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
- Catch-up on Series V, Episode 14
Streaming rank this week: 385
Press clippings Page 60
QI plans daytime spin-off
QI is attempting to become the first panel show to create a TV spin-off.
As the programme moves to BBC One next year, producers Talkback Thames have been commissioned to make a pilot of a sister quiz for BBC Two.
Provisionally titled The QI Test, the show is expected to fill a daytime slot and will feature members of the public rather than comedy panellists.
Stephen Fry will not be hosting the show - although no presenter has yet been named.
Chortle, 3rd October 2008QI moves to BBC One
The world's most seemingly impossible quiz QI, which has had five hugely successful years on BBC Two, will move to BBC One from the New Year when it returns for its sixth series.
BBC Press Office, 2nd October 2008Everything 'fell apart' for John Lloyd, the TV producer, when he had a midlife crisis. Out of it came a new vision of life and the TV show QI.
Andrew Billen, The Times, 23rd September 2008Stephen Fry's QI to move to BBC1
BBC2's Stephen Fry-hosted comedy panel show QI is set to move to BBC1 for its new series.
The show, which sees panellists such as Alan Davies competing to provide the most interesting answer to obscure trivia questions, is one of BBC2's most watched programmes, hitting 4.8 million viewers in November - the channel's third highest rating of 2007.
Discussions are currently taking place within the BBC about the move, which is expected to be given the green light soon.
"It is only natural when a show becomes so popular to look at taking it to a wider audience but nothing is confirmed yet," a BBC spokeswoman said.
Leigh Holmwood, The Guardian, 20th August 2008The QI equation for an enriched IQ
In the QI edition of The Idler, Lloyd and Mitchinson present a five-point manifesto for educational reform. The points are: One: play not work. Two: follow the chain of curiosity. Three: you decide. Four: no theory without practice. Five: you never leave. Read the article for further explanation.
Tom Hodgkinson, The Sunday Times, 11th May 2008Q.I.: The B series DVD review
Rhys is very good at Trivial Pursuit and pub quizzes. Who else could we ask to review QI for us?
Rhys Lewis, Den Of Geek, 28th March 2008...QI is a teeth-clenching example of TV mistaking shallow cleverness for intelligence.
The Independent, 12th September 2007Everything you think you know is wrong
A book review of The Book of General Ignorance. "Imagine Jeopardy with Stephen Colbert as host, with Steve Martin and Ellen DeGeneres as guests, working off a game board loaded with unanswerable questions."
Liesl Schillinger, The New York Times, 2nd September 2007Who's a clever boy, then?
QI (BBC2) is back, with Stephen Fry looking like a professor of Ancient Greek, who, through some frightful government initiative, finds himself in charge of Bash Street's sin bin.
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 9th October 2004Sneer at trivia, and you sneer at my soul
Flick through most of the 500 channels available on television today and you will see that rule writ large. A huge majority of the programmes available are dreary, talent-free and insulting. But alight on something that treats trivia as it should be treated, with care and respect, and it becomes a real joy.
Take the recent series QI, utterly pointless and utterly irresistible. As might be expected, since it was presented by Stephen Fry, a man whose learning cannot be gainsaid, but who has the intelligence and range to observe popular culture with the critical eye it deserves. As he proves, it is possible to be a trivia elitist.
Jim White, The Telegraph, 23rd February 2004