While I miss my coworkers from Dublin, Irish breakfasts, and the Dropping Well… what I miss most from Ireland is getting the full breadth for BBC programming. Sure, as with US programming, there are plenty of duds, but I miss being able to watch Top Gear without a several month delay and the best quiz show ever: the ridiculously funny (and, of course, Interesting) QI.
The premise of QI is: create a quiz show filled with impossibly hard questions, stock the contestant chairs with comedians & celebrities and then don’t worry about having the answers be right or even on topic. By rewarding the guests for answers which are "interesting" and allowing the conversation to wander far from the original question you are bound to get amusing stories and random facts which are, of course, quite interesting.
Last week I was reminded of how much I miss Stephen Fry when Paula happened across re-runs of Stephen Fry in America running on PBS. Here’s the thing: Mr. Fry’s father was offered a job at Princeton University but, since he turned it down, Stephen feels he was almost an American. But all of this is beside the point because BBC America is an anemic substitute for the BBC and is holding back the best content: specifically QI.
All of this has, however, made me realize why it’s actually interesting for me to be able to watch YouTube on my TiVo: episodes of Qi. A generous YouTuber (YouTubista?) has kindly squirreled away episodes (all the way back to the pilot).
Thank goodness the BBC hasn’t figured out how to advertise to the US in their web videos (they block non-UK viewers) because otherwise I might feel guilty not giving revenue where it’s due.
Also I couldn’t watch the videos on my TV. And, as has already been widely recognized, it is all about me.
