Q5 (1969)

Comedy

Q... was a surreal television comedy sketch show from Spike Milligan which ran from 1969 to 1982 on BBC2. There were six series in all, the first five numbered from Q5 to Q9, and a final series titled There's a Lot of It About. The first and third series ran for seven episodes, and the others for six episodes, each of which was 30 minutes long. Various reasons have been suggested for the title. One possibility is that it was inspired by the project to construct the Cunard liner QE2, launched in September 1967, which was dubbed Q4. Another theory is that Milligan was inspired by the BBC 6-point technical quality scale of the time, where "Q5" was severe degradation to picture or sound, and "Q6" was complete loss of sound or vision. This was extended by some engineering departments to a 9-point scale, finishing at "Q9". According to Milligan's autobiography, the final series was renamed There's a Lot of It About after the BBC felt the public might find Q10 too confusing.

IMDb rating

8.1 (163 votes)

Episode average

6.9 -1.2 vs IMDb

Seasons

5

Language

EN

Type

TV series

Front-loaded trajectory: strong early seasons, weaker later. Rising Shows ranks whole shows by the shape of their rating trend rather than one average score, which is how you find a show that got better rather than a show that started well. See every Front-loaded show in the explorer →

Ratings refreshed Oct 3, 2026 · 5 seasons indexed