'' QI'' (''Quite Interesting'') is a

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

comedy

panel game A panel show or panel game is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participate. Celebrity panelists may compete with each other, such as on '' The News Quiz''; facilitate play by non-celebrity contestants, such as on ' ...

television show A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...

that began in 2003. It was created by John Lloyd, and was hosted by

Stephen Fry Sir Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator and writer. He came to prominence as a member of the comic act Fry and Laurie alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in ''A Bit of ...

until the end of Series 13 (13 years) after which

Sandi Toksvig Sandra Birgitte Toksvig (; ; born 3 May 1958) is a Danish-British broadcaster, comedian, presenter and writer on British radio, stage and television. She is also a political activist, having co-founded the Women's Equality Party in 2015. She ha ...

took over, and features permanent panellist Alan Davies. Each series covers topics that begin with a different letter of the alphabet; for example, the first series covered topics whose word began with "A". Thus it is referred to as "Series A" instead of "Series One". ''QI'' was given a full series after BBC executives responded well to a nonbroadcast pilot and the first episode, "Adam", premiered on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

on 11 September 2003. From the second to the fifth series, episodes aired each week on BBC Two; the second and subsequent episodes were shown first on

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

in the time-slot after the previous episode's BBC Two broadcast. When the sixth series of ''QI'' began in 2008, the show moved to

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

and the broadcasting of episodes on BBC Four was replaced in favour of a 45-minute extended repeat broadcast on BBC Two the following day, titled ''QI XL''. From the ninth series, ''QI'' returned to BBC Two on Friday at 10 pm with the XL edition on Saturdays. Lloyd acted as the producer for the first five series. Piers Fletcher became producer starting from Series F. New episodes for "Series U" began airing on 18 December 2023. For Series V of ''QI'', the ''QI XL'' version aired before the standard ''QI'' on Tuesdays on BBC Two (starting from 22 October 2024). For the first half of the series, the standard edition aired on the following Sunday for the first 3 episodes, changing to the following Monday for the remaining 5.

, episodes of ''QI'' have aired.

This count does not include the unbroadcast pilot, three special episodes, 32 compilation episodes (from "Series G" onwards), and one episode containing outtakes from "Series E".

Series overview

Episodes

Pilot

Series A (2003)

Series B (2004)

Series C (2005)

Series D (2006)

Series E (2007)

Series F (2008–09)

Beginning with "Fire and Freezing", episodes premiered on BBC One. XL editions were broadcast the following day on BBC Two, from "Flotsam and Jetsam" onwards.

Series overview

Episodes

Pilot

Series A (2003)

Series B (2004)

Series C (2005)

Series D (2006)

Series E (2007)

Series F (2008–09)

Series G (2009–10)

Series H (2010–11)

Comic Relief Special (2011)

Series I (2011–12)

Sport Relief Special (2012)

Series J (2012–13)

Series K (2013–14)

Series L (2014–15)

Series M (2015–16)

Series N (2016–17)

Series O (2017–18)

Series P (2018–19)

Series Q (2019–20)

Series R (2020–21)

Series S (2021–22)

Comic Relief Special (2022)

Series T (2022–23)

Series U (2023–24)

Series V (2024–25)

Footnotes

References

External links