QI: Difference between revisions

Fry asks questions on the topic of the week -- the first few series had no specific theme per week, and their episode titles have been applied retroactively; it was not until Series D that the "topic of the week" really came to the fore. The guiding principle, as indicated by the show's name, is that knowledge should be interesting, and a sufficiently interesting answer will be awarded points even if it's completely wrong. Conversely, an answer that is both incorrect and uninteresting (i.e., if it's the answer anybody would have given) will cause a klaxon to sound and the contestant will ''lose'' points. There are, consequently, two types of question in ''QI'': [[Unexpectedly Obscure Answer|obscure]] questions that give the contestants an opportunity to make interesting guesses before Fry reveals the real answer, and questions whose answers seem [[Schmuck Bait|obvious]] but are not, such as "[[Obvious Trap|How many moons does the Earth have?]]". Davies is the [[Butt Monkey|butt]] of a lot of the jokes on the show ([[The Last of These Is Not Like the Others|last on the introductions and getting a funny comment]], last on the buzzer sounds and getting a corny buzzer sound, being more likely than the others to [[Genre Blindness|get the klaxon]] and usually coming last, although he has the record for most show wins), and acts as a sort of foil for the concept by getting the more obvious answers (i.e. the ones the audiences at home are likely hollering at the TV) out into the open to be trounced.

As with all good [[Panel Show|Panel Shows]] the points are almost entirely [[The Points Mean Nothing|irrelevant]] and merely provide the [[Framing Device]] for the comedy. The researchers ("QI Elves") nonetheless check that everything is as correct as it can be, often sending messages to Fry about things they've discovered while the programme is recording (especially if the guests have sent things onto a [[Wiki Walk|very distant tangent]] to what the question was actually about, which [[Off the Rails|happens quite often]]).

This show is [[Better Than It Sounds|funnier than it sounds]] and can lead onto some amusing tangents. It's also ''very'' educational. One of the interesting things is how much comedians [[Smart Ball|turn out to know]] about obscure subjects -- for instance, Rory McGrath spouting the Latin names of birds, or Vic Reeves turning out to be an expert on pirates. Also, this is a post-[[Watershed]] show, and things have a tendency to get very "naughty" very quickly.

** David Mitchell is a man of [[Hair-Trigger Temper|many berserk buttons]]. Stephen tread on one with a double-bluff question about "The Man with Two Brains" -- leading to an increase in double bluffs and other provocations whenever David is on the panel.

** In one episode Dara Ó Briain was awarded points for telling Stephen that the [[wikipedia:Triple point|triple point]] of water is 0°C. In fact, as a physicist wrote in to the show to point out, the triple point of water is 0.01°C. The next time Dara was on the show, he was asked the triple point of water and triggered the klaxon when he gave the same answer.

** Ross Noble, that a round triangle that makes a square is called a Reuleaux triangle. (Pronounced "rolo"--Ross proposed a "Toblerone-Rolo combo.")

* [[Dramatic Thunder]]: Near the beginning of an episode in Series D, as Stephen announces the theme of the night -- Death.

* [[Everyone Knows Morse]]: In the eighth episode of Series M, "Merriment," Stephen revealed that a coded message had been included in the show from the beginning--a secret message which nobody had spotted. The code (as guessed correctly by Alan Davies) is in the show's theme song, which, if transcribed to Morse code, spells out "www.alanzeroandstephenhero.com." http://www.alan0andstephenhero.com redirects to http://qi.com/alan-zero-and-stephen-hero, which contains [[Easter Egg|a two-minute clip]] entitled "Bonus Bits."

* [[Golden Snitch]]: A few episodes have had certain questions or challenges that would give 100 or even 200 points if done correctly. Two series had recurring bonuses -- Series E had the "Elephant In The Room" bonus where at least one question per show would involve an elephant in some way that the panelists had to point out, while in Series F Stephen had a bonus "fanfare" which he would award to particularly interesting answers.

* [[Humans Are Bastards]]: Alan Davies invokes this trope [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grq5Yqg2xSM here].

** Also a common response to his many [[That Came Out Wrong|That Came Out Wrongs]].

* [[Informed Ability]]: One episode brought up "[[wikipedia:Little Tich|Little Tich]]", a music-hall performer who inspired [[Charlie Chaplin]] and [[Buster Keaton]], and whom Stephen Fry proclaimed a comic genius whose name would be remembered when every other comedian on the show would be long forgotten. The panel were unimpressed, pointing out that his name had ''already'' been forgotten -- neither they nor the audience had ever heard of him -- and when a surviving clip of his act was shown, they didn't even think it was all that funny.

* [[Kansas City Shuffle]] / [[I Know You Know I Know]]: In the Series F episode "Fingers and Fumbs", [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcVAcxayiFM contestants lost 10 points every time they said "fuck", but could win them back by playing RockPaperScissors with Stephen.] At the start of the episode, [[Chekhov's Gun|Stephen stated that you should play scissors in such a game, because your opponent expects you to play rock and will play paper]]. This led to a draw every time as both would play scissors, causing Alan to state "somebody play rock!". And then, in the fourth game, Phill Jupitus exchanged a significant look with Alan -- and played ''scissors'', beating Stephen who played paper. Then, in the last two games, Dara and Alan won... by playing ''rock'', Stephen having played scissors.

** Even more brutally subverted--or perhaps even inverted--when David Mitchell gave "After 1939" as an answer to "When was the first World War named as such?" After the forfeit "1939" came up, David tried to argue his case, since he'd said "''after'' 1939"...eventually resulting in him getting ''two more forfeits'' in addition to the first. See [[Rage Against the Author]] below.

** Another one started with the origin of the word "vegetarian" and moved on to a debate about motorised monster truck-esque turtles -- unsurprisingly, [[Top Gear|Jeremy Clarkson]] was involved. See [[Completely Missing the Point]] above.

* [[The Points Mean Nothing]]: Even the show's creators don't know how the scoring works -- they apparently hire a man to sit in a room and work it out, and no-one knows how he decides it. The placings can actually be quite important, especially if you're a fan of Alan Davies.

** A lot of this is due to things being cut in the edit, but the points still affecting the end result. It explains why in some episodes people have apparently done well but still lost -- they left a number of forfeits on the editing-room floor. And, of course, they can't re-record the ending to only include points scored in the edited version.

** Something of an inversion of [[Edited for Syndication]] -- a lot of the apparent points meaning nothing (see below) is ironed out in some episodes by massive forfeits and/or correct answers which were dropped in the edit down to a half-hour; the long edit still drops points, however, and at least once dropped a forfeit (in "Health & Safety," when Alan says "you big gorilla, you," the klaxon can be heard coming in, but is not shown). One presumes that even more than this is normally cut. The repeats on Dave for Series F are exclusively showing ''QI XL'' and not the normal version (and in a few cases even got to air the XL version first because the BBC never bothered).

* [[Sophisticated As Hell]]: The show can swing from very academic to completely filthy, sometimes in mid-sentence. Once Stephen gave a long, detailed, nerdy description of how woodpeckers' tongues work, before suddenly ending with "If the pecker's got wood, why go for tongue, you may ask!" -- resulting in a lot of stares and Jo Brand asking "Could we maybe have an offshoot of this program called ''Quite Unnecessary''?"

* [[Uranus Is Showing]]: An episode in Series D has a question about the discovery of the rings around Uranus. The panel avoids making any of the obvious jokes -- not that they need to, since the audience laughs every time the word is said anyway -- until Stephen deliberately provokes them by innocently remarking that he's ''just noticed'' the word might be misunderstood.

** Used for the buzzer sounds in a first-series episode -- Dave Gorman's buzzer chimed ''mi'', Jeremy Hardy's chimed ''do'', Jo Brand's chimed ''re'', and Alan's [[The Last of These Is Not Like the Others|made a noise like a pneumatic drill]].

** Again in a second-series episode -- each of the first three contestants had a four-note chime, and Alan had a cuckoo clock.