Bad question



In Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, a bad question is a question which the producers deemed had an error that affected the contestant's gameplay. Most bad questions fall under one of these categories:
 * It has a critical misspelling in it (for example, Patrick Hugh's original $25,000 question).
 * It is deemed to have two or more correct answers (for example, Jacky and Lawrence Luellen Bowen's original £1,000,000 question and Doug Van Gundy's original $100 question).
 * It deems the correct answer as incorrect (for example, David Hodnea's $64,000 question and Ed Toutant's original $16,000 question).

A bad question can also appear in a Fastest Finger First question when
 * it has an answer that, considering the question, can be interpreted in one or other way, in such a way that affects the answer/order.

Lately, the production team warned contestants that if an ambiguous question were to appear, they should choose the best answer.

Calling out a bad question
A contestant has the option to object the answer to a question as soon as his/her game has stopped, either inmediately after (such as in Hodnea's case), or after their show was taped and they returned home (such as in Toutant's case, who sent a friendly mail to the production team pointing out he was victim of a bad question).

As stated in the rules, producers may only bring back contestants at their sole discretion, so being guaranteed a spot back in the game is not always assured.

Return


If the producers did give the contestant another opportunity, how the contestant restarted play differed. In some cases, they would award the contestant the money had they had answered correctly and restart his/her game at that point (as in Hodnea's case, who received $64,000 and restarted on the next question, $125,000). In other cases, they would restart the game at a point before the faulty question, usually asking the contestant a question worth whatever they were going for at the time of their loss (as in Jacky and Lawrence's case, who got to play another £1,000,000 question). In any of those two cases, the contestant would have whatever lifelines they had until that point.

At least one time the show gave the contestant the option to receive whatever money they should have won had they answered the bad question correctly, or the option to return to the game and redo the faulty question (the only known person to receive these options is Patrick Hugh, who chose the latter).

Incorrect answers accepted as responses
There are some cases of contestants answering a question originally deemed correct by the production team, but later found out to be wrong. For example, Tony Kennedy was asked "Theoretically, what is the minimum number of strokes with which a tennis player can win a set?", with 12, 24, 36, and 48 as choices, which he answered as 24 (four shots to win a game, with six games in a set). However, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported the next day that 12 was the correct answer (as a server, acing four times, the minimum required to win a game; as a receiver, the opponent double-faulting on each serve). The show acknowledged, but despite this, Kennedy was allowed to keep his prize money (an eventual £125,000)

Rejecting bad questions
There are some cases of the show disallowing the return of contestants who believed were victims of bad questions. One such case is Rick Rosner's, who was asked for $16,000: "What capital city is located at the highest altitude above sea level?" with choices Mexico City, Quito, Bogota, and Katmandu. Rick answered Katmandu, but turned out to be Quito (Katmandu is about half the altitutde of Quito).

However, he claimed that due to the way the question is phrased, the question is asking "What is the highest capital city in the world?", and since La Paz (which is the highest capital city in the world) is not listed in the choices, the question had no correct answer, and sued. The show then decided that did not matter: "After reading your letters and reviewing our research, we continue to believe that the answer to your $16,000 question is correct [...] Of the four capital cities given as answer choices, Quito is the highest and, thus, is the correct answer [...] Under these circumstances, we do not believe that a return trip to the show is warranted in your case". Even though the show rejected it, Rosner insisted and started a letter-campaign. The show has not brought him back.