The IT Crowd

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 5:51 pm

**** me, this is shit. Is everyone meant to sound like they're acting really badly? I mean, it's looking a lot like thingy from Darkplace was just freakishly well-cast in that, and I'm not sure who this ****er doing the Balamory voice is, but they're both awful... I get that the idea is to make them look like nerds, but they look like a pair of career criminals forced to do am dram as part of some court-ordained therapy course. My Irish accent sounds less forced. I mean, Chris Morris, he can actually ****ing act fairly well, so why does he sound like he's doing a Silly Voice?

Oh, he keeps changing his glasses. Who the Hell are these morons suffering seizures in the audience? This cost me a quid in a charity shop and I feel robbed.

Prowl1984 · Post by **Prowl1984** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 6:20 pm

There are one or two funny moments in the cours of the whole 3 seasons. my mates love it, never quite got into it myself as I found it to be quite forced and completely unsubtle. Had potential as a series though.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:52 am

Best episode out of all four series is the episode at the theatre where roy ends up trapped in a disabled toilet and moz ends up working behind the bar.

the first series is awful (particularly noel fielding, utterly wasted here), everything else is patchy with flashes of brilliance. hard to believe this is from the same guy that co - wrote Father Ted and the first series of Black Books.

and yes, katherine thingy who plays jen is proper nails down a blackboard bad.

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 3:36 pm

Mmm. I lump it into the category of things like The Office, later Green Wing (and Darkplace, TBH) that various other people seem to rave about and I found to be over-hyped.

I think it might work better for kids... or is it just me that doesn't find much intentional comedy funny these days?

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 4:35 pm

I'm finding less and less, but TBH that I keep finding new Peep Show generally manages at least one moment a series where I'm genuinely in pain from laughing so I'm not convinced it's just me being a grumpy old bastard.

Too much recent comedy seems to be forced surreal stuff, and TBH IT Crowd fits right into that trend...

Anyone want the first two series on DVD before I ebay it? It's shite!

Summerhayes · Post by **Summerhayes** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:25 pm

Aaaw, I loved the IT Crowd! Or rather, I loved some of the jokes. They were all quite irritating people . . .

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 6:41 am

Cliffjumper wrote: Anyone want the first two series on DVD before I ebay it? It's shite!

Strangely you're sales technique has not convinced me.

I've never liked the bits I've seen of it anyway, the performances just seem too mannered and forced to me to make the gags (such as they are) work. And it did somewhat ruin my appreciation of Darkplace's brilliant observed spoof bad acting my making me begin to suspect it was in fact genuine bad acting.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 9:04 am

Thing is, he acts very well (on Darkplace at least) as Dean Learner, and badly acts as Thornton Reed... In Man to Man and IT Crowd, he acts like Thornton Reed - there's the same inability to react to anything in any sort of natural way and the weird delivery and body language. In IT Crowd, Chris Morris has exactly the same thing, as does the woman and the guy doing a bad Irish accent. And I mean, Chris Morris is no Richard Burton for sure, but in Day Today/BrassEye he can speak on camera without sounding like he's reading off the palm of his hand.

From the 15 minutes I lasted, some of the jokes really aren't that bad, and the idea is superb, but everyone's so terrible in it... It's worth seeing one or two simply because it will reinforce how good the acting is in better comedies. It's like a student project, where someone's not too bad at writing but has been forced to rope their less than gifted mates in to bring the thing to life.

I have a sort-of masochistic fascination for car-crash bad British comedy - I've watched all of Man to Man with Dean Learner, and the later series of Red Dwarf stay in my rotation just because they're so badly done. Things like the laboured delivery of jokes or contrived lines make me wince in the same sort of way as B-Movies make other people wince (most B-Movies just send me to sleep). And I only lasted 15 minutes of this crap.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 10:09 am

IN terms of forced (and mildly recent) British comedy, what do you think of Black Books. I'm watching it now for the first time, and though I love Dylan Moran's character, the format itself feels very dated. There are a few bits here and there that are plain shite, but plenty that's so absurd I'm guessing it came from Moran.

I've only seen the first series.

After that, I'd like to get Look Around You, its something I've never seen but heard a lot of. And i'll stop harping on about this eventually, but The Book Group was ace.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 12:05 pm

I personally feel Black Books actually hangs together pretty well... Some of the wackiness felt a bit forced in the later series, but the trick is that they basically let Moran and Bailey play themselves (drunken Irish git, great big hairy manchild).

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 5:23 pm

Auntie Slag wrote: i'll stop harping on about this eventually, but The Book Group was ace.

It was. Shame the second series was bollocks, but the first stands up as its own thing.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 6:37 pm

You know, thinking about it I'm actually struggling to think of the most recent sitcom I actually watched let alone enjoyed, the first series of Extras maybe? I'm just rapidly turning into a grumpy old man who hates everything new.

Summerhayes · Post by **Summerhayes** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 9:44 am

Recently, I've enjoyed:

Peep Show
Inbetweeners (I'm the target age group, after all!)
Extras
Phone Shop (I never watched an episode sobre, but I got the impression it would have been really good if they hadn't all been doing stupid down-wiv-da-kidz voices.
How I met Your Mother
Big Bang Theory

God, you all hate me now, don't you?

Sixswitch · Post by **Sixswitch** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 5:37 pm

Summerhayes wrote:Recently, I've enjoyed:
God, you all hate me now, don't you?

Nope. I like the IT Crowd and the Inbetweeners too.

Auntie Slag · Post by **Auntie Slag** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 6:03 pm

I hate 'How I met your Mother'. The only good thing about it is proof that someone on the sound editing team has finally nailed proper canned laughter.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 7:03 pm

I tried watching The Inbetweeners, but was undone by not finding the characters remotely believable as sixthformers. All that "OMG GIRLS!!" stuff made them seem more 13ish.