Qi
Encyclopedia : Q : QI : QI : Qi
- For other uses, see Qi (disambiguation)}}}.
Format
Writer and former BBC producer John Lloyd devised the format of the show, and it is produced by an organisation set up by Lloyd named Quite Interesting Ltd.The panel consists of four panellists, one of whom, Alan Davies, appears in all episodes. He is the butt of many jokes throughout the series, and normally gives most of the "obvious but wrong" answers. He thus usually finishes last, with a negative score. Most other panellists come from a stand-up comedy background, although there have also been musicians, actors, and television personalities, including Richard E. Grant and Gyles Brandreth.
Each of the panel has a buzzer, which is often based along some sort of theme. Alan Davies' buzzer usually contradicts the others' in some amusing way, and thus he is always the last asked to demonstrate his buzzer's sound. For example, in one episode, the first three panellists' buzzers were conventional nautical sounds, whilst Alan Davies' featured a sexy-sounding woman saying, "Ahoy! Hello, sailor!". Davies has also been given such buzzers as the sound of a woman having an orgasm and the "Ying Tong Song" from The Goon Show. All noises produced are usually humorous, although there have been musical buzzers (for instance, when each buzzer played a famous piece of classical music; Alan Davies', however, played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star") and other such non-humorous themes.
Providing an "obvious but wrong" answer results in a sequence of klaxon sounds. In the first and second series, Stephen Fry produced the answer on a card to show the panellists, while it also flashed on the large screens behind them (excepting the very first episode, when only the cards were used). In the third series, Fry's answer cards were dispensed with altogether, leaving only the screens as proof that the answers given had been predicted. The panellist who provides the answer is known to fans as being "klaxoned".
In some episodes, panellists are given an extra task to complete during the course of the game. As an example, they were once given paper and pens and asked to draw a wigwam in the style of a given artist; all contestants incorrectly drew a teepee (except for one, Clive Anderson, who twisted the challenge by drawing British pop duo Wham!, wearing wigs). In another episode, the panellists received small boards with a collection of magnetic letters, and told to create interesting phrases with them. While the others delighted in short provocative phrases such as "quim", "vagina doom", and "gay elf romp", Jimmy Carr astounded all by using all of his letters to create: "Put Smarties tubes on cats legs/Make them walk like a robot".
Another humorous aspect of the show is the "Luvvie Alarm", which is rung whenever someone blatantly namedrops. So far it has been rung only twice: once for John Sessions (who mentioned Robert Redford), and once for Stephen Fry (who mentioned the Duke and Duchess of Westminster).
Tangential discussions and even complete non-sequiturs abound on the show. For instance, in the first episode of series 2 ("b"-series), in response to a question about what rhymes with the word orange, Stephen Fry piped up with the fact that his prep school tailors went by the name Gorringe, spurring panellists to tease him for his having had tailors as a child. Bill Bailey mimicked, "Would sir like to wear a cravat on the cross-country run?" while Sean Lock added, "I suggest a cummerbund for geography."
In a parody of "general knowledge" quizzes, the final round is off-topic and called "General Ignorance", focusing on seemingly-easy questions which have "obvious but wrong" answers. Whereas in the main rounds of the show, the panellists' use of buzzers is not usually enforced, the "General Ignorance" questions are introduced by Fry's reminder to keep "fingers on buzzers".
Episodes
The first series started on 11 September 2003. 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 began with the letter "c".
Filming for series four ("d"-series) began on 19 April 2006, and has now finished.
Frequent participants
- Alan Davies (permanent panellist, to Fry's immediate right)
- Clive Anderson
- Bill Bailey
- Jo Brand
- Rich Hall
- Jeremy Hardy
- Phill Jupitus
- Sean Lock
- John Sessions
Criticism
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. For 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 but 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). However, as the International Astronomical Union still defined Pluto as a planet at the time of questioning, the answer "nine" would have been a "correct" answer, if one accepted the contemporary IAU definition.
A further example of this occurred 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 for having, in the previous series, stated that the triple point of water is zero degrees Celsius, an answer which earned him points at the time. Some viewers, however, wrote in to say that the triple point of water is in fact 0.01 degrees, and so the points awarded Dara in the previous series were revoked. Dara humorously retorted with, "How many people sat at home watching that and said, 'It's just a comedy show, but I'm not letting that fecker get away with that!'?"
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 of yet.
External links
- [Official site] at BBC
- [Quite Interesting Ltd]
- [QI] at UK Gameshows
- [QI Transcripts]
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