UK Quiz TV Next Week (21–25 September, 2026): BBC Two's Monday Block Is Back and Pointless Series 36 Rolls On

The week of 21 September is the one where quiz viewing stops being a teatime habit and becomes a Monday night event again. BBC Two stacks Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge back to back from 7.30pm, and all three are new.

The rest of the week is steadier than that sounds. Countdown, Tipping Point, The Chase and Pointless hold their slots on all five days, no evening football is booked on ITV1, and the one schedule oddity — a long racing block on Friday afternoon — finishes two minutes before Tipping Point starts. Here is the whole week, day by day.

Quick answer: 24 quiz slots across four channels. Monday is the big one with seven programmes. Nothing is bumped, moved or rested.

What is on each day, 21–25 September?

What is on BBC Two on Monday night?

Three programmes, ninety minutes, no adverts. Mastermind opens at 7.30pm with episode 9 of a 31-part run; the BBC bills the specialist subjects as the films of Nicole Kidman and the novels of Jeanette Winterson. Only Connect follows at 8pm, and University Challenge closes the block at 8.30pm.

This is the only night of the week with a quiz after 6pm on BBC Two, which is why we keep a standing Monday night guide rather than writing it up fresh each week.

Which teams are on Only Connect and University Challenge?

Only Connect puts Double Features against Accrual World in episode 11 of Series 22, and the BBC's billing is blunt about the stakes: six people start, three of them go home. University Challenge sends Southampton up against Queen's University Belfast in a first-round tie, episode 11 of 37.

Results go on our weekly results page once they are published somewhere we can cite. University Challenge is the one BBC Two quiz whose outcomes are reliably documented afterwards; for Mastermind and Only Connect we often end the week with the fixture confirmed and the winner not.

What time is The Chase on next week?

5pm to 6pm on ITV1, Monday to Friday, with Tipping Point at 4pm in front of it. Both reach ITVX after transmission rather than before. That order catches people out, because Coronation Street and Emmerdale on the same channel go the other way and appear at 7am.

A caveat we have been repeating all week, and will keep repeating until it stops being true: ITV publishes no series number for either teatime quiz in advance, and every slot we have checked this month has turned out to be an archive episode once ITVX filed it. Series 19 of The Chase launched on 7 September without reaching the 5pm slot. Our Chase guide covers catch-up, and Friday's round-up has the current state of play.

Does the racing on Friday move anything?

No. ITV1 carries a racing block from 1pm to 3.58pm on Friday 25 September, which clears the schedule for most of the afternoon but ends two minutes before Tipping Point. Countdown at 2.10pm sits on Channel 4 and is untouched.

Live football is the usual culprit for a dropped quiz, and there is none booked on ITV1 on a weekday evening next week. The nearest fixtures are on the Saturdays either side. The week that a match did land, on 16 September, it cost the soaps rather than the quizzes — our sister site wrote up what happened to Coronation Street that night.

How many quiz episodes are there next week?

Twenty-four, if you count everything on the table: five each of Countdown, Tipping Point, The Chase and Pointless, the three BBC Two programmes on Monday, and Beat the Chasers on Friday. Twenty-three of those fall Monday to Friday in the daytime and evening grid; Monday alone accounts for seven.

Compare that with the week just gone, which had the same 23 weekday slots but no Friday evening spin-off. The line-up is stable enough that the interesting question is not what is on but which of the ITV slots are new. See this week's schedule for the shape of it.

Is Pointless new every night next week?

Yes, and the run is only just under way. Series 36 started on Friday 18 September with episode 1 of 46, so Monday to Friday next week takes it from episode 2 to episode 6. Alexander Armstrong presents throughout, with a rotating co-host; Lucy Porter is billed for Monday, where the BBC's episode page promises rounds on Africa and comets.

Friday's episode 6 is a quizzes-about-quizzes edition, which is either irresistible or exhausting depending on your week. The Pointless guide has the iPlayer route and the 5.15pm start explained.

Monday night’s competition

BBC One puts Panorama in the 8pm hour on Monday, with an edition billed as Grooming Gangs: Why Were We Ignored?, so it runs directly opposite Only Connect. ITV1's 8pm and 8.30pm belong to Emmerdale and Coronation Street. For anyone who watches both quizzes and soaps, Monday is the night that needs a decision; our sister site sets out the ITV soap hour in full.

The rest of the week is easier, because after Monday there is no quiz on BBC Two in the evening at all. BBC One fills the 8pm slot with DIY SOS on Tuesday, The Repair Shop on Wednesday and Dragons' Den on Thursday and Friday, none of which collide with a quiz.

The four slots that only happen once

Four of the twenty-four. Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge each air once, on Monday, and each is a new episode with a fixture that will not be repeated later in the week. Beat the Chasers on Friday is the fourth.

The other twenty are daily strips, which means a missed episode is a catch-up job rather than a loss. Countdown has an early-morning repeat the next day on Channel 4; Pointless goes to iPlayer after transmission; the two ITV teatime quizzes reach ITVX once they have aired. If you can only plan one evening around the television next week, Monday between 7.30pm and 10pm is the one that rewards it.

Questions readers ask

Is University Challenge still in the first round? Yes. Monday's Southampton against Queen's University Belfast is a round-one tie, episode 11 of a 37-episode series.

Why does Pointless clash with The Chase? It starts at 5.15pm, a quarter of an hour after The Chase begins on ITV1. The overlap is a scheduling choice, not a one-off, and it runs all week.

Where do I find soap times for the same nights? Our sister site publishes them each morning — here is next week's soap line-up for 21 to 25 September. For the rest of the quiz archive, the guide section and Chase round-ups are the places to start.

Sources

• BBC Two schedule, 21 September 2026, plus the episode pages for Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge
• BBC One schedule, 21 September 2026 (Pointless, 5.15pm, checked through to 25 September)
• ITV TV guide, ITV1, read for each day from 21 to 25 September
• Channel 4 TV guide and TVmaze UK schedule for Countdown episode numbers

By the UK Quiz On Air desk · Updated 18 September, 9.15am BST