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'The IT Crowd' UK Sit-com
Nigsy writes "The Register reports that
"A new sitcom - set among IT workers in the dingy basement of a glamorous company - is due to arrive on the UK's Channel 4 next month. The IT Crowd, written by Graham Linehan (the scribe behind Father Ted, Black Books), will debut on the internet on 27 January, a week before its terrestrial broadcast on Friday, 3 February at 9.30pm."" Here's hoping that they have a consultant on the show to make it technically accurate.
Here's hoping that they have a consultant on the show to make it technically accurate.
Why does it have to be techically accurate? If that's their only goal, it probably won't be very funny. I'd rather that it have accurate insights into the way the two distinct mindsets (tech and non-tech) perceive and interact with one another in the workplace. Now that's a potential comedy goldmine.
Father Ted is a classic. Black Books is a classic.
Neither really conform to stereotypes of what priests or bookshop workers are like; in fact, the character's job is often a little bit at odds with what they're like. If this is carried over to this show, maybe we'll get a comedy that features some highly eccentric geeks whose actual paid work is secondary to their real love. This is kinda true for many geeks I know; their off-duty coding is far more important to them than their on-duty coding.
I remember how WKRP in Cincinnati was a favorite tv sit-com in the late 70s and early 80s among those of us working in radio because it had good characters and funny situations. We could overlook that none of the djs ever used headphones, their casual approach to cueing up the next record, the unrealistic l'aissez faire style of the program director, the occasional lack of music director, an AM station looking to rock music as a viable format change (pop music's move to FM was well established at that point), the station's too much wattage for its position on the dial, there never being any powering down and up at sunset and sunrise, that the news announcer and dj shared the same microphone and studio, that full-time operation of the station was possible with an air staff of two, that Les Nessman wasn't jettisoned along with the elevator music recordings, and other compromises of authenticity or verisimilitude.
I agree, this concept doesn't really fill my trousers with steam. Accurate portrayal of an IT shop sounds like really terrible television, and the way they are marketing it ("geeky losers") sounds about as compelling as watching paint dry. The BOFH had it right - I want to see beautiful, arrogant, clueless managers come downstairs and treat the IT people like crap, and the IT people to destroy their lives utterly. I want to see forged emails, lost project files, kiddie porn, corrupt backups, missing laptops, exploding power supplies, changing flights, recut keys, burst pipes, planted drugs, reprogrammed phones, obscene ringtones, ruined drycleaning, dangerous airconditioning, revoked security cards, hacked drug test results, changed resumes and crazed GPS units. Revenge is a great generator of humour, particularly when it's the little guy getting his own back.
I first got a mail from Graham Linehan back in August of last year (he'd been given my details by Cory Doctorow - okay, not much more namedropping, I promise) and I jumped at the chance to help out - Father Ted and Big Train are two of my favourite-ever TV comedies.
He sent the scripts and I eventually sent a couple of notes back with a couple of minor corrections, but I really didn't need to do much at all; the humour in the show comes from really good character comedy, and the IT aspect is (quite rightly, IMHO) just a sideline thing. Roy and Moss bear slightly more resemblance to real-world sysadmins than Ted and Dougal do to real-world priests, but only slightly. As with Ted, the joy is in exggerating the silliness of the situations.
It was in building the set that the fun really started, and I need to get Sean to participate in the thread here as I recommended him for the job of gathering as much fun techie crap as possible as well as looking after the on-set PCs. Having visited the set once, I can tell you he did a fantastic job. There are so many wonderful little references and rare bits of kit lurking in the messes (British geeks in particular are in for a treat). Plus, thanks to Danny, there are EFF stickers everywhere.
Make sure to tape/TiVo/torrent it - it's a great show, fun and silly, with lots of easter-egg treats for geeks.
They did, it was mind bogglingly bad, and made about half a season.