Are QI and WILTY the best examples of long-running panel shows which have managed to maintain their good quality...

Are QI and WILTY the best examples of long-running panel shows which have managed to maintain their good quality throughout?
Other panel shows have progressively gotten worse, but QI and WILTY are still able to be interesting, funny, entertaining and have a good-to-decent line-up of guests every time.

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QI took a pretty big dip imo in fry's last few years, he was obviously phoning it in, I was worried but sandy has been pretty solid since she took over desu.

Based Jimmy Saville.

Sandi Toksvig's great and though I loved Stephen Fry as the host, QI doesn't seem less without him.
I'm not sure about this "big dip" in the last few series though, do you have any examples? If anything he seemed more delighted than before because they kept giving him all those experiments to do which he seemed genuinely excited about. It's the initial few series that are a bit hard for me to watch because the guests didn't really know what the show was about while it was still finding its feet, so there's less participation from the guests and it fell upon Alan to play the clown just to get things going.

Why do you always hear people saying Fry's the next Saville but nobody every mentions Graham Norton? He's old, he's gay, he's been single all his life, [he works for the BBC, [/spoiler]he had the Irish Catholic treatment and probably got fiddled by a priest, he matches the classic nonce criteria way more than Fry

Fry doesn't even do real sex though.
What he does couldn't even constitute sex, he's strictly a thighfucker.

That's true as well, apparently there's no orifice entering of any kind (well except the mouth I assume) in his sex life and he's been very open about that. I don't buy the whole Stephen Fry pedo thing. It's just that ever since the Jimmy Saville case people have been pointing fingers at every middle-ages man on television

Stephen diddled my friend, more news to come after he dies.

>Are QI and WILTY the best examples of long-running panel shows which have managed to maintain their good quality throughout?
There hasn't been a bad episode of WILTY yet, and it actually gets better each year. Rob Brydon's a much better host than Angus Deaton was, and the first few series really rush through the truths and lies instead of getting a good story out of them

The episodes with the lazy eyed paki are usually pretty bad.

Agreed, even the weakest episodes have a dozen or so hearty laughs in them. I lve looking forward to hearing another strange tale from Bob Mortimer's youth or seeing Lee try and bullshit his way into claiming he has some bizarre talent (the juggling fake out is still one of my favorite moments)

is Hugh Laurie in on it?

No, but the bastard knew!

Romesh? I think he's alright. Also like the other user said, one or two bad guests doesn't ruin the episode because the others, or Mitchell and Mack save it.

There's always good laughs yeah. Even if a statement or story isn't that interesting, the others chip in and make it funny. Lee's obviously false claims and David's "poshness" being played for laughs always works.

There's this youtube channel called "WILTY? Nope!" that does compilations of every great moment of David Mitchell, Lee Mack, Bob Mortimer, Greg Davies, or basically anyone who's been on the show a number of times. It's worth checking out if you want to have fun for an evening without re-watching every single episode.

all fags are pedos


DROWN THE SODOMITES IN THE BOGS

It's more been a dip in quality of guests, really. Sandy makes from some fresh air but it's still miles below what it used to be.

They do seem to be actively introducing new guests in favour of the usual guests we've had for years now. That's not a problem in itself, it's just that most of the new guests aren't that great, and they're taking up valuable seats people like David Mitchell or Bill Bailey could be sitting on.

QI is quite good at filtering shit guests though it must be said. If they have someone new on and it just really doesn't work, you don't see them again. If they get a new guest and it works well, they get to come back for more episodes. A recent example would be that vicar guy Richard Cole, he was both funny and interesting, so they got him back in future series. Meanwhile, Nina Conti hasn't been back once thank fuck.

OFFICIAL QI GUEST RANKINGS

God Tier
>Bill Bailey
>David Mitchell
>Phill Jupitus
>Rob Brydon

Good Tier
>Sean Lock
>Jimmy Carr
>Sue Perkins
>Sandi Toksvig
>Johnny Vegas
>Lee Mack

Average Tier
>Ronni Ancona
>Rich Hall
>Clive Anderson
>Rory Bremner
>Jack Dee
>Ross Noble

Shit Tier
>Jo Brand
>Sarah Millican
>That fucking puppet woman

Holy fuck kill yourself

I'm starting to think this is a pasta by one dude. You see the same list in every QI thread and it's just subtle enough that you could fall for it. Because a lot of the ranking is actually objectively correct, but then he sneaks in Jupitus and Perkins as being really good, and Rich Hall as being average.

>Phil Jupitus
He has two GOAT moments but other than those he's not that entertaining

QI is shite now. Taskmaster is the only panel show type thing that's any good these days. In general we need some new blood on the British TV comedy circuit though, and preferably not diversity hires

Dave's come out as an unexpected saviour of good comedy in recent years in the UK. Who would've thought that the channel known for just randomly repeating every single episode of QI, HIGNFY, Mock the Week etc. would actually start producing their own stuff, and really good stuff as well.

They do Taskmaster, which is an amazing format and which I hope will last for a very long time. And they did Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled, which is the most refreshing and relaxing chat show I can think of. No plugging your latest projects, no shameless publicity, just four random celebrities sitting down at a table with Alan Davies, having drinks and good conversation. All they do in preparation is come with an interesting anecdote that Alan Davies isn't told much about beforehand, and they play off that and turn it into 45 minutes of solid banter and insight. Again, I hope that show will last for a very long time.

Dunno what happened to Dave, but obviously there was a bit of a regime change, and I'm looking forward to whatever comedy stuff they produce in the future because everything original they've done in recent years has been better than most of the stuff the BBC and Channel 4 churn out.

What about Aisling? First time I saw her she stole my heart.

>Are QI and WILTY the best examples of long-running panel shows which have managed to maintain their good quality throughout?
HIGNIFY actually much better than those shows currently, but actually improved as it ran, so I guess it doesn't count. QI was never good, so I guess it doesn't count either.

I guess they got sick with being branded the repeat channel and started doing more original productions. Most of it's quite good though I'm not a fan of Dara's 8-Bit thing. Still, I feel like the overall opinion on the channel has improved a lot since they did Taskmaster/AYU

She's beautiful, knows her stuff, and can be quite funny. I don't think she's been on QI enough times to merit a place on the ranking though. I personally dislike her "in your face"-feminism though. Nothing wrong with feminism but she tends to overdo it and half of what comes out of her mouth has to do with male oppression. It's like Indian comedians only talking about their family. Nothing really wrong with it, I just wish people would talk about anything, not just define their comedy around their ethnicity, disability or ideology.
You should definitely watch the current series of Taskmaster if you like Aisling though, there's shots of her in her pants and she does sexy dances a lot.

>she does sexy dances a lot.
Sold.
It's weird, because usually the accent doesn't do it for me, but something about her speaking actually got my attention first; not necessarily what she says, just kind of the subtleties of her voice. I think she's down for a couple of episodes in O this/next year.

I personally think HIGNFY has gone down the drain a bit in recent years, but that's mainly because a topical news quiz has to, well, cover topical news, and all the Brexit, Corbyn, Trump stuff is getting old now. It's still entertaining, and the guest hosts are usually of good quality, but current affairs nowadays are just boring and repetitive, so topical news shows suffer from it.
Also, Hislop and Merton are clearly just there for what I assume is a nice and comfy paycheck.

Hislop still makes an effort, but Merton clearly lost interest a long time ago.

I'm a complete sucker for Irish accents. There's different strands obviously, but Aisling's way of speaking is really pleasant and attractive. And yeah, she's one of the new pretty well-established female comedian on the circuit these days, so she gets the QI gigs, she's team captain on 8/10 Cats, and she regularly appears on other shows as well.
I can ignore the slightly over-the-top feminism because she is quite funny and I'd much rather see her on a panel show than say Sarah Millican, who was the main "woman comedian on popular panel show" for a while now. Glad we've got some new blood that's pretty good. Cariad Lloyd isn't half-bad either.

Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan also seem to appear on telly a lot more, but I'm not really a big fan of them, other than that I want to have sex with them, but that's beside the point.

Merton is a little insecure faggot who's "comedy" stopped being amusing a decade ago and who gets super butthurt whenever someone calls him out for being a talentless bellend. Lost all respect for him with how savagely he attacked Angus Deayton - Hislop did too but he wasn't such a cunt about it. With Merton you could feel genuine venom and hatred.

That's true, I could've worded that better. Hislop still enjoys having the opportunity to flaunt his political position and ideas, while Merton just pulls a puzzles face two or three times per episode for a small laugh from the audience. I think the Harry and Paul anti-panel show skit was childish and inaccurate in many many ways, but they did nail Merton.
>Is it a dolphin in a bathtub?
youtube.com/watch?v=-2z-AdzgKjY

>I personally think HIGNFY has gone down the drain a bit in recent years
Well, that's very, very recent, but I'll admit that. I just think it was very rough 20+ years ago and Merton and Hislop and the other writers improved their game significantly as the show went one. And fuck Deayton, he barely added anything to the show.

QI hasn't been as good since around 2011 or so, though

The rotation of panelists wore thin after more than 100 episodes. Especially with the BBCs current need to put women and asians in everything to avoid flak from the progressives, there's only so many options.

Does Merton even do anything other than HIGNFY these days? Really feels like he just shows up each year because of the easy money, doesn't show any sign of doing good prep work or thinking of good material. He's just sort of there now, kinda like Hugh Dennis on Mock the Week.

It's been good enough not to warrant cancellation (though after 50+ series I could imagine an uproar if they did cancel it), but these past few years it's been the guest hosts that carry the episode. The token comedian helps if he/she's good, the token politician can be fun if they're not too serious. Hislop and Merton don't do it for me anymore. And on top of that all you fucking hear about is Trump and Brexit and how much of a twat Jeremy Corbyn is for the 100th time. Like I said, the current news doesn't really lend itself to topical news show entertainment and that's got a lot to do with it, but it's not just that.

Okay. I at least really enjoyed it up until Brexit, which was only in 2016.

Nah I wrote it just now. I never usually browse Qi threads. Also what's wrong with Phil Jupitus? He has more memorable moments than almost any other guest.

He's good when he's making fun of Fry's posh upbringing, and when he's flirting with Fry for laughs. Other than that he has a lot of moments where he shouts something out and the entire audience and the panel don't know how to react and there's five seconds of awkward silence (and that's AFTER editing). Each to their own though, I'd just put him in Average Tier.

So did I. But don't forget that they do two series a year, and there was a lot of run up to Brexit the voting actually happened. That's four series about Brexit, Corbyn-bashing, and the "upcoming" American election.
Maybe I'm venting a bit too much, because I watch other comedy news shows as well and I just get sick of hearing those same three things for over two years.

That robot hug is genuinely one of the oddest things I've seen so far.

The fact that reading the task "give Alex a special hug" made her go all "oh, here we go, women need to whore themselves out for the men again" annoyed me a bit. But then she fucking turned herself into a robot and gave Alex a robot handblowjob while cuddling together.

Taskmaster's got a good line-up this year. I'm a huge fan of Bob Mortimer, I like Aisling Bea, and Sally Philips is an unexpected delight. Mark and Nish are okay, but all in all this might be the best team they've had

No, QI was dreadful from about the fourth series until I stopped watching it. The only interesting thing about its later years is watching a man trying to work while in the grip of depression. You can hear his fake laughs end like a page turning, see the pain and sense of futility and dashed dreams in his eyes, watch his hatred and contempt for certain guests, listen to his voice slur as though he had drunk a bottle of cough syrup because he's on a down phase and he got out of bed to do this garbage, but it's not decent television by any means. After the fourth it's crap, after the second it's already pushing it.

WILTY? was great until the episode where Richard E. Grant and Martin Clunes do scripted, rehearsed banter across shots cut with impossible timing unless the director and vision mixer had known what they were going to say. Then I stopped bothering with it.

Oh, and when Miranda Hart told a story that literally only makes sense if she's gay, but still dropped some gratuitous comment in to preserve her glass closet. That was pretty depressing and non-funny as well. Imagine if they gave her a card that said "LIE: I'm heterosexual" on it.

>Sally Philips is an unexpected delight
Genuinely this. I was ready to dismiss her, but she's been good so far. Her hug was basically just an excuse for her to live out her weirdest fetishes, and I feel that reflects the true spirit of the show.

Does he still do the thing where he does a big fake laugh at someone else's great line so that they have to cut to him?

Is Jon, dare I say it, /ourguy/?

Na, that would be Bob.

>sally phillips will never give you a "special cuddle"

I'm a mix between Richardson and Mitchell I'd say

Nihilistic and a Wicked sense of humour?

youtube.com/watch?v=MsuuiVzS6Js

Nish is shit. I love Bob (check out his WILTY compilation I laugh every time it's genius) not seeing that much from him on TM but his few moments are brilliant. Nish hasn't contributed anything he's like Josh Widdacombe or whatever he's called. Has a nasally rant about stuff and in general is just the guy laughing loudly at everyone else. Sally is QT, "unexpected delight".