Peep Show

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
Cliffjumper
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Peep Show

Post by Cliffjumper »

Anyone watching the new series? Been good so far, I love the way they've basically shoved the baby to one side so it doesn't actually get in the way. Mark's demolition job on Ben was outstanding. Some of the jokes have been a bit too much (Super Hans running to Windsor was a bit much, especially as it was basically lifted from Spaced), but there've been some class bits so far.

"Then I couldn't remember if I was a robot or not"
"Would a Cyberman attack FDR?"
"Danny Dyer's... chocolate... homonculus"
"Minimal water damage"

Lovely stuff. And still as painful as **** in just the right dose.
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Auntie Slag
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Post by Auntie Slag »

I missed the first two episodes and caught some of the last one. I adore Peep Show and I'm so happy its still good. The annoying thing is I'm waiting for it to turn shit, just waiting... but so far its great fun, and like you say they fit in so many lines which are as fresh as anything from the first series.

Although I do miss Mark's celebration pose and expression of Henmania!

That poxy Robert's Web that's on after it though... the entire format needs to be shot in the face.
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Terome
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Post by Terome »

Have been kind of struggling with this season, to be honest. It feels like they've lost a lot of momentum and have completely run out of things to do with Hans and Sophie. Lots of good bits put the moisture back into the stale parts though - the whole FDR / Stalin toy thing was great, Dobby's return and Jez's new job among them.

I wonder what the big, painful episode-6 event will be? I suppose a Ben / Zahra / Jez meltdown seems the most obvious choice...
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Post by electro girl »

Luxury milk...

I think the latest episode was the best so far. "Kenneth is what Mark calls his 9 inch dildo"
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Cliffjumper
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Terome wrote:Have been kind of struggling with this season, to be honest. It feels like they've lost a lot of momentum and have completely run out of things to do with Hans and Sophie. Lots of good bits put the moisture back into the stale parts though - the whole FDR / Stalin toy thing was great, Dobby's return and Jez's new job among them.
I defnitely think they should get shot of Hans, frankly. They've completely ran out of even slightly plausible zany crowd pleasing gestures to do with him, and have frankly had so many opportunities to do so... But because he's popular he stays in. I realise it's comment on the way Jeremy's so vapid he basically forgets/ignores all the ways Hans has seriously ****ed him over (Nancy, the cult, various band incidents), but it's getting tiring now when they keep him in there just to have ever-broader skits going on. It's getting to be a bit of a reverse Rimmer - once a season, usually in the last couple of episodes, Jez finally seems to wise up to Hans being a massive twat, but forgets about it by the first episode of the next series...

They do seem to have realised that Sophie being a complete bitch should mean less of her, though, so here's hoping.

That aside, I've enjoyed so far... TBH, though, it's the rewatch value that really tells with Peep Show, so I probably won't know how good it is until I find out if I'm still laughing the sixth time round.
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Auntie Slag
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not attempting to derail this in any way but...

Post by Auntie Slag »

It is very watchable eh? I've got the first five series and love going through them. I adored it the first time out, whereas 'Spaced' I outwardly hated (luckily I picked up both series for a quid each down a car boot sale). However, a couple of watches down the line and I'm quite endeared to it.

I wouldn't call it a comedy per sé, but there was a programme on BBC2 called 'Outlaws' that featured Phil Daniels. Blacker than black comedy/drama about two lawyers, he was the Jedi master to the younger new padawan learner. Viciously funny and instantly loveable, like Peep Show (for me, that is).

There's fantastic lines from Peep Show that pop into my head from time to time. Today for example I was doing nothing in particular and a line from Mark popped in;

"I suppose doing things you hate is the price you pay to avoid loneliness".

Superb, even if its only 92% true.

Oh and the bit where Jez wants to hit that massive monk guy, and ends up having a cuddle with him.

And when he was shagging Mark's sister. The moment during when she said 'oh that's tickety boo', and you see the look on his face. I nearly died of a heart attack.
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Summerhayes
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Post by Summerhayes »

Peep Show is another of those shows I've repeatedly forgotten to watch, despite the fact that all the evidence suggests I'd love it. A couple of friends have offered to lend me the first 5, and I think you've just convinced me to accept.
So... Congratulations?
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Auntie Slag
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Post by Auntie Slag »

Cool. There's stacks in there to laugh at, and lots to make you cringe as well.

The only other show I could think of which achieves this in equal measure is 'Pulling'. That ran for a couple of series. I suppose you could describe it as Peep Show but with women in the lead roles.

In a similar vein to you, I've always managed to miss 'Black Books'. Hope I get the boxset of that for Christmas!

[Edit] On an unrelated note, I saw a bloke in Sainsbury's tonight (Cambridge branch) looking slightly dishevelled down the crisps aisle wearing a green jacket and a Decepticon insignia T-shirt underneath. It was far too... emblazoned to simply be a T-shirt that someone else had bought for him, he was a definite fan. Is it anyone from here or Transfans do you reckon? I should have said hello, really.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

If I had to pick favourites, it'd either be the visit to Sophie's parents or the one where Jez ends up on jury duty and they go clubbing with the defendant. But it's all good, really, even the early stuff has stood up to me watching it what must be pushing 20 times.

The only real problem is that some of it's pretty painful at first - like the student Mark stalks, or the wedding, and it can take a couple of viewings to take the edge off that (I could barely watch while Mark got fired last one, for example).

Black Books is really, really, really good - no idea how many times I've seen it now and it still stands up. The mix of smart, strange and slapstick really comes off, it's like an evil version of Father Ted.

Spaced I loved at the time, though I think it's been bumped down to "like" - could just be a case of having seen it a really stupid amount of times, could just be a case of Shaun/Fuzz covering a lot of the same ground but much better, it could just be that the in-your-face drug references get more annoying the older you get... There are some bits that still make me smile every time (the 'gunfight' with the gang of chavs), but more often I just ind myself watching something else.

For recenter stuff, Outnumbered is worth a look (I believe there's a freebie with the Xmas Radio Times if anyone's getting it). I've only seen a couple, but it's quite funny in a low-key way, without falling down to the Royle Family's "no jokes, but here's some working class people swearing and being stupid" level.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I likes Outnumbered too. Got the series one and two boxset for chrimble and its great for low key giggles, as you say. I really enjoyed the comic relief special, which has some very sharp lines on the nature of charity and what have you from the kids.

Black Books is bloody marvellous. I've seen that so many times, i think my favourite is Bernard and Manny writing the children's book and then drunkenly reading out loud. Brilliant. Just as good are the cast commentaries on the DVDs, which are like episodes in themselves, as they quickly wander off on a tangent.

As for Spaced, yeah watched that loads and loads to the point where it doesn't raise much of a chuckle anymore, a bit like my worn Adam & Joe DVD (why haven't Channel 4 given us full series' releases of these shows?). Once you're familiar with the format and the jokes, it doesn't suprise you as much. Its still good, though.

Peep Show I love. Haven't found the current series to be as strong, but the Christmas with Mark's parents was fantastic. Pretty much reminds me of Christmas with my family too, with the day degenerating into fraught squabbles about nothing.

i also really liked Lead Balloon. Yes, it was a shameful rip off of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but the more awkward and stilted performances did it for me and I liked the daughter and her equally useless boyfriend. the other thing i've enjoyed recently, although it wasn't laugh out loud funny, was Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's 'The Trip'. Just a nice study in the vanities of two decent comics as they bound around the countryside eating at posh restauraunts.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Mmm, quite undecided abut this season on the whole - lots of good bits, but then a bit of a feeling that it's run its' course maybe. Might just be the very downbeat ending, though.
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Summerhayes
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Post by Summerhayes »

I've managed to wrangle a copy of seasons 1-5. Loving it so far. Particularly enjoyed The Johnson.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

"At least Tony Adams from the IRA is all like 'yeh, I kill people, I like killing people'"
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Terome
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Post by Terome »

Mmm, quite undecided abut this season on the whole - lots of good bits, but then a bit of a feeling that it's run its' course maybe. Might just be the very downbeat ending, though.
I feel the same way, but I really liked the last two episodes. The New Years one had a nice structure to it with all the different parties and a rare chance to cram almost all of the cast in one episode at once.

Switching up the dynamic a bit might put some oomph back in, although I imagine the promised new situation Re Jez will turn out to be a red herring the same way the wedding and the baby turned out to be. Though I would be pleased enough if they just drew a line under it and left us with seven series' worth of goodness.
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Post by angloconvoy »

Haven't seen the last episode yet but it's been good so far.

Just watching the first series again. The look of horror on Jez's face the first time Mark calls Sophie just killed me.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Yeh, I did like the Xmas and New Year ones - both captured that sort of overhyped, pressurised feel both days have (the simmering family resentments, the tearing from party to party having no fun whatsoever). I enjoyed most of the series, TBH... It's difficult to define, but it just didn't click as well as others have - it's not bad or anything stupid like that, just didn't seem quite as "Oh my ****ing God, this is superb" as previous series... Zara and Ben just didn't work that well for me.

It might just be a case of too many dickheads in the series - Zara, Ben, Sophie, Jeff, Big Suze, Ian, Hans, Gerard, Alan... I've not kept count or anything, but it just felt like everyone but Dobbie and the boys were total twats and it felt a bit more cartoony at times, whereas in earlier series they were a bit more balanced. It worked better when Jeff for example wasn't exactly a nice fella but you could sort of see where he was coming from, whereas the past two series he seems to go out of his way to dick Mark over. They're all a bit too unreasonable.

It's still the funniest thing on TV by quite some way, don't get me wrong.
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Summerhayes
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Post by Summerhayes »

I'm on to Series 2.
It's an odd feeling. It's probably funnier than the first but without the cheap feel it seems a bit less... Different.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Yeh - getting a proper theme tune instead of some kid fiddling with a keyboard changes the feel of it a little bit too. I think, though, it's as much because you get used to the strange camera setup after about a series and start taking the basic very weird concept (I mean, how many sitcoms have there been where the two leads very rarely appear in the same shot? Even when they're having conversations with each other in the same room?) as a given, and start to get a bit more of a handle on the characters so the monologues don't seem so odd.

Mind, the thing that always hits me whenever I watch the first couple is how young Robert Webb looks, and how thin David Mitchell looks. I guess he couldn't afford much food back then.
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Summerhayes
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Post by Summerhayes »

Cliffjumper wrote:the one where Jez ends up on jury duty and they go clubbing with the defendant.
Just caught that one, it was ruddy brilliant. And not just because it had Jez watching Transformers at the start.
Finished Season 3 now and I'm starting to see what you mean about Sophie. She can sod off...
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Post by Cliffjumper »

I just love so much in that episode - Carla ("Cuz she can't see you!"), Jez' big speech with the jury, Kevin Bishop perfectly cast as a stupid twat, Mark trying to get into the gay club, "You may have won this, you may owe us that".
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