Blue Whale Fail:(

[captainsblog]

We've been slowly working our way through the L series of QI, which aired in the UK mainly in the second half of last year.  The one we watched last night, titled "Liblabble," was particularly fun- everything from Dutch tears to seasonally affected rats to plenty of vicar jokes.

Still, we're months behind where it left off in real time, and we're completely at the mercy of the elves who seem to be allowing Youtube to show these darlings (even the XL versions) without takedowns.  It did get me wondering, though: whatever happened with the big announcement from earlier this year about the show coming onto BBC America?

BBC AMERICA

(If you didn't click the link, you'll have to imagine that as white-on-black- and make your own klaxon noises. Also, make it blink in your mind.)

We never actually watched an episode on our own paid-cable.  By the time we thought they'd be caught up to what we'd already seen, I'd check the channel website and would simply see this:


Today, I checked across a broader spectrum, and found the unfortunate answer from reddit, apparently posted barely a month after the airings began:

QI has been removed from the primetime Thursday schedule on BBC America. It will now only air in the middle of the day Sunday, where repeats normally air.

BBC America only published one press release for the show a month before it premiered and created one promo that only ran on the network. It's not even clear if they submitted the show to critics for review, since there was zero press for it. Stephen Fry was in Los Angeles ahead of its premiere, but there were no interviews or media appearances. I probably gave it more publicity just by posting the promo to /r/television on premiere week, which quickly rose to the top, showing that there was interest in it, just no awareness.

The only way I can make sense of BBC America bothering to buy the rights to the show only to quietly kill it before the first episode aired would be that BBC America acquired it before AMC Networks purchased its 49.9% stake in BBC America in October, and that AMC didn't see a panel show in its vision for the channel.

I just hope they haven't doomed the panel show format in America by manufacturing such a disastrous failure.

The other reason I can think of, or perhaps an XL version of the same reason, is that BBC Worldwide (the Beeb's United Statesian arm based in LA, responsible for the last two Torchwoods among other things) wanted to keep other competing highbrow cable networks from getting their hands on it and tainting Auntie's brand.  AMC owns several of those possible landing sites, including IFC (which does Portlandia) and Sundance, so I can't think of who else would have made a play for it.

Comments on the reddit piece include many of the usual complaints:

It's too old and getting stale! (not for those of us who've only been in since the letter G) 

We don't get the Brit in-references! (bollocks- we're smart enough to interpolate- and nobody ever had a problem when the Pythons did it; hell, I still don't know who Reginald Maudling was, but I still laugh at the jokes about him)

All that bloody network ever shows is Top Gear and Star Trek TNG reruns! (okay, that one's true)

So unless there's a change with the coming of Series M, we'll be fiddling with VGA cables and trying not to explode any Dutch tears on the living room rug;)