QI
- TV panel show
- BBC Two / BBC One / BBC Four
- 2003 - 2025
- 324 episodes (22 series)
Panel game that contains lots of difficult questions and a large amount of quite interesting facts. Stars Sandi Toksvig, Stephen Fry and Alan Davies.
- Due to return for Series W
- Series N, Episode 12 repeated tomorrow at 9pm on U&Dave
Streaming rank this week: 521
Key details
- Genre
- Panel Show
- Broadcast
- 2003 - 2025
- Channels
- BBC Two, BBC One, BBC Four
- Episodes
- 324 (1 pilot + 22 series), plus 36 other episodes
- Creator
- John Lloyd
- Stars
- Sandi Toksvig, Stephen Fry and Alan Davies
- Writers
- Justin Pollard, Samantha Ball, Adam Jacot de Boinod, Sophie Johnstone, Molly Oldfield, John Mitchinson, Piers Fletcher, Adam King and more
- Directors
- Ian Lorimer, Ben Hardy and Diccon Ramsay
- Producers
- John Lloyd, Piers Fletcher, Phil Clarke, Lorraine Heggessey, Mark Freeland, Sally Debonnaire, Katie Taylor, Simon London and more
- Companies
QI is a panel game which believes that everything in the world is quite interesting, provided that you look at it in the right way. To quote original host Stephen Fry:
"Now, the rules are simple. Scoring is my business. Points are given and points are taken away. They are taken away for answers which are both obvious and wrong, and they're given, not so much for being correct, as for being interesting.
"Their level of interestingness is impartially determined by a demographically selected customer-service focus consultancy, broken down by age and sex - i.e. me. Because there is no-one more broken down by age and sex."
Each show features the host, originally Stephen Fry (Series A-M) and then later Sandi Toksvig (Series N onwards), and four panellists, including resident player Alan Davies, answering questions that are so difficult that no-one expects to get any of the answers right. Thus points are given for answers that may not be right but are interesting. Points are taken away (often from Alan), to answers that are not only wrong but are pathetically obvious.
QI is the show that proves that almost everything you know about the blue whale is wrong, the issue of how many moons the Earth has is a lot more complicated than you expect, and that there is something interesting to say about the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is.
Stream and download
Additional details
- Also known as
-
- QI VG
- QI XL
- Quite Interesting
- Production
- Studio
- Camera set-up
- Multi-camera
- Picture
- Colour
- Soundtrack
- Theme music by Howard Goodall.
Website links
- QI.com
QI's offical website. - BBC's QI Homepage
The BBC's homepage for QI. - QI Talk
The main QI blog. - QI Telegraph Column
A QI newspaper column written by elves. - QI Transcripts
List of QI transcripts. - Dutch QI
If you are from the Netherlands, you might be quite interested to know that the Dutch have their own version of QI. - QI Production Design Blog
A blog about the art and design of QI, by the show's production designer Jonathan Paul Green. - Podcast - No Such Thing As A Fish
A podcast series from the QI elves. - Tripipedia
A blog by QI elf James Harkin and his travels around the world in the name of QI research. - Tumblr
The show's official page on Tumblr. - Official Website
- @qikipedia
- YouTube
- IMDb
- Wikipedia
Broadcast details
- First broadcast
- Thursday 11th September 2003 at 10pm on BBC Two
- Next repeats
-
- Series N, Episode 12: Tomorrow at 9pm on U&Dave
- Series N, Episode 12: Tuesday at 2am on U&Dave
- Series U, Episode 7: Tuesday at 9pm on BBC2
- Series N, Episode 13: Tuesday at 10pm on U&Dave
- Series N, Episode 14: Wednesday at 9pm on U&Dave
- Series N, Episode 15: Thursday at 9pm on U&Dave
- Series N, Episode 16: Friday at 9pm on U&Dave
- Series C, Episode 2: Saturday at 10:55pm on U&Dave
- Series C, Episode 3: Saturday at 11:30pm on U&Dave
- Most recent repeats
-
- Sunday 30th March 2025 at 10:00pm on U&Dave - Series J, Episode 6
- Saturday 29th March 2025 at 11:00pm on U&Dave - Series N, Episode 11
- Friday 28th March 2025 at 9:00pm on U&Dave - Series N, Episode 10
Recording details
- The London Studios - Pilot to Series 16 (P)
- Television Centre - Series 17 (Q), 18 (R) and 20 (T) - 23 (W)
- Zoom (Virtual) - Series 19 (S)