QI Interactive (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Educational Value
How good are the presenters?
How good is the content?
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	It is quite interesting
Disadvantages:	Can be frustrating  -  see review !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I love this TV show, so when I saw the interactive DVD I had to get it.

I wasn't quite sure how it would work, since QI is hardly a quiz at all. It is a series of almost impossible questions, with points being awarded as much for being interesting as for getting the correct answer. And most of the time, what everyone thinks is the correct answer turns out to be totally wrong and just a common myth.

The DVD is well thought out and well set out, with seven rounds of fifty or so questions, in a multi-choice format. It obviously has a limited life span, since once you have completed all seven rounds there are no more questions - however, as they aren't really questions at all, but little interesting facts, it may be that a few months down the line it is an interactive DVD that can be revisited.

Stephen Fry "hosts" the DVD as he does the TV show, in his own inimitable style. A correct answer is greeted with a well done and some more facts and figures, an incorrect answer with one of several choices of light chiding, and occasionally an interesting fact about the wrong answer.

So you go through deciding which profession are 90% left-handed and dyslexic (I am left-handed and dyslexic, but not a member of this profession) or what draculin is, and progress through each of the seven rounds. At the end of each round you are given a letter.

Quite straightforward so far.

Each of these letters then goes together to form an anagram, solve the anagram and enter it on the special QI website and you enter the exclusive club and get a little badge (I haven't got mine yet, having completed only five of the seven rounds).

And here is the nasty bit!

Some of the questions along the way have more than one correct answer. And if you pick the "wrong" right answer (the less interesting option) you aren't told, you just keep going down a blind alley of questions, until Stephen Fry puts you out of your misery and sends you all the way back to the beginning of that section.

So you can end up having to answer the same questions over and over, trying to spot the one question that could have two correct answers where you chose the wrong one....

It's a nice little twist, but sometimes it can get a little bit annoying having to go right back to the start. But it does mean that all of the little facts and figures stick in your mind, leaving you a volatile mix of useless information and quite interesting facts ready to go out and annoy friends and family alike.

Next time someone tells you that nothing rhymes with orange in the English langauge, you can correct them and earn applause from all around you.

And inform work colleagues that Nelson's last words were not "Kiss me Hardy" or even "Kismet Hardy" but in most accounts now "Drink drink, fan fan, rub rub". If knowing things like that give you a little glow, then this may be the DVD for you.

Anyway, back to the workings of the DVD. It is very easy to navigate, a simple menu leading to each of the seven sets of questions, and then the up and down arrows on your DVD control leading you to the correct or incorrect multi-choice answers.

And there is a little prize at the end. A badge proclaiming you an annoying little know-it-all.

What could be better than that?