Season 2 2016

It is a brand new week on The Great Australian Spelling Bee and our Top 16 spellers eagerly anticipate the two new challenging rounds of spelling in the arena. As the spellers are randomly split into four teams of four - Blue, Green, Red and Yellow - they step onto the stage and are surprised to find a super-sized Spell Gate. The spellers are very keen to play the classic game of Speed Spell, but with a wider Spell Gate, they begin to excitedly speculate that there is an unexpected twist to the challenge. Grant announces that today’s first game is Speed Spell Relay. In this new variation of Speed Spell, the whole team will step into the spell gate and one by one, each speller will have a chance to spell a word. Every team will have 60 seconds to spell as many words correctly as they can. The top three teams to get the most number of correctly spelled words in the shortest time are safe with the bottom ranked team heading into the Spelling Bee, where two of four spellers will be going home. Team Blue is up first and the expectations are high for resident Spelling Speedster Zach - Speed Spelling is his forte, will that advantage give his team a boost? Jess, Zach, Rory and Hanna step into the Spell Gate and give a flawless performance, racing through tricky words and nailing 11 words in 56.32 seconds, setting a very high bar. Team Green also flies through their round with no mistakes, with 11 correct words but taking marginally more time at 56.61 seconds, coming in second after Team Blue. The pressure is now on Team Red to do well. As Team Red’s Alistair, James, Max and Josie step into the Spell Gate, there are plenty of nerves. Within seconds, Max misspells the word PARAKEET and leaves the Spell Gate, an error that shakes the whole team, leaving both Josie and James to stumble over their words - losing valuable time. Team Red end up with only 9 words in 56.15 seconds. It all comes down to Team Yellow - can they best Team Red’s score of 9 words to avoid the Spelling Be

Our Top 14 spellers start the week with a lot of speculation about what the first challenge will be. After the random team pick, they are surprised to be paired in seven duos - with best friends Zoe and Ava facing the challenge together again - will their winning streak continue? As the spellers walk out onto the stage, they meander through giant white letters which reveal the name of the brand new challenge - Superword. In this challenge, a 9-letter grid is revealed and the spellers must find as many words as possible from the letters in the grid For every word found, the duos will win a point. If any team finds the Superword - a word containing all 9 letters - they are immediately safe. The first five teams to win 3 points are safe with the bottom two teams heading into the Spelling Bee, where two of the four spellers will leave the competition. The grid is revealed and the teams are studiously looking for viable answers. Zach and Luca are on team yellow, and buzz in first scoring one point on the leaderboard. Team Orange best friends Zoe and Ava buzz in next, spelling PRICES in unison and getting their first point. Team Green’s Hanna and Annie then get a point, followed by the rest of the teams all scoring a point. With all the teams even on the leaderboard with 1 point each, the pressure is on once again in the bid for safety. Team Pink gains ground with PIERCE, followed closely by Team Green’s SPREE and Team Orange’s POPES. When Annie buzzes in first again, Team Green gets their third point on the word SPIRE, sending Hanna and Annie straight into the Top 12. With just four more team safe spots up for grabs Team Orange team buzzes in with CREEP, sending besties Ava and Zoe into safety. Team Red gets their second point with POSER. Team Purple joins them with CREPES and as Josie buzzes in immediately again, she and Tristan win the third safe slot with the word COPES. With only 2 more team slots for safety up for grabs, tensions are running high. Team Yellow buzzes

Tonight on the Great Australian Spelling Bee it’s down to the Top 12 spellers! The spellers walk out to the spelling arena to discover it’s snowing! There are ice skaters doing jumps, spins & arabesques and a snowman sits in the corner, next to the hot chocolate stand. Dressed for the cold in earmuffs, Chrissie greets the spellers, but where is Grant? Suddenly Grant (dressed in winter woollies) pops up out of nowhere & starts throwing snowballs & a snowball fight erupts!! It is revealed that this weeks’ challenge is: SHOW & SPELL & the theme is Winter Wonderland!! Backstage the spellers have already picked their team colours. They will be spelling in 3 teams of 4. On the all girl red team is best friends Zoe & Ava, Jessica & Annie. We find out that Annie sends mental telepathy messages of the word to her team so they can get it right. On the all boy blue team are good friends Zach, Zeke, Tristan & Luca. On the yellow team are Hanna, Rory, Max & Josie. Show & Spell: The first 2 teams to guess & spell 3 words correctly & reach 3 points are safe; and will move into the Top 10, the bottom team will go into the spelling bee, where two spellers will leave the competition. First up is Zoe for the red team, Luca for the blue & Max for the yellow. But where are the letters for show & spell coming from?......the ice skaters have them. The first 13-letter word starts with the letter P and proves tricky, so after all the clues are given Zoe buzzes in and has a crack & gets it right. The next word starts with C & is 8 letters. Its a tough one, but after all the clues Josie buzzes in & although she is unsure she gives it a red hot go and says “Crevice” which is incorrect. Zachary buzzes in with “Crevasse”....which is correct, then he spells it incredibly fast....barely letting Grant finish his sentence, this is very amusing to everyone as Zeke says “ he spells that like a speeding bullet”.Red & blue each have 1 point. Next word starts with B & Zeke buzzes in with BAROMETER & spel

Today we meet our Top 10 spellers hanging out in the Spellers Room, playing games and choosing teams of two for today’s challenge. Besties Zoe and Ava have been together in every team challenge so far and are keen to extend their lucky streak – but they end up separate today as Ava and speed demon Zach end up on Team Red and Zoe is paired with her other gal pal Annie on Team Blue. Good mates Tristan and Max are excited to pair up (Team Pink); Zeke is teamed with Jessica (Team Yellow) and Luca & Hanna are together as Team Green. The Spellers enter the arena and see the huge Spell Gate glowing. Zach fist-pumps the air... it’s Speed Spell! More specifically, Speed Spell Duos - spelling in their teams of two. Each team will step in the Spell Gate, with each Speller taking turns to spell a word. They must spell as many words correctly as they can in 60 seconds. If a word is spelt incorrectly the Speller must step out of the spell gate, while the other teammate continues. Today the 3 top-scoring teams will be safe, and the two bottom ranked teams will battle it out in the final Spelling Bee today, where two Spellers will go home. Team Blue is up first, stepping into the Spell Gate. Zoe is rubbing her lucky necklace nervously. The girls are off to a flying start, speeding through with no mistakes. They set the bar high for today with 11 words in 58.57 seconds. Next is Team Green, feeling the pressure after Team Blue’s high score. Luca has a stumble on TRICEPS, but they too manage to finish without any incorrect words! However with 10 words in 57.93 seconds they are in second place on the leader board. Next is Team Pink, Tristan and Max. Last time in Speed Spell Max stuffed up, saying speed spelling is “not his forte”, he is really hoping not to stuff up again and let his mate Tristan down. The boys are off with a great start, until Max misspells SUCTION, and steps out of the Gate, disappointed with himself. Tristan brings it home for the duo, but they only manage 8 words i

Having made it through to the Top 8, our spellers arrive to find the Spelling Arena empty apart from 4 buzzers – so, there is a challenge but what could it be? Suddenly the lights dim, smoke billows and a mysterious figure emerges... HANNA wonders if something is wrong and if “000” should be called but... it’s Laser Man! Laser Man blows the spellers’ minds with a laser and music show, picking up lasers and bending them with his bare hands. The spellers seem a little alarmed by the laser, ducking and dodging when it’s propelled in their direction. At the end of the performance AVA announces that Laser Man would be the new Great Australian Spelling Bee Super Hero. The new game Laser Letters is revealed and explained. The spellers are randomly paired into four teams – Yellow, Green, Red and Blue the aim of the game is to identify the misspelled word out of a group of four words – then spell it correctly to win a point. The first two teams to get to three points are safe; the other two teams will head to the final Spelling Bee... where two spellers will be leaving the competition. Incredibly the Yellow Team of AVA & ZOE are together again– for the 6th time in seven episodes! This prompts AVA to declare ZOE her “substitute twin” (she has a twin brother at home) and they announce that they are going to spell in unison. HANNA & TRISTAN get off to a good start, identifying IRRESISTABLE as misspelt When TRISTAN spells it correctly – IRRESISTIBLE – Team Red are on the leader board. Team Green are next on the board when they identify FLANELETTE as wrong. ZACH spells it – FLANNELETTE – with his trademark speed as his partner ANNIE looks along in amazement. The Pronouncer declares ZACH correct, and Team Green is also on the board. AVA & ZOE then identify AMBIANT should be spelt AMBIENT; ZACH & ANNIE get that SEQUACEOUS should be spelt SEQUACIOUS and HANNA & TRISTAN pick HYPERBOLAR as misspelt and should be HYPERBOLA. Now three teams have two points each – a point away from safet

It is Finals Time on the GREAT AUSTRALIAN SPELLING BEE and our TOP 6 enter the Spelling Arena, excited to see what today’s challenge will be. It’s SUPERWORD and with six buzzers in place it means that this will be the first time the spellers compete in a challenge as individuals. SUPERWORD is a grid of 9 letters and the aim of the game is to find words of five letters or more, then spell that word correctly to score a point. Each word must include the letter D that’s in the centre square. Make a mistake and you’re locked out until the next round. Should a speller identify and correctly spell the SUPERWORD - a word that uses all 9 letters - they are safe. Otherwise the first two spellers to find and spell five words make it through to the Top 5. The bottom four spellers will go into the Final Spelling Bee and one speller will be going home. It’s game on and TRISTAN is first to discover a word – CIDER. He spells it correctly to get a point... ANNIE, AVA and ZOE follow, with DROLL, COLDER and COOLED, joining TRISTAN on the leader board. ANNIE is the first to two points when she gets CRIED, ZOE joins her with CODER and ZACH is on the board with DOCILE. Tristan then buzzes in with CROCODILE - he has found the SUPERWORD! To be safely in the TOP 5 he must spell it correctly. CROD...ODILE – he immediately realises he’s made a mistake and missed a great opportunity to be safe for this week. With TRISTAN locked out, and the SUPERWORD out there, the game is wide open for the quickest to buzz in & spell CROCODILE correctly. True to form, speedy ZACH is first on the buzzer. He “guesses” CROCODILE & spells it correctly. ZACH goes straight into the TOP 5 and is the first speller into the GRAND FINAL DECIDER! Only one more speller will be safe today, so the pressure is on... ANNIE identifies COILED then ZEKE finally gets on the scoreboard with DICER. ANNIE finds OILED and climbs to 4 points on the leader board, only one point away from safety. ZOE, ZEKE and TRISTAN then find OLDER,

Tonight on THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN SPELLING BEE, the penultimate episode: The Grand Final Decider! Of the TOP 5 spellers who have gotten this far, which four spellers will make it through to the Grand Final for 2016? As TRISTAN says, “we are at the business end” of the competition... the words are getting harder and the spellers left are the cream of the crop. Today, one speller will be leaving the competition and the spellers all feel sad, as they have grown so close. Last week, AVA’s best mate ZOE left the competition... she is really missing her and says she is going to spell her way to the Grand Final for her today. As the only two girls left, AVA and ANNIE are happy to have each other. The spellers race into the Arena full of excitement to see the familiar SPELL GATE. ZACH waves his fists in the air yelling “Yes! Yes!” - this is his favourite challenge! His speed spell record when practicing at home is 20 words in a minute. Will ZACH break his own speed record today? And can he maintain his clean slate of never spelling a word incorrectly in the entire competition? GRANT announces that the Challenge today is “SPEED SPELL SHOWDOWN”. For the first time they will be spelling as individuals in the SPELL GATE. TRISTAN is nervous as he thinks it will be harder without any team members to spell with. Expectations for ZACH are high, as the resident Speed Demon has no one to hold him back... Each speller has 60 seconds to spell as many words as they can. If they get a word incorrect, it’s time-up and game over. The top speller in this challenge wins the golden ticket straight through to the Grand Final... the remaining four will battle it out in the final Spelling Bee - their last chance to make it into the Grand Final. ANNIE is first up in the Spell Gate, and flies through her words. The other spellers watch in awe and worry she is setting the bar very high for them all. After a mind-blank on REGIONAL, ANNIE pulls herself together and gets 11 words in 54.07 seconds. Next

It’s the Grand Final and just four spellers remain. ANNIE, AVA, TRISTAN and ZACHARY are about to compete in the final two challenges to find out who will become the Great Australian Spelling Bee Champion for 2016. The top 4 run out onto the stage and are greeted by the top 18 who have returned to support their mates. Massive applause and high five’s for everyone! Grant reflects on the last 10 weeks ... 36 spellers arrived at the start, but today, only one will be crowned The Great Australian Spelling Bee champion for 2016. Grant tells the top 4 that their first challenge, Letter by Letter Knockout, is a challenge they have not yet faced. Over three rounds, each speller will contribute one letter to the spelling of a word. If a speller gets the letter wrong, they are out of the round. The last speller standing in each round will be safe, and will compete in the ultimate Spelling Bee ... and for the first time in the competition that’s exactly where the spellers want to be. This Spelling Bee won’t decide who’s going home, but will determine who will be crowned The Great Australian Spelling Bee champion for 2016. GRANT reveals the prizes for the RUNNERS UP – ZACHARY lights up when he hears that it’s a Lenovo tablet and $10, 000 prize money for their future education. After 2 rounds of Letter by Letter, ANNIE and ZACHARY are through to the Ultimate Spelling Bee, leaving TRISTAN and AVA to fight it out. AVA is left struggling to spell INTELLIGIBILITY and says the letter A instead of an I, resulting in her departure from the competition. She holds her head up high and is very proud of herself for getting so far in the competition. The top 3, ANNIE, TRISTAN and ZACHARY, now face off against each other in The Ultimate Spelling Bee, where the last one standing, will take home the trophy! After 6 intense rounds of Spelling Bee, ANNIE spells the word MENAGERIE incorrectly, leaving her future in the competition in the hands of ZACHARY. If he spells his next word correctly, she