The Brain (game show)

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
Starring	Wei Kunlin (Dr. Wei), Tao Ching-Ying, Meng Fei, Gao Xiaosong, etc.
Country of origin	China
Original language(s)	Standard Chinese (mainly), German, English, Japanese
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	36 (excl. specials)
Production
Producer(s)	Endemol
Location(s)	Jiangsu Television center, Nanjing
Running time	120 minutes
Release
Original network	Jiangsu TV
Picture format	576i (16:9) (SDTV), 1080p (HDTV)
Audio format	5.1 surround sound
Original release	January 3, 2014
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 with exceptional brainpower. 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 been produced for three seasons, and there is uncertainty regarding its renewal in future.

Overview and format

Seasons 1 & 2

Period One: Qualifier Rounds

A contestant with special skills (not necessarily brainpower) 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 the 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 if 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 his/her 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

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

Season 3 onwards

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: Qualification

Rules remain the same as the elimination rounds in previous seasons. Only up to 12 contestants can be qualified for the international competitions in later the season. If a contestant succeeded in completing his individual challenge but failed to qualify from Wei Kunlin, three celebrity guests may choose whether challenge him or not. Should all three guests challenged Wei Kunlin, the contestant will be given another chance to qualify and play against a qualified contestant later on, whose competition will be completely provided by the producers. If the contestant chose to play head-to-head, no score will be given, and the winner will stay on the panel.

Phase 3: 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		Lin Jiandong	United Kingdom	Ben Pridmore
March 18, 2016		Wang Yuheng	Japan	Tsujikubo Rine
March 25, 2016		Jia Liping Wang Yinghao	International	Feliks Zemdegs

Only the winning team every week can select one contestant from their national team to the next phase - the season final in April.

Phase 4: Season final

The advisory judge will nominate one contestant from those 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.

Summary of Season One

Period One's Qualified Contestants by Episode

Episode 1

This episode 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 tile which has changed color from two walls that each contain 2,500 Rubik's Cubes.
Yujuan Lee	88 pts.	Find the face that is synthesized by mixing two human faces.

Episode 2

This episode 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.	Add up the numbers 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 aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on January 17, 2014.

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Hu Xiaoling	88 pts.	Complete the Crossword using the 40 given words.
Zhou Wei	150 pts.	Calculate the involution and square roots.

Episode 4

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

Name	Total Score	Challenge Formation
Jia Liping	80 pts.	Solve two Rubik's Cubes whilst blindfolded, underwater, in a single breath.
Ai Xiaowa	84 pts.	Identify an object, whilst blindfolded, only by breathing on it.

Episode 5

This episode aired at 22:00 (Beijing Time) on February 7, 2014. Tao Ching-Ying was replaced by Zhang Ziyi for 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 car model's door and its key.

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

Episode 6

This episode 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 from memory.

Episode 7

This episode 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 a set of 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 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 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 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 tile colors between two walls, each containing 3,500 Rubik's Cubes (rectangles of 4 meters by 3 meters).	CHN Won	Franco Gengotti
2	Yang Guanxin	Calculate the capacity of water in the glass based on the sound of hitting the glass.	ITA Won	Marco
3	Li Yunlong	Place the 102 model brides and bridegrooms in the 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; Zheng Caiqian's turn goes well, he found a difference at 6 minutes and 17.02 seconds so he won 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, with a total of 102 people in the line. Li started from the right side, and Andrew from the left side. Li finished in 1 minute and 18.15 seconds, while Andrew used 2 minutes and 41.51 seconds. Under huge pressure, Andrew was totally correct. Li remembered the sequence correctly but thought he placed the models in the wrong order. Li cried, repeating these words:

“

I got the sequence correct, but I placed it wrongly!

”

When the judges went through Li's actual sequence, they found that Li actually placed them correctly. Li therefore won Round 3.

• Round 4: Prior to the final competition, Robert said that he wanted to add 10 simple maths questions to prevent the contestants 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 only wanted 6 seconds to memorize the pyramid, and Wei said that he was "not wise enough" backstage, though Wu had been crowned at the World Memory Championships. Finally, Wu got the pyramid correct, and he won Round 4.

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

Episode 11

This episode 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 that the chosen models wore.	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's Cubes blindfolded as much as possible in 10 minutes.	CHN Won	Alex Olleta

• Round 5: They faced 20 models, after the models dressed in 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 was Sun Cheran's turn. She played "Single Dragon Sudoku" with her back to the screen. She had to fill 1 to 9 into the Sudoku grid, and the numbers couldn't be repeated in any of 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). Sun got the grid correct.

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's Cubes in one hour backstage, and on the stage, they must solve the series of 20 cubes in 10 minutes. Alex used 7 minutes and 44 seconds to deal with the cubes but only got five correct. 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 New York, 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 dice, presented in cups of four, 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	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 dice in 100 cups, each had 4 dice in it. They memorized them, within 5 seconds for each cup. After memorizing the numbers, they were asked to name the numbers under five randomly selected cups. Both got all of the numbers asked correct. As the tie-breaker round, they had to 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 chossing which of 27,637 and 28,283 was prime, 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 finished in 2 minutes and 45.51 seconds 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 only completed one "easy" Sudoku, because the numbers of the Sudoku table were the repetition of numbers '1, 2, 3', '5, 6, 7' and '4, 8, 9' in various orders, since Jay Chou 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 with 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 had noted several controversies in Team China's performance.

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

The 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 into question the production team, and 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's 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 and Xiang Tianyou	Not given	Calculate the correct total by listening to the numbers and 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's 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's 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 arithmetic questions (features 3 sub-rounds).	Japanese contestants	Sasano Tekeo Tsujikubo Rine

• Round 5: Two contestants faced the same 100 Rubik's 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's 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 by showing the edges of those closed 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 ANY of 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 to be added 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 Tsujikubo chose the same difficulty level rated 7 out of 10, and they answered those sums correctly. Finally, Sasano 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 the difficulty, there were two sets of double digit numbers (10 numbers each) to be added flashing on the screen. The contestants must correctly work out both of the answers 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 be 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 four 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 If You Are the One, a weekly dating show presented by one of the judges Meng Fei; and actress Shu Qi for the second time in the series. The advisory 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 security box.	Robert	Robert Fountain
9	Li Wei	Translate the two given words into 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. The person who takes a shorter amount of time to calculate the security code hidden in the wall featuring 1,380 codes wins. To decrease the possibility of guessing the answers, the three strikes rule was used - if the contestant fails to input the correct code, the competition ends immediately and he loses. The correct code was hidden in the crossing of four of the possible seven prime numbers. In the competition, Robert went faster and won the Round 8. The number 67,971 is a composite number rather than a prime number which was chosen in the qualifier round; it is divisible by 3 (67,971 = 3 × 139 × 163).
• Round 9: This round consisted of recalling more than 1,000 words in 8 non-Latin-based languages: the competition used Arabic, Persian, Burmese, Cambodian, Nepali, Thai, Sinhala and Tamil. They had to memorize 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 completed the round 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, which means the Chinese contestants have lost two shows in a row.

Episode 12:  China vs.  United States

Round No.	China	Competition Formation	Winning contestant	United States
12	Li Wei	Identify 3 cows out of 1900 cows	Li Wei	Johnny Briones
13	Li Qi	Identify 4 poles in blind-folded manner	Juan	Juan Ruiz
14	Liu Jian	Collect most number of cards in a bee maze	Liu Jian	Nelson Dellis

Ultimate winner:  China won the competition with a result of 2-1, which means the Chinese contestants have won two out of four competitions.

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 Massacre 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

Season 3

Episodes	Name	Chair number
1 - present	Zhang Zhaozhong	1
1 - 9	Guo Jingming	2
1 - present	Tao Ching-Ying	3

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.

Season 3

Episodes	Name
1	SNH48, Wang Shi
3	T-ara, Jay Chou
4, 7	TFBoys, Ren Zhiqiang
11	NMB48, SNH48, Daisuke Ono, Ong Jia Yee

Note: Sun Rui, a member of SNH48, is featured as a co-presenter throughout the season.

National Ratings

Season 1

Episode	Date	Time	Rating	Share	National ranking
1	3 January 2014	22:00	1.400	6.30%	2
2	10 January 2014	22:00	1.795	7.70%	2
3	17 January 2014	22:00	1.629	6.50%	3
4	24 January 2014	22:00	1.827	8.15%	2
Special 1	31 January 2014	22:00	0.888	3.94%	3
5	7 February 2014	22:00	1.640	6.73%	2
6	14 February 2014	22:00	1.561	5.78%	3
7	21 February 2014	22:00	2.084	8.54%	2
8	28 February 2014	22:00	1.875	8.05%	2
9	7 March 2014	22:00	1.788	7.93%	2
10	14 March 2014	22:00	2.208	10.00%	1
11	21 March 2014	22:00	2.584	11.81%	1
12	28 March 2014	21:30	2.709	10.38%	1
Special 2	4 April 2014	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
France	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Germany (original version)	Deutschlands Superhirn	Jörg Pilawa	ZDF	December 28, 2011
Italy	Superbrain - Le Supermenti	Paola Perego	Rai 1	December 29, 2012
Spain	Increíbles: el gran desafío	Carlos Sobera	Antena 3	February 8, 2013
United States	Superhuman	Kal Penn	Fox	January 2016

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. Again, Season 2 was also broadcast in the same channel since September 2015, the same goes to NTV7 of Malaysia.

Reruns of the inaugural season are currently broadcasting in Australia every Sunday on SBS 2, commencing on January 24, 2016.

See also

• Brain
• Human brain

References

1. Format Distribution - The Brain The Brain (format distribution), Endemol.
2. , (Chinese)最强大脑00后数独少女惹网民明星齐赞, Jiangsu Television, Mar. 3, 2014.