QI
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- For other uses, see QI (disambiguation).
Template:Infobox television QI, standing for Quite Interesting, is a comedy panel game television show shown on BBC Two and BBC Four and hosted by Stephen Fry. It is distinguished by the awarding of points not necessarily for the correct answer, but rather for an interesting one. Many of the questions and answers are extremely obscure. Points can also be deducted, but, quite interestingly, not for wrong answers, but only for obvious but wrong answers; this often results in a negative points score at the end of the game. The first series started on 11 September 2003.
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Format
The format of the show was devised by the writer and former BBC producer, John Lloyd and is produced by an organisation set up by Lloyd, Quite Interesting Ltd.
The panel consists of 4 panelists, one of whom, Alan Davies, appears as a panellist in all episodes. He is the butt of many jokes throughout the series, and normally gives most of the obvious but wrong answers; thus usually finishing with a negative score and finishing last. Most other panellists come from a stand up comedy background, although there have been musicians and actors including Richard E. Grant.
Each of the panel have a buzzer which makes a noise when pressed which are often based along some sort of theme. Alan Davies' buzzer usually contradicts the other panellists' buzzers in some amusing way. For example, in one episode, the first three panellists had sailing-themed buzzers, and Alan Davies' buzzer had a sexy sounding woman saying "Ahoy! Hello, Sailor!". He has also had to put up with a buzzer of a woman having an orgasm and the ying-tong theme from The Goons. The noises produced are usually humorous although there have been musical buzzers (to which each buzzer played a famous piece of classical music, Alan Davies' however, played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star") and other such non-humorous themes (with the exception of Alan's).
Providing an obvious but wrong answer results in a sequence of klaxon sounds, followed by Stephen producing this answer on a card to show the panellist. This has resulted in fans referring to one of the panel (usually Alan Davies) as being klaxoned. From the second series onwards, the answer also appears in large letters behind them.
In some episodes, panellists are given an extra task to complete during the game. For example, they were given paper and pens, and were asked to draw a wigwam in the style of a given artist; in fact all contestants incorrectly drew a teepee (except for one, Clive Anderson, who twisted the challenge by drawing Wham! wearing wigs).
Things frequently get bizarre during the show. For instance, the very first episode of the B series (see below for more information on this episode), during a question about what rhymes with the word orange, Fry piped up with the fact that his prep school tailors went by the name Goringe - bringing forth much insanity on the subject of wearing a cravat on cross-country runs, or a cummerbund for geography. US comic Rich Hall then successfully supplied a rhyme - "Dorange", an abbreviation for 'door hinge'.
In a parody of "general knowledge" quizzes, the final round is off-topic and called "General Ignorance". This round focuses on seemingly easy questions which have obvious but wrong answers. Other rounds vary between having the contestants buzzing in, or by asking individual questions to each of them.
Episodes
The first series started on 11 September 2003. Although most viewers did not notice at the time, all of the questions (with the exception of the final 'general ignorance' round) were on subjects beginning with "a" (e.g. "arthropods", "Alans", "astronomy", etc.) A second series of 12 programmes started on 8 October, 2004. In a continuation to the established theme, subjects began with the letter "b" (except in two episodes, one about music and one about colour). Series three started on 30 September 2005, and all subjects begin with the letter "c". Filming for series four began on 19 April 2006.
Frequent participants
- Clive Anderson
- Bill Bailey
- Jo Brand
- Jeremy Clarkson
- Alan Davies, permanent panellist, to Fry's immediate right
- Rich Hall
- Sean Lock
- John Sessions
Many of the frequent participants are managed by the Off The Kerb Productions comedy group.
Criticism
Template:Sources The questions are as in many comedy panel games, mainly there to set up jokes or discussions, rather than for any serious competition. Certain questions are purposely contradictory to established doctrine for the sake of entertainment. To take an example; to the question "How many planets are there in the solar system?", Alan Davies gave the answer "nine" and lost points for an obvious and wrong answer, the explanation being that at the time a debate was occurring over whether Pluto was indeed a planet (a debate that has continued to date - see definition of planet). As the International Astronomical Union still defined Pluto as a planet at the time of questioning, the answer "nine" would be a "correct" answer, if one accepted the contemporary IAU definition.
A further example of this was encountered during the second series. Alan Davies had previously been given negative points for answering "one" to the question "How many moons does the Earth have?", this is due to the asteroid Cruithne which has an orbital resonance with Earth (although is not normally defined as a natural satellite). During the second series, he was again given negative points for answering exactly the same question with "two"; the "correct" answer for the question during the first series. The change in answer was attributed to the recent discovery of new satellites ((54509) 2000 PH5, (85770) 1998 UP1 and 2002 AA29) that share a similar resonance to Cruithne with respect to the Earth.
At the end of the most recent series, Dara O'Briain was deducted points as in the previous series he'd answered the question 'what is the triple point of water?' with the answer 0 degrees Celsius and was given points for this. However, after this, some people wrote in complaining that the triple point of water is in fact 0.01 degrees so Stephen deducted the points given last series from Dara.
Some people have suggested that answers to questions are rehearsed in advance, in order to provide a more entertaining programme, an accusation also headed towards shows such as Have I Got News For You. The makers of the show on the official website insist that this is not the case, and instead a series of "warm up" questions are asked before recording starts.
QI culture
In October 2004 a QI café/bar, eclectic bookshop and private members' club opened at Quite Interesting Ltd's headquarters, on Turl Street in Oxford. For the duration of the series, the bar shows the broadcast episode every Friday. The club intends to promote things that are 'quite interesting', and arranges speakers and events.
On 14 November 2005 an interactive QI game on DVD was released by Warner Home Video. However, the actual TV series has not been released as yet.