The Brain (TV series)

The Brain 最强大脑 Zuiqiang Danao
Also known as	Chinese: 最强大脑; pinyin: Zùiqiáng Dànǎo
Created by	Endemol Germany
Developed by	Jiangsu TV
Presented by	Jiang Changjian, Zhang Zetian and Wang Xin
Starring	Wei Kunlin (Dr. Wei), Tao Ching-Ying, Meng Fei, Gao Xiaosong, etc.
Country of origin	China
Original language(s)	Standard Chinese (mainly), German, Spanish, Italian, etc.
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	24 (excl. specials)
Production
Producer(s)	Endemol
Location(s)	Jiangsu Television center, Nanjing
Running time	Approx. 2 hours and 10 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel	Jiangsu TV
Picture format	576i (16:9) (SDTV), 1080p (HDTV)
Audio format	5.1 surround sound
Original run	January 3, 2014 – March 27, 2015
External links
Website

The Brain (Simplified Chinese: 最强大脑, Pinyin: Zùiqiáng Dànǎo) is a scientific reality and talent show originating in Germany but produced in China. The show's aim is to find people whose brainpower are beyond that of ordinary people. This show is produced under Endemol and has been sold to six countries in Europe, China and South America to date.^[1] So far the show has produced two seasons, but it may not be renewed for another season in the future.

Overview and format

Period One: Qualifier Rounds

A contestant with special skills (not entirely about the brain or brainpower) come to the stage and state what is the contestant's "special" challenge. Each judge (Except Dr. Wei) will give a score between 0 through 5 based on how difficult they believe the challenge to be. The 3 judges' scores will then be tallied up to give the total preliminary score (between 0 and 15).

If the contestant succeeds their challenge, Dr. Wei will then give a score between 1 and 10 based on the item's actual level of difficulty.

If the final score (the product of the judges' scores and Dr. Wei's score) is not less 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 for the score he puts out, regardless if the contestant is eliminated or qualified.

Period Two: Elimination Round

In Period One, the contestants who received a full 10 points from Dr. Wei are exempt from elimination.

Before a contestant starts his/her brainpower-based challenge, they must choose a formerly qualified contestant to challenge. If the contestant 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 contestant chooses only one qualified contestant, and the score is greater than the contestant being challenged, the challenging contestant is qualified. However, if it is lower than the formerly qualified contestant, he or she is eliminated from the show. If the case of a tie occurs, Dr. Wei will ultimately decide who is qualified.

If the contestant wants to challenge all the qualified contestant, his/her score must be no less than the lowest score of the qualified contestants. If the contestant is higher than the lowest score of the already qualified contestants, the qualified contestants with scores below the newly qualified contestant will face elimination by Dr. Wei's choice. If the challenging contestant fails to reach the lowest qualified contestant score, he/she is eliminated from the show.

After Episode 9, the team of China found their 12 qualified contestants.

Period Three: Challenges

This period is the challenges between this show's greatest contestants and the ones in the other versions (see below).

Each team contains four skillful contestants, participating in four one-on-one competitions between team China and foreign "high-skilled" team. In other words, the teams play best-of-four competitions to determine the winners. In the event of a tie, four judges - Wei Kunlin, Robert Desimone, Konrad Kording and Bernard Balleine will decide who wins the competition with the greatest level of difficulty.

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

All these times are in Beijing Time(UTC+8).

Airing time	Home team	Guest team
Season One (2014)
22:00, March 14, 2014	China	Italy
22:00, March 21, 2014	China	Spain
21:30, March 28, 2014	China	Germany
Season Two (2015)
21:10, March 6, 2015	China	Germany
21:10, March 13, 2015	China	Japan
21:10, March 20, 2015	China	United Kingdom
21:10, March 27, 2015	China	United States

Summary of Season One

Period One's Qualified Contestants by Episode

Episode 1

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on January 3, 2014. This episode's guests were Li Yanhong and Jay Chou.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Zheng Caiqian	112 pts.	Find the changed color block between two walls that each contain 2,500 Rubik Cubes.
Yujuan Lee	88 pts.	Find the mixed face that is synthesized by two human faces.

Episode 2

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on January 10, 2014.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Yang Wanli	84 pts.	Find the dog by correctly identifying the markings, given a picture of a section of the chosen dog's body.
Ge Yunlin	84 pts.	Sum up the numbers flashed on the screen (no more than 3-digits).
Wu Tiansheng	135 pts.	Given a wall of fingerprints, identify which fingerprint belongs to which audience member.

Episode 3

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on January 17, 2014.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Hu Xiaoling	88 pts.	Play the Crossword using the 40 given words
Zhou Wei	Full mark	Figuring out the involution and square roots

Episode 4

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on January 24, 2014.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Jia Liping	80 pts.	Solve two Rubik Cubes while blindfolded underwater all in one breath.
Ai Xiaowa	84 pts.	Identify the object in front while blindfolded by only using your breath.

Episode 5

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on February 7, 2014. Tao Ching-Ying was replaced by Zhang Ziyi on this episode.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Li Yong	112 pts.	Identify the egg chosen by Li Yongbo
Wang Feng	112 pts.	Identify the selected model's door and its key

Note: "Wang Feng" in this episode is not a singer, but a 24-year-old writer in Beijing; "Li Yong" is a 50-year-old man currently living in Henan Province, not a former CCTV television host.

Episode 6

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on February 14, 2014.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Rao Shunhan	112 pts.	Random members of the audience choose 30 toys, and the contestant must calculate the total before the scanner does.
Ni Ziqiang	84 pts.	Correctly identify and match up 32 pairs of identical twins just based on memory.

Episode 7

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on February 21, 2014. This is the final episode of Period 1.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Huang Jindong	112 pts.	Memorize the QR codes within a given time, and correctly answer the phone number associated with a given QR code. (2 Rounds)

Period Two's Qualified and Eliminated Formerly-qualified Contestants by Episode

Episode 8

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on February 28, 2014. Jay Chou is back as the guest.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Sun Cheran	112 pts.	Playing Sudoku with back to the screen, both the 9 numbers and colors on the line and 3x3 grid couldn't be used more than once.

Eliminations in this episode: Ge Yunlin, Hu Xiaoling.

Episode 9

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on March 7, 2014. Meng Fei and Ning Caishen, the host and regular guest of Fei Cheng Wu Rao, a show currently airing every weekend on Jiangsu Television, were the guests. What's more, Ning replaced Liang Dong in this episode.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Li Yunlong	120 pts.	Memorizing(within one minute) and guiding the guest Ning Caishen across the flyover containing a certain sequence of "traps."
Liu Hongzhi	126 pts.	Memorize the password pictures of 100 new mobile phones only once, and unlock the chosen two phones.
Yang Guanxin	117 pts.	Given a wall of faces synthesized from any 2 faces of 60 Korean ladies, find the two faces from which the 'mixed' face was synthesized from.

Eliminations in this episode: Rao Shunhan, Yang Wanli, Li Yong, Yujuan Lee.

Brief Report to Period Three by Episode

Episode 10

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time, 14:00 in London, UK, 9:00 in New York, USA) on March 14, 2014. The foreign contestants are from Italy, and all of those are winners of Superbrain - Le Supermenti(the Italian distribution of The Brain, running on Rai 1).

This episode's guest is Lin Dan, a world-famous Chinese badminton athlete and the advised judge is Robert Desimone, the Director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Round No.	China	Competition Formation	Result	Italy
1	Zheng Caiqian	Find the changed colors between the two walls as much as he can, each contains 3,500 Rubik Cubes (rectangles of 4 meters by 3 meters).	CHN Won	Franco Gengotti
2	Yang Guanxin	Calculate the capacity of water in the glass just based on listening the sound of hitting the glass.	ITA Won	Marco
3	Li Yunlong	Place the 102 model brides and bridegrooms in a correct order based on memory.	CHN Won	Andrea La Torre
4	Wu Tiansheng	Write down the correct pyramid of 15 numbered paper cups based on memory in a certain time (decided by contestant).	CHN Won	Matteo Salvo

• Round 1: Franco tried to find the differences set by Zheng Caiqian 4 times, but he failed again and again in the 8-minute time limit; however, Zheng Caiqian's turn goes well, and he found a difference at 6 minutes and 17.02 seconds, he won the Round 1.
• Round 2: Both of the contestants faced three glasses of water, they must calculate how much water in these glasses in grams (They had a margin of 3 grams). Marco's answer was 276 g, actually 273.7 g; but Yang's answer was 498 g, the actual answer was 493.6 g. Marco won Round 2.
• Round 3: They faced a random sequence of brides and bridegrooms, totally 102 people in the line. Li started from the right side, and Andrew from the left side. Finally, Li finished in 1 minute and 18.15 seconds, while Andrew used 2 minutes and 41.51 seconds. Under huge pressure, Andrew got totally correct. Li remembered the sequence correctly but thought he placed the models in a wrong order. Li cried badly, repeating these words:

“

I got the sequence correct, but I placed it in a wrong order!

”

When they went through Li's actual sequence, they found out Li actually placed them correctly. Li won Round 3.

• Round 4: Prior to the final competition, Robert said that he want to add 10 simple maths questions to prevent them away from memorizing the numbers directly, because "that is not difficult enough"(said Wu, Wei and Robert). Matteo wanted 10 seconds to memorize the number pyramid, and he got the pyramid incorrect with 4 wrong numbers. Then was Wu's turn, he just wanted 6 seconds to memorize the pyramid, and Wei said that he was "not wise enough" at backstage, though Wu crowned the World Memory Championships ever. Finally, Wu got the pyramid correct, and he won the ultimate Round 4.

Ultimate winner:  China won the Episode 10, the first episode of competition series.

Episode 11

This episode is aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time, 14:00 in London, UK, 9:00 in New York, USA) on March 21, 2014. The foreign contestants are from Spain, and all of those are winners of Increíbles: el gran desafío(the Spanish distribution of The Brain, running on Antena 3).

That night's guests are: Cecilia Cheung, a Chinese actress, singer, two-time Hong Kong Film Awards winner; the other one is Kim Soo-hyun, a Korean actor, Korean Movie Bell Award winner in 2013, the starring of Asian-hit Television series My Love from the Star. The advised judge is Konrad Kording, the Associate Professor of Northwestern University.

Round No.	China	Competition Formation	Result	Spain
5	Liu Hongzhi	Find the exact 5 costumes and accessories which did the chosen models wear.	CHN Won	Paco Páze
6	Huang Jindong	Write down the exact numbers of Barcodes (full and one thirds, best-of-three).	CHN Won	Antia Martinez
7	Sun Cheran	Please see below.	ESP Won	Matin Lopez
8	Jia Liping	Solve the 20 Rubik Cubes blindfolded as much as he could in 10 minutes.	CHN Won	Alex Olleta

• Round 5: They faced 20 models, and after the models dressed on the costumes chosen by Cecilia Cheung and Kim Soo-hyun. Later they both chose one model for each of the contestants. Liu chose the costumes faster than Paco, but Paco got 2 of 5 costumes correct. Finally, it was shown that Liu got just one of the costumes incorrect, so Liu won Round 5.
• Round 6: The pair of contestants memorized the 150 Barcodes backstage for 3 hours, then they faced the first code. They both got the codes correct. But in the second codes, Huang's pen was found it had something wrong, but Konrad gave the two another try. Finally, Huang did the extra challenge correct within just approximately 19 seconds. Huang won the Round 6.
• Round 7: The first turn is Sun Cheran's turn. She played "Single Dragon Sudoku" back to the screen that she must fill 1 to 9 into the Sudoku grid, then the numbers couldn't be repeated in all the lines or the small 3x3 grids, and in the "dragon" chosen by Matin, the numbers must be in a strictly increasing or decreasing order (starting with 1 or 9). Then Sun got the grid correctly.

Then it was Matin's turn: following the chessboard of Chess and its Knight's rules, Sun must assign the starting point and the ending point, with a number of starting point's number and the sum of each horizontal and vertical line between 200 to 500. Sun chose A5 as the starting point with the number of 31, and B5 as the finish point. The sum of numbers in all the lines must be exactly 477. Matin also got it correct. Ultimately, Konrad, the judge, decided that Matin was the winner of Round 7.

• Round 8: Both of the contestants memorized the 20 Rubik Cubes in one hour backstage, and on the stage, they must solve the series of 20 cubes in 10 minutes. Alex just use 7 minutes and 44 seconds to deal with the cubes but just got five correct. However, Jia used full 10 minutes and got 13 cubes correct, so he ultimately won final Round 8.

Ultimate winner:  China won the 11th episode by 3-1.

Episode 12

This episode is aired at 21:30 (Beijing Time, 13:30 in London, UK, 8:30 in Eastern USA) on March 28, 2014. The foreign contestants are from Germany, and all of those are best ever contestants of Deutschlands Superhirn(the German distribution of The Brain, formerly running on ZDF).

This is the finale of the 2014 Chinese version of The Brain franchise.

Jay Chou is back again as guest. The advised judge is Bernard Balleine, the Honorary Fellow of Australia, the Director of Laboratory of Neurobehavioral Sciences of Institute for Brain and Mental in University of Sydney.

Round No.	China	Competition Formation	Result	Germany
9	Wang Feng	Memorize the digits of 400 dices, presented by 4 dices in a cup displayed for 5 seconds. Then repeat the numbers under five randomly selected cups.	CHN Won	Boris Nikolai Konrad
10	Zhou Wei	Finish the given calculations (see below).	GER Won	Rudiger Gamm
11	Ai Xiaowa	Identify the objects chosen by guests only by their senses in eight minutes.	CHN Won	Dave Janischak
12	Ni Ziqiang	Buzzer and find the exact location in the 3-D sandbox Along the River During the Qingming Festival in 15 seconds(best-of-three).	CHN Won	Jurgen Seliger

• Round 9: They faced 400 dices in 100 cups, each 4 dices in it. They memorized them, within 5 seconds for each cup. After memorizing the numbers, they were asked five randomly selected cups each and had to name the numbers. Both got all of the numbers asked correct. As the tie-breaker round, they must repeat 20 further numbers of five further dice cups by writing on a board as fast as they can. Boris achieves this in just 20.9 seconds and is faster than Wang. However, Boris got one single number wrong; Wang repeated all of them correctly. Wang won Round 9.
• Round 10: They faced the following math questions:

(1) 6,901×7,789=53,751,889 (Zhou); 571×857=489,347 (Rudiger)

(2) 7¹³=96,889,010,407 (Zhou); 93¹⁷=2,912,125,755,884,410,842,622,249,257,854,493 (Rudiger)

(3) ⁵√7,813,624,454,316,229=1,508.5875…(Zhou); ⁴√83=3.018349479…(Rudiger)

Tie occurred after the three rounds. They both got their strongest question incorrect with a minor error. In the final questions in 10th round, Zhou's question was finding the prime between 27,637 and 28,283, and his answer 28,283 was correct (27,637=29×953); Rudiger's question was sin 289°, and his answer was "-0.94518575…", also correct. As a tie-breaker, Bernard decided that Rudiger was the winner of Round 10.

• Round 11: Two judges gave Ai and Dave the same 4 objects. Ai used 2 minutes and 37.40 seconds to find the objects using her breath, while Dave just finished it within 2 minutes and 45.51 seconds by using sound waves. Both of them got the first two correct and the third wrong. However, Ai got more objects correct, she won the 11th round.
• Round 12: They both memorized 3-D Chinese world-famous painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival before the show started filming for two hours. In the first two questions, they both got a location correct according to the judges' choices. In the final question, Ni chose the correct location of a character in the sandbox, so Ni won the final round.

Ultimate winner: Rumors online came that China was the ultimate winner, but its source can not be determined. During the season finale, the winner was revealed to be China. The first season said goodbye to the Chinese audience in this episode. The victory ceremony was aired on Jiangsu TV after the show ended.

Controversies & criticism in and after Season 1

"Blind Sudoku"

In Episode 8, Sun Cheran, the 14-year-old contestant from Beijing, challenged playing Sudoku blind. Several hours after the show aired, Chinese netizens mainly from social network Sina Weibo criticized the show, saying that her challenge was not difficult enough.

The people online said that she did just one "easy" Sudoku actually, because the numbers of the Sudoku table is the repetition of numbers '1, 2, 3', '5, 6, 7' and '4, 8, 9' in various orders, since Jay Chou just filled one single number and one single color in the grid.

Chen Cen, the captain and head coach of the national Sudoku team of China, later said that Sun Cheran was qualified to stay in the show, the main reason being that her ability is more than enough to challenge the Europeans. Even more, Chen Cen clarified that in the other version, there were many contestants similar to Sun.^[2]

"Guiding the way of flyover"

One week after Sun's performance, Li Yunlong qualified by the challenge of "Guiding the way of flyover." On March 8, 2014, just one day after the show aired, Wei Kunlin said these words on his Sina Weibo:

“

I seldom have words for a contestant: Li Yunlong's task is about memorizing binary sequence. A certain sequence of the random 120 binary numbers 0 and 1, memorize them in approximately 30 seconds, that's so close to the world record. He is a strong contender of breaking a record. It is worth being qualified, even giving 9 points, just in his field. Please think over the challenge's level of difficulty, not only memorizing 60 numbers. Please search on the Internet patiently, do not be emotional.

”

However, Wei's comments were strongly criticized by online viewers.

Kim Soo-hyun's visit

A major controversy was Kim Soo-hyun's visit to this show. Some media reports said that Jiangsu Television dispatched a charter flight to send Kim from Seoul, South Korea to Nanjing, where the show was taped. Accordingly, an entourage of security guards were hired, and public security departments in Jiangsu Province and Nanjing mobilized more than 300 police officers to ensure the safety of the studio. Other media reported that Kim's visit's appearance fee is about three million Chinese yuan (KR₩521,319,010, US$ 488,520, €352,110, GB£ 293,249, HK$3,791,524 or 10,299,462,628 ₫; sponsored by Google Finance). Kim's trip was heavily criticized by netizens in China, for being overtly extravagant . However, a group of fans of Kim published a full-page advertisement in Chosun Ilbo in both Chinese and Korean in support of Kim.

Series controversies to episode 10

Minutes after Episode 10 finished, the online viewers have noted several controversies to this episode's Team of China's performance.

In Round 4, Wu got a question wrong. He accidentally wrote as this: "18+99= 107."

The actual correct answer was 117. However, the rules didn't claim that getting the question wrong means the challenge is over. The "certified" online viewers said as follows:

“

Alas... are the final two rounds insults to our intelligence? (Mu Rong, a project manager of an advertising company in Guiyang, Guizhou Province) Wu got a maths question wrong... dealing with it seriously or carelessly makes a great difference. (An author working for a network technology company limited in Beijing)

”

Acting as a drama?

Some online viewers criticized that the foreign contestants "surrendered" in the competitions on the social networks, or the Chinese contestants were "cheating." They called the production team into question that all these episodes were making the broadcasting effects, so that they made all the three episodes into 3-1 results.

Excessive consumption after shows

It was reported that the host Jiang along with some contestants in the show are facing the heated consumption among the Chinese merchants. For example, Yang Wanli, the show's contestant in Episode 2, has taken a lot of local lectures about memorizing objects and brainpower; Jiang Changjian, the presenter and Associated Professor in Fudan University, is determined to take a lecture in Xiamen, Fujian, his hometown on May 17, 2014.

Online viewers also felt sympathy that the contestants, the host and even the co-hosts (known as "Scientific Assistants") were all facing the "excessive consumption" after the show ended in the early months of 2014, while criticizing the "wealthy" merchants' consumption.

Summary of Season Two

Period One's qualified contestants by episode

Episode 1

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on January 2, 2015. This premiere episode's celebrity guest was actress Fan Bingbing.

On the opening show of Season 2, host Jiang Changjian revealed that the contestants in the Period Three later this season were from United States, United Kingdom, Japan, etc. This season also consists of challenges performed outside the studio, for instance, one contestant took the task in Hong Kong. Only one contestant was qualified in this episode.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Shi Junheng	81 pts.	Identify which three model skulls belong to whom of three out of 30 specified models (at least two out of three must be correct).

Episode 2

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on January 9, 2015. This episode's celebrity guest was actress Shu Qi.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Lin Jiandong	117 pts.	Identify the correct location of the map, using the clues of seven (or eight) prime numbers.
Bao Yun	Full mark	Escape the maze featuring 127 hexagons and mark the exact locations of the four "wildcards."

Episode 3

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on January 16, 2015. This episode's celebrity guest was actor Tong Dawei, as one of the judges.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Hu Qingwen	104 pts.	Identify and relocate the exact original group of 81 out of possible 648 people dancers whose ages are over 50.
Huang Huaji	90 pts.	Using the 49 Rubik cubes to make a correct QR code to the chosen audience member's name in first letters.

Episode 4

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on January 23, 2015. Mandopop icon Jay Chou was back for the fourth time in total, and Ning Jing was also one of the celebrity guests.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Wu Renjun Xiang Tianyou	Not given	Calculate the correct answers by listening to the numbers or watching the flashing numbers on the screen.

Episode 5

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on January 30, 2015. This episode's celebrity guest was actress Tong Liya.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Sun Hongye	84 pts.	Correctly solve 100 Rubik cubes in various shapes, and score 80 points or better.
Li Wei	112 pts.	Correctly identify the Sichuan Opera masks in the right order.

Episode 6

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on February 6, 2015. This episode was the last show of the qualifier rounds.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Sara He	104 pts.	Correctly identify the children (ages ranging from 3 months to 11 months) and their corresponding parents.
Wang Yuheng	117 pts.	Correctly find one glass of water out of 520 chosen by a judge.
Sun Yiting	117 pts.	Locate the height by listening to the sound of the object falling on the ground (with a margin of 2 meters, 1 meter higher or 1 meter lower than the correct height).

Note: Due to personal requests, Sara He (scored out) withdrew from the competition later on.

Period Two's qualified and eliminated contestants by episode

Note: Eliminated contestants were scored out in the tables below. If the challenge was rated lower than the original score, it could be considered as an automatic elimination.

Episode 7

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on February 13, 2015. Xu Jinglei was the celebrity guest that night.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Li Linpei Hu Qingwen	104 pts.	Correctly identify the corresponding picture created by goats.
Li Lu Huang Huaji	96 pts.	Correctly recall the codes with the corresponding models (at least three out of five must be correct).
Lu Feifei Shi Junheng	96 pts.	Locate the pieces of what paintings them belong to.
Li Qi Lu Feifei	112 pts.	Correctly identify the chosen drums when the contestant is blindfolded.

Episode 8

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on February 27, 2015. Actress Li Xiaolu was the celebrity guest that night.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Liu Jian Li Linpei	126 pts.	Identify the Chinese surname on the corresponding cube of 150 possible surnames.
Li Wei Zheng Aiqiang	120 pts.	Correctly recall the combination of two models out of 30.
Wang Feng	135 pts.	Recall the chosen Mahjong tiles in correct order.

Brief report to Period Three by episode

Episode 9:  China vs.  Germany

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on March 6, 2015. Pianist Lang Lang was the celebrity guest that night. This episode also saw the return of Prof. Robert Desimone, as one of the judges.

Round No.	China	Competition Formation	Winning contestant	Germany
1	Wang Feng	Quickly memorize a random deck of playing cards, then correctly recall the cards using a new one within 5 minutes.	Wang	Simon Reinhard
2	Li Lu	Identify the three side silhouettes belong to which three audience members.	Li	Christiane Stenger
3	Sun Yiting	Correctly identify which piano tunes the chosen three household objects made together.	Sun	Waetitia Bahn
4	Wang Feng	Recall the 5 chosen cups of dice out of 100 (4 each), as Round 9 did last year.	Wang	Boris Nikolai Konrad

• Round 1: As the first round of the "Three heads against Four" Challenges, both of the contestants faced a random deck of playing cards. Their job was memorizing it and put it into a correct order. Wang Feng, as the only Asian winner of World Memory Championships, memorized the deck in 19.80 seconds, while Simon, German Memory Master of 2009 and Worldrecord holder used a little more time than Wang. Simon made some mistakes, and Wang Feng recalled the full deck correctly within 5-minute time limit. Wang won this round.
• Round 2: The contestants memorized the 100 random audience members with their names (in first letters for given names and surnames), and their appearance in the front only. Then they faced 3 side silhouettes chosen by Lang Lang. Contestants must identify those silhouettes belong to whom, and write down their first letters for the names and surnames, and their random seat numbers. Li Lu finished first with an advantage of about 1 minute and 10 seconds. However, Christiane gave one incorrect answer to the second audience member's seat number, making Li Lu became the winner.
• Round 3: The contestants was given three household objects. The co-presenter made these objects some noises, but the contestants must name the hidden piano key sounds in such noises, then write down what they have heard. Sun Yiting's answer was closer to the judgement of the spectrum, making Sun Yiting became the third round's winner.
• Round 4: During the final round, Boris and Wang Feng faced the challenge they compeeted last year. Boris did his best even to score one point for the German team. In the last cup of dice, Wang Feng gave the correct answer. However, Boris failed to recall the numbers in the cup Number 93.

Ultimate winner:  China won the first competition in 2015 edition with a score of 4-0.

Episode 10:  China vs.  Japan

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on March 13, 2015. Prof. Robert Desimone stayed on the seat for the task as a judge.

Round No.	China	Competition Formation	Winning contestant(s)	Japan
5	Sun Hongye	Solve 100 Rubik Cubes correctly, whoever solves faster wins.	Mitsuki	Mitsuki Gunji
6	Wang Yuheng	Identify the three fans out of possible 200, without showing the entire pictures on them.	Wang	Haraguchi Akira
7	Xiang Tianyou Wu Renjun	Correctly work out the mathematics questions (features 3 sub-rounds).	Japanese contestants	Sasano Tekeo Tsujikubo Rine

• Round 5: Two contestants faced the same 100 Rubik Cubes in various shapes. Their task was to solve all the cubes, whoever solves faster won. Mitsuki finished first with an advantage of one and a half minutes, and became the winner of this round. It is worth noticing that Mitsuki is the current Guinness World Record holder of the person who solves a 3x3 Rubik Cube fastest, and his record was only about 7 seconds.
• Round 6: Two similar pictures from China and Japan (one from each respective country) was divided into 100 fans each. They must identify the three fans chosen by Robert without showing the entire pictures on those fans, in other words, the fans were kept closed when the competition is underway. Before the competition, they could memorize and keep them familiar with the 200 fans for 2 hours, however, Wang decided not to watch all the fans. During the competition, Wang finished the task first, and he got all the answer correctly. But Haraguchi failed to identify two of the fans, Wang won this round.
• Round 7: As the tie-breaking round and the "Two-on-two" round, the score would be doubled. In this round, there was three sub-rounds. In the first two rounds, the credits will be rated by the difficulty they chose on the difficulty board. The contestant correctly answered the most difficult question would score six points, and four points for the second most difficult, then two and one for the rest of contestants. However, getting the answer wrong would score nothing (zero points) in each of the first two sub-rounds.
  • 1) All the contestants must solve the questions that has 20 numbers flashing on the screen. They could choose how quick they wanted. In this round, Wu started first, he chose the difficulty that could keep him safe for the competition. Next two contestants, Xiang and Sasano chose the same difficulty level rated 7 out of 10, and they answered those sums correctly. Finally, Tsujikubo chose the highest level of difficulty (8 out of 10), and got the correct answer as well. In this sub-round, Japan was in the lead with a score of 9-4 (Round 7 only).
  • 2) To increase difficulty, there were two set of double digit numbers (10 numbers each) flashing on the screen. The contestants must correctly work out both of them to score points. However, Japanese contestants started first, and Tsujikubo got the 5-star question (addition only, 6 seconds for showing the numbers) correct. Then Wu and Sasano correctly got the same level (6 out of possible 10) of question. At last, Xiang answered the most difficult one (7 out of 10, addition only for 4 seconds), and he correctly worked out those sums. After two sub-rounds, Japanese contestants lead with 15-11.
  • 3) In the final round, there were four questions for multiplication and division (at least five-digit numbers used). Those questions worth 2, 4, 6, 6 points, and all the questions were on the buzzer. The first pair of contestants buzz-in with the correct answer would score points, but if the contestant got the question wrong, the respective points would taken away from the total. In the first question (9-digit ÷ 5-digit), Wu Renjun was the first to buzz-in and correctly answered that. But in the second round (6-digit × 6-digit) worth four points, Tsujikubo incorrectly solved that, and as a result, those points were taken away from the Japanese contestants' score. In the final two rounds (12-digit ÷ 6-digit and 7-digit × 7-digit), Tsujikubo had taken control of the whole competition, and under such massive pressure, she got both of them correct. Japanese contestants won the "Double pointer" Round 7 with a massive score of 23-11.

Ultimate winner:  Japan became the first team to defeat the "undefeated" Chinese contestants with a result of 3-1.

Episode 11:  China vs.  United Kingdom

This episode was aired at 21:10 (Beijing Time) on March 20, 2015. This episode saw the return of the contestant Li Lu, who appeared on the competition two weeks (on television) ago. This show's celebrity guests were Huang Lei, a Chinese actor, and a regular guest of Fei Cheng Wu Rao, a weekly dating show presented by one of the judges Meng Fei; and actress Shu Qi for the second time in the series. The advised judge this time was Dagnar Sternad, PhD of experimental psychology in University of Connecticut, professor of biology and physics at Northeastern University, and visiting professor of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Round No.	China	Competition Formation	Winning contestant	United Kingdom
8	Lin Jiandong	Find the only random 5-digit code hidden in the wall that can open the sealed box.	Robert	Robert Fountain
9	Li Wei	Translate the two given words for the three (out of 8) languages and identify the pieces for those words.	Katie	Katie Kermode
10	Liu Jian	Correctly find the chosen fake bombs and the corresponding lines connect to them.	Liu	James Paterson
11	Li Lu	Identify the chosen barcode of an express delivery and call the chosen audience member (sudden death format, faster finger wins).	Ben	Ben Pridmore

• Round 8: This round was exactly the same as what Lin did in the qualifier round for this season. However, in this round, two contestants would play against each other by who solved the wall featuring 1,380 codes faster won it all. To decrease the possibility of guessing the answers, the three strikes rule was used - if the contestant failed to input the correct code, the competition ended immediately and he lost. The correct code was hidden in the crossing of four of the possible seven prime numbers. In the competition, even Lin made physical obstructions in front of the screen, Robert went faster, and won the Round 8. Unfortunately, the number 67,971 is a composite number rather than a prime number which was chosen in the qualifier round, it could be divisible by 3(67,971=3×139×163).
• Round 9: This round consisted of more than 1,000 words in 8 languages, other than Latin-based languages (espacially other than Chinese and English), the competition used Arabic, Persian, Burmese, Cambodian, Nepali, Thai, Sinhala and Tamil. They had memorized all those words before the show, and in the competition, all those words would be split into thousands of pieces. They must find the correct pieces on the board to complete the translated words (two words for three languages each) in 40 minutes. Li Wei stated completion first to apply pressure to Katie, but in the competition, Katie got two more correct answers than Li Wei. As a result, Chinese contestants lost two straight rounds.

Ultimate winner:  United Kingdom won the competition with a result of 3-1, making Chinese contestants lost two shows in a row.

Controversies & criticism in and after Season 2

Wang Yuheng: Political references

In the 10th episode of the second season, facing the Japanese contestants, Chinese contestant Wang Yuheng said to the camera:

“

Even the number of fans rose to 300,000, I could still find it! I saw a fan full of Chinese characters...

”

Wang's such words and the number 300,000 made a huge controversy on the social media, because it was the number of victims in Nanking Massacare two years before the World War II, and the show was filmed in Nanjing, China. Wang stressed on the references of history and politics, made him became controversial after the show.

Judges

Scientific judge in all seasons is Wei Kunlin.

Season 1

Episodes	Name
1 - Present	Li Yongbo
1 - 8	Liang Dong
1-4, 6, 8-Present	Tao Ching-Ying
5, 7	Zhang Ziyi
9	Ning Caishen

Season 2

Episodes	Name
1 - present	Gao Xiaosong
1 - present	Meng Fei
1 - present	Tao Ching-Ying

Celebrity Guests

Season 1

Episodes	Name
1	Li Yanhong
1, 8, 12	Jay Chou
9	Meng Fei
10	Lin Dan
11	Kim Soo-hyun
	Cecilia Cheung
	Fan Bingbing

Note: The celebrity guests as judges and contestants are not included in the list.

National Ratings

Season 1

Episode	Date	Time	Rating	Share	National ranking
1	3 January 2014 (2014-01-03)	22:00	1.400	6.30%	2
2	10 January 2014 (2014-01-10)	22:00	1.795	7.70%	2
3	17 January 2014 (2014-01-17)	22:00	1.629	6.50%	3
4	24 January 2014 (2014-01-24)	22:00	1.827	8.15%	2
Special 1	31 January 2014 (2014-01-31)	22:00	0.888	3.94%	3
5	7 February 2014 (2014-02-07)	22:00	1.640	6.73%	2
6	14 February 2014 (2014-02-14)	22:00	1.561	5.78%	3
7	21 February 2014 (2014-02-21)	22:00	2.084	8.54%	2
8	28 February 2014 (2014-02-28)	22:00	1.875	8.05%	2
9	7 March 2014 (2014-03-07)	22:00	1.788	7.93%	2
10	14 March 2014 (2014-03-14)	22:00	2.208	10.00%	1
11	21 March 2014 (2014-03-21)	22:00	2.584	11.81%	1
12	28 March 2014 (2014-03-28)	21:30	2.709	10.38%	1
Special 2	4 April 2014 (2014-04-04)	22:00	0.710	2.92%	4

The data is determined by CSM48.

International Versions

Country	Local title	Host	Channel	Date premiered
South America	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Argentina	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Brazil	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Germany (original version)	Deutschlands Superhirn	Jörg Pilawa	ZDF	Dec. 28, 2011
Italy	Superbrain - Le Supermenti	Paola Perego	Rai 1	Dec. 29, 2012
Spain	Increíbles: el gran desafío	Carlos Sobera	Antena 3	Feb. 8, 2013

International Broadcast

Season 1 is also broadcast in Singapore on Mediacorp Channel U. In Singapore, this show has aired every Tuesday at 20:00, starting from July 15, 2014.

See also

• Brain
• Human brain

References