For some time I have been watching QI episodes on YouTube. I think it is a great show and Stephen Fry and Alan Davies are great, but, just what is the purpose of the show? It appears to be a game show with questions and the panel is judged based on their answers.
BUT, other than entertainment, what is the purpose? I have never been able to figure out, in many cases, when a question is actually asked and when the panel tries to answer. Most of the time, they don’t even press their buzzers. Many times, the audience is credited with a correct answer, too.
I don’t understand the scoring. How many points are the questions worth?
Does the person (or audience) in first place at the end actually win anything?
I do fine that it is pretty educational and I love the adult nature of the questions and conversation around the table (wouldn’t see that in the US).
Thanks for considering this post for answering. I’m not going to stop watching regardless.
No one has ever understood the QI scoring system, and I doubt anyone ever will, although Stephen Fry explained it like this in an early episode:
I’ll also recommend watching the early seasons of the show, starting from the beginning, to get more of a sense of the format (it should all be on YouTube). They used the buzzers, the klaxon and the format of questions and answers in a (somewhat) more rigid way in the early days. It has devolved (or evolved, depending on your perspective) more into a kind of laid-back silliness since then.
BTW, although the facts on the show are mostly correct, you should take them with a grain of salt. I once made a complete ass of myself by repeating the show’s assertion that Florence Nightingale invented the pie chart, which is totally, utterly and completely wrong. What they should have said, because that’s how the story goes, is that she invented a particular kind of pie chart, known as the polar chart. Which is, unfortunately, still completely wrong. At best, she had a hand in popularizing the use of it.
There are a few blunders like that throughout the seasons.
Generally:
[ul]
[li]Ten points are given for a correct answer, and ten points are taken away for a klaxon answer.[/li][li]Occasionally points are increased for specific questions deemed too difficult to get right, or too obvious to get wrong.[/li][li]If their answers are almost right, they get a small number of points.[/li][li]If they volunteer related facts that are also correct (some of which will be also listed on Stephen’s cards, some not) they get points.[/li][li]If they just say something unrelated and interesting they get points.[/li][li]If Stephen is feeling generous and specifically says someone gets points, they get points.[/li][li]How many points is arbitrarily decided by the scorer (not Stephen).[/li][li]In at least one earlier season it was twenty points off for a klaxon answer.[/li][li]Alan is an actor and comedian. His most well known role is as duffel coat-wearing, locked-room detective, Jonathan Creek.[/li][/ul]
QI is an example of the panel genre where the main purpose is to give a panel of witty people a chance to be witty via loosely defined game-show-like activities. Its very British.
In the US, panels are usually straightforward panels of talking/joking heads without any pretense of an ulterior motive than to talk/joke, cf. Chelsea Lately or the Jelsenik Offensive.
QI is a masterful television show full of interesting facts. The contestants are amusing but the core attraction is the curious questions and the answers.
There is nothing in the scoring except laughter - QI is not a competition.
Entertainment is the purpose. It’s a British panel show. They have many, some based on word games, some based on current affairs etc. They all have no real purpose except to entertain you with funny smart people being funny and smart. The formula is just a way of giving them something to be funny and smart about. Winning or losing is not the point.
I’ve never seen the show (I adore Stephen Fry! Loved him as Booth’s shrink on Bones), but I’m reminded of a couple of British “quiz” programs that were on NPR for a while, “My Words” and “My Music.” They were fun to listen to and gave people a chance to use esoteric knowledge that had been gathering dust since grade school.
“Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” is another example of a “quiz” show that is more about entertainment and opportunities to be funny than about actual facts.
Another problem with trying to follow the scoring in shows like this is they often edit out segments for time, but still count them in the final score.
They deliberately keep the scoring vague, for fun. I just rewatched a season 3 episode in which the panel had to keep track of their own score and see how close they got to the official score at the end of the show. Obviously, if scoring were straightforward and easy to understand, there would be no point in doing that.
As others have said, it’s entertainment (but with some quite interesting facts. )
There are several glorious moments - here are a couple:
Dara O’Briain got points for saying the ‘triple point of water’ was zero Celsius. However in a later series, the true answer was stated as 0.01 Celsius - and Dara (who was again on the panel) was docked two points in that program!
The QI Elves did an AMA to celebrate the start of ‘K’ season and answered that while some seasons are on Hulu, there’s copyright issues with the images on the screens. I’d guess that they didn’t realize how popular the show would get/clearing them for copyright in multiple countries is prohibitively expensive.
Alan once lost 150 points for guessing that Gandhi’s first name was “Randy”. He finished that episode on -144 points, which I think is still the lowest ever score.
He could actually have beaten that record by quite a margin in the “Jobs” episode. When Stephen is fishing for compliments by asking which actor did such an amazing job as the voice of the Cheshire Cat in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” (the voice actor was Stephen), Alan suggests Hugh Laurie, and Stephen jokingly docks him 2000 points. Unfortunately, the scorer apparently wasn’t in on the joke, as Alan still finished the episode on zero points.
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