That may have been it. I always have a cup of salt handy when watching the show.

I enjoy the show because in general I love panel shows, and there are lots of QI episodes to watch, but man the elves get so many things wrong, and Stephen even mocks people who know things. The specific examples that irked me was when Stephen Fry doubled down on his mistakes about German to a German speaker, and when he mocked Sean Locke for the interesting fact that banana plants are mobile (referred to as walking), which at least he was corrected on during the same show.