) then gives a score between 0 and 5 based on how difficult they believe the challenge to be. The 3 judges' scores will then be added together to give the total preliminary score (between 0 and 15).
The contestant then completes their challenge. If they're successful, Dr. Wei gives a score between 1 and 10 based on the challenge's actual level of difficulty.
If the final score (the product of the judges' scores and Dr. Wei's score) is more than 80 points, the contestant is qualified to go on to the next round. If Dr. Wei gives a full 10 points, the contestant is automatically qualified for the next round. If the final score is below 80, the contestant is eliminated from the show. Usually, Dr. Wei will give an explanation of his score, regardless of whether the contestant succeeds or is eliminated.
Period Two: Elimination Round The contestants who received a full 10 points from Dr. Wei in Period One are exempt from elimination.
Before a challenger starts their brainpower-based challenge, they must choose a contestant who is already qualified to challenge. If the challenger does not state a specific qualified contestant they want to challenge, it will be seen as a challenge to all the qualified contestants.
If the challenger chooses only one qualified contestant, and their score is greater than the contestant being challenged, the challenger qualifies. However, if they score less than the qualified contestant, they are eliminated from the show. If the case of a tie occurs, Dr. Wei will ultimately decide who qualifies.
If the challenger wants to challenge all the qualified contestants, their score must be higher than the lowest score of the qualified contestants. If the challenger's score is higher than the lowest score of the already qualified contestants, the qualified contestants with scores below the challenger will face elimination by Dr. Wei's choice. If the challenger fails to reach the lowest qualified contestant score, they are eliminated from the show.
After Episode 9, China had found their 12 qualified contestants, who formed their team for international episodes.
Period Three: Challenges This period consists of challenges between the Chinese show's greatest contestants and the ones in the other international versions (see below).
Each team has four members, participating in one-on-one competitions between team China and a foreign "high-skilled" team. Each team member plays one competition, and the country who wins the most is the winner. In the event of a tie, the four judges - Wei Kunlin, Robert Desimone, Konrad Kording and Bernard Balleine - will decide who wins the competition based on whose competition was the most difficult.
Note: In Season 1, Wei, Robert, Konrad and Bernard are all the experts of Neuroscience. Wei Kunlin is the associate professor of the Department of Psychology in Peking University, the Doctor of Motion Control at University of Pennsylvania; Robert Desimone is National Academy of Sciences Award and Golden Brain Award winner, the Professor of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Konrad Kording is the associate professor of Northwestern University; Bernard Balleine is Honorary Fellow of Australia, the Director of Laboratory of Neurobehavioral Sciences of Institute for Brain and Mental in University of Sydney.
Full Schedule of Period Three Home Team: China Date Guest teamSeason One (2014)14 March 2014 Italy21 March 2014 Spain28 March 2014 GermanySeason Two (2015)6 March 2015 Germany13 March 2015 Japan20 March 2015 United Kingdom27 March 2015 United StatesSeason Three (2016)March 2016 Germany
Season 3 Phase 1: Captain selection In the premiere episode of Season 3, eight contestants from previous seasons will play head-to-head in four different competitions. Four winners will be allocated to the third phase, or the international competitions, as the captains.
Phase 2: International competitions A team of contestants from China will play head-to-head against a foreign team. Rules remain the same as the competitions in earlier seasons. The competition schedule will be shown as the following: Transmission time Home team Captain Guest team Captain March 4, 2016 China Li Wei Germany Simon Reinhard March 11, 2016 Roy Lam United Kingdom Ben Pridmore March 18, 2016 Wang Yuheng Japan Rinne Tsujikubo March 25, 2016 Jia LipingWang Yinghao International X-team Feliks ZemdegsGianfranco Huanqui Only the winning team every week can select one contestant from their national team to the next phase - the season final in April.
Phase 3: Season final The advisory judge will nominate one contestant from those who have won the head-to-heads in the winning team at the end of each competition, as one of the four finalists. However, due to the fact that the third match between China and Japan ended with a tie, Robert Desimone nominated one contestant from both of the teams, meaning there would be five finalists in all. But Chen Ranran decided to withdraw, meaning the remaining four finalists would play as individuals in the final.
Each of the four finalists will take on the final challenge for them in the season. This challenge is based on their strengths in mental techniques, and it will be extremely harder than those they have been played earlier in the show. Regardless of the outcomes of the challenges, a panel of four experts (Wei Kunlin and three advisory judges from the head-to-heads) will all rate the challenge and explain it scientifically, as Wei Kunlin usually did earlier in the series. The contestant with the highest combined score is entitled the Grand Champion.
Season 4: Human vs Supercomputer The entire season four (2017 season) is based on the concept "Human vs supercomputer". Xiao Du, as an avatar of the Baidu AI system, would be recognised as a special contestant. However, if Xiao Du defeated any two human contestants on their nominated challenges, Xiao Du would be directly qualified as a finalist, so it would be possible that there would be a non-human grand champion of the entire season. The competition structure is slightly different from the 2016 season.
Phase 1: Qualification Similar to the previous season's second phase, contestants have to achieve 80 points by the panel's decisions. One of the members of "The Brain's Hall of Fame" will join the judging panel, in order to select the best contestants. However, contestants cannot request head-to-heads against those who has already qualified until the next round.
"The Brain's Hall of Fame" consists of the contestants who successfully performed in the previous three seasons. As the previous season's grand champion, Chen Zhiqiang is guaranteed as a finalist to defend his title. If the contestant fail to qualify, the "Hall of Fame" may challenge the judging panel, but the decision must be unanimous in order to qualify. Should even one of the members did not challenge the judges, the contestant would be eliminated. As always, if the contestant failed to complete his or her challenge, he or she would be eliminated, cannot be qualified.
Also, there would be a special sudoku contest and mental calculation head-to-head competition, since there were no panellists in "The Brain's Hall of Fame" who specialise in either of these fields. They along with other panellists in the "Hall of Fame" who didn't have their nominated opponents would be straightly qualified for the third phase, in order to play head-to-head with international panellists.
Head-to-head In the second half of each episode, one member of "The Brain's Hall of Fame" will be nominated for the episode's head-to-head challenge against Xiao Du. To be fair, the details of their games would not be revealed to both the human contestants and Xiao Du itself before the recording of the show.
If there's a little time left (not enough due to regulations), it would be broadcast as a separate segment out of the regular show.
Special contests In Episodes 4 and 5, there were special contests based on speedcubing.
Auditions Starting from around 100 contestants, a non-broadcast audition was introduced, with contestants failed to solve a classic Rubik's Cube in a definite time limit were eliminated in first two rounds (e.g. in the speed solving round, 15 seconds in the first round, 12 seconds in the second), and the first six contestants to solve the third cube went on to the televised knockouts.
Last Man Standing Speed: In the televised knockouts, starting from the third round, the contestant with the longest cumulative time or committed a foul would be eliminated. The final two contestants play a best-of-five final to determine the winner that went through to Phase 2. Before each round, contestants may have 10 seconds to inspect the puzzle. Standard rules of speedcubing apply in each round. Blindfolded: In the televised selection, starting with six contestants, they needed to solve three standard Rubik's cube blindfolded. Standard rules of speedcubing apply. Only the best of three rounds will be taken into account, while the two contestants with the longest time would be eliminated. Then the four remaining contestants repeated the previous round, with only two rounds in the following elimination round. The final two contestants then played a sudden death final to determine the winner that went through to next phase.
Odd One Out Since there was a contestant who specialise in mathematics and logic in Episode 5, there would be another head-to-head game to determine the only qualifier in the following episode, based on memory. Whoever won the "Odd One Out" game would be able to play against the chosen "Hall of Fame" panellist.
Phase 2: Knockout Qualified contestants in the previous phase will take on one of the members in the Hall of Fame under a head-to-head challenge designed by the production team. The winners will advance to the international challenges, while the losers are eliminated. Contestants cannot choose Xiao Du as the opponent until they win their head-to-heads.
Phase 3: China vs The World Panellists from "The Brains Hall of Fame" (as China) will play head-to-head games against one of the panellists from the panel The World. The World consists of nine contestants who were believed to be the best in their respective mental specialists, or from other international versions of The Brain.
After all the head-to-head games, regardless of the outcomes, Dr. Wei Kunlin and Prof. Robert Desimone will nominate one contestant from each of the two panels to proceed to the final along with the returning grand champion Chen Zhiqiang and Xiao Du.
Confirmed panellists from The World: Alex Mullen, 2-time winner of World Memory Championships, champion of USA Memory Championship 2016 Yanjaa Wintersoul, #1 Female Memory Champion of the world and International Grandmaster of Memory World Memory Championships 2015 Jonas von Essen, returning from the previous season, 2-time winner of World Memory Championships, champion of Swedish Memory Championship 2014 Kota Morinishi, 2-time World Sudoku Championship winner, 7-time WSC veteran for Japan Hiroaki Tsuchiya, returning from the 2016 season (finalist of the 2016 contest), Japan Mental Calculation champion