IT Crowd On-line

prostoalex writes "IT Crowd, a comedy television show by UK's Channel 4, introduced on Slashdot earlier, has released the first episode, available on the official show site in Windows Media format." Pretty standard fare- there are nice touches like EFF stickers and an RTFM shirt scattered about. Some funny stuff, but the laugh track makes it really unwatchable for me.

Comments

meh ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is my sitcom

Re:meh ...

[Spy der Mann]

Slashdot is my sitcom

Mine is bash.

Re:meh ...

[AlienSlav]

Exactly! Has a good story line, good humor, insightful, entertaining, and some times even educational. That's why my mom lets me come here to hang out.
AlienSlave

Re:meh ...

[mo^]

How did you run that comparisson and miss out.....

"Endless Fucking Repeats!" :P

Re:meh ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine is bash.

Mine is machine language for the ENIAC.

SEE, my nasty hairy nuts are bigger than yours. SEE SEE!! LOOK, they're narly and covered with hair!

Re:meh ...

[Anonymous Coward]

mine is monad.....so my nuts are hairless!

Re:meh ...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and they throw chairs?

Re:meh ...

[AlienSlav]

Some people here just don't get it the first and some the second time around. >)
AlienSlave

Laughter Track

[dougjm]

Thats no laughter track, thats just how us Brits laugh!

Re:Laughter Track

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring Back a Real Show to BBC!

Until the beeb brings back "The Prisoner" (reruns, not a remake!) I'm not gonna waste my time on a new show aimed a "geeks". If they make it understandable enough for the average viewer, it wonm't be geek enough for us. Kind of like jokes... if you have to explain them, they're not funny. A truly geek show would go right over the head of most TV viewers. (But then this is British TV, so it may just go over their heads anyway.)

My suggestion: Put Heidi Klum in a kilt and a two-sizes-too-small Defcon t-shirt and have her dance/bounce around for 30 minutes... that would be the ultimate IT/Geek show and a predictable plot line wouldn't bother us in the least! :-)

Re:Laughter Track

[david.joy]

Firstly, "The Prisoner" wasn't a BBC show. It was made originally by Granada for ITV and as far as I know they still own it. But in fact the BBC has brought back "The Prisoner" -- it bought the rights and reran every episode at the beginning of 2005 on BBC 4. See the BBC 4 Prisoner web site. I can't speak for BBC America and so on as that is not strictly the BBC (it's part of a commercial subsidiary, BBC Worldwide).

Getting back on topic, tbe purpose of a classical sitcom is not to portray real life accurately. If it did, it would be terribly boring. You're welcome to make a case for drama based on a geek lifestyle -- and it might well work, with a little creative licence. However, I do think that there is an amusing comic premise in the portrayal of geeks as people who are able to relate to technology more easily than to other people. If the series carries it off well then both geeks and end users should be able to recognise and empathise with the characters. After all, it's a stereotype that holds true in many cases.

Re:Laughter Track

[Thwomp]

First the BBC is not the same as Channel 4, it doesn't recieve anything from the T.V. license and money is raised through commercials. However it does have some broadcasting obligations, like programmes for schools.

Second, although I haven't seen the show, I would imagine it's taking the piss out of I.T. departments. So it wouldn't be aimed at geeks but a much wider demographic.

I have been looking forward to the show since I heard that Chris Morris (well known in the U.K. for 'Brasseye' and 'The Day Today') is appearing as the I.T. manager. I suggest any readers look up these series, because along with The Office & Extras, they are highpoints of British comedy.

Also, while I'm having a bit of a rant check out 'Operation Good Guys' which was a mock-umentary/sitcom made a good time before The Office!

Re:Laughter Track

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, did you get really confused or is that just a really poorly constructed sentance? The BBC is basically solely reliant on TV license money. It doesn't have commercials like channel four (and every other TV channel in the UK).

Please watch the show before commenting on it. It's avaliable for download so there's not really an excuse. The show *isn't* solely for geeks but it *does* manage to get in a good many jokes that'll have been missed by anybody not in the IT/tech industry.

Re:Laughter Track

[david.joy]

As I understand it very few British sitcoms use a "canned laughter" track, preferring either to film most of the scenes in front of a live audience or at the very least to play the finished episode on monitors in front of a real audience. The BBC in particular is particularly keen to use live audiences wherever possible (see the BBC Tickets page for information on how to join an audience), and whilst this particular comedy was made for Channel 4 rather than the BBC the same view is held across the entire British television industry.

You can usually tell, anyway -- canned laughter tends to be rather clinical (it starts and stops very abruptly) whereas live laughter will grow or subside as the individual audience members get the joke at different times. That said, a lot of people accuse even live audiences of being distracting or sounding artificial, and that's because the audiences are encouraged by the programme-makers to make as much noise as possible, even if a joke isn't very funny. That doesn't mean they are canned, though.

Unfortunately, it's usually difficult to find out which programmes are and which aren't as those programme-makers that do rely on canned laughter are very reluctant to make the knowledge public. And in all programmes the editors will have tweaked the laughter track a bit afterwards to smooth over glitches, cuts and re-takes.

Re:Laughter Track

[Uber Banker in China]

First the BBC is not the same as Channel 4, it doesn't recieve anything from the T.V. license and money is raised through commercials. However it does have some broadcasting obligations, like programmes for schools.

The BBC is mainly funded by the licence fee (limited revenues come from sales of programmes to other networks/countries, etc). Channel 4 is partially (minority) funded by the licence fee, the justification being that it is remitted to provide 'niche' viewing in some subject areas (education, as you stated, and a few other areas).

Re:Laughter Track

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Prisoner" was made by ITC, not Granada.

Re:Laughter Track

[david.joy]

I stand corrected -- The Prisoner was made by ITC. It's gone through several changes of ownership since then, though. I believe it is now owned by Granada Ventures, however.

Re:Laughter Track

[Anonymous Coward]

channel 4 gets nothing from the license fee.

Re:Laughter Track

[netdudeuk]

It's far too excessive. And that's more or less all that made me laugh. I guess it triggered a response in the way it was meant to do !

IMHO, it's just not that amusing. I've stopped watching the intro and pulled the scheduled programs from my MCE machine. The stereotypes show just how out of touch the writers are. I don't think that silly haircuts, bad personal hygiene, failure with the girls and messy offices are really reflective of how it is these days. Or any other day for that matter.

I'm a Brit and we've had some classic British comedy in the past but I think that this is pretty poor.

Re:Laughter Track

[Dystopian Rebel]

"It's far too excessive."

You confounded Limeys, always preferring moderate excess in everything. ;o)

Re:Laughter Track

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you go check on that. They do.

Re:Laughter Track

[slim]

That said, a lot of people accuse even live audiences of being distracting or sounding artificial, and that's because the audiences are encouraged by the programme-makers to make as much noise as possible, even if a joke isn't very funny.

It is, to an an extent, a directorial decision. I went to a sitcom shooting in Hollywood ("The Geena Davies Show" -- high prestige, huh?) where the warm-up guy, under direction from the production team, coached us in how to laugh. He'd say "Now remember, you're here to add to the atmosphere, and to encourage the actors, so if there's a joke where at home you'd just chuckle a bit, just exaggerate that a bit so it's a big belly laugh". For a second take, he'd say "This time around, you'll have heard the joke before, so you're not going to want to laugh quite as much -- but I want you to try and remember how it felt to see that the first time and laugh like you did that time." ... and so on ...

Most amusingly, at one point in the story one of the characters drops a bombshell about an ex-lover or something. For take two, the warm-up says "Now we've just learned that [... whatever ...]; that's quite a bombshell, so when he says it again in the second take, everyone go 'ooooooooooooh!', let's practice that shall we?", then, "Oh wait a minute -- the director's telling me he doesn't want to go for that 'Home Improvements' vibe, so please do NOT do the 'ooooh' thing."

There was a documentary about "the death of the sitcom" (referring specifically to home-grown UK sitcomes) recently. Studio audiences were discussed in depth. A studio shoot puts some major constraints on the production: sets have to be built like theatre sets, with a missing 4th wall, so you can only shoot from a limited number of angles. Actors have to project, so it's theatrical not naturalistic. Cameras and mics can't get in close because that would spoil the view for the studio audience.

Their big comparisom was between "The Royle Family" and Victoria Wood's "Dinner Ladies". The former -- massively popular for some reason -- is filmed almost like a fly-on-a-wall documentary, with no studio audience, and is very naturalistic. Victoria Wood wanted that kind of atmosphere in Dinner Ladies, but for some reason ended up with a studio audience. What made it look particularly old fashioned -- and VW pointed this out -- was that lines that should have been throwaway gags, then move on, had to be projected to the audience, then during the ensuing laugh, the cast had to stand there "like lemons" (her words) waiting for enough quiet to deliver the next line.

Re:Laughter Track

[grahamlee]

Granada and Carlton merged in 2005 to produce the ITV company.

Re:Laughter Track

[jasonm23]

It's still a huge mistake to include it in a sitcom... (IMO) ...But then again so is giving it a script and direction like those supplied for the IT Crowd... ...Weak.

And a real disappointment, Richard Ayoade and Chris Morris are routinely brilliant in eveything else they've worked on. Very, very sad.

Re:Laughter Track

[bobamu]

We're sorry :( from now on I'll call "the pond" "the reasonably sized 'quite-damp'" if it helps?

Re:Laughter Track

[Daengbo]

What's really amusing about your post is that,while I haven't watched commercial TV in the US for many years, when I was young, "Filmed in front of a studio audience" was network-speak for "canned laughter." If there was a live audience, they'd say so.

Re:Laughter Track

[Fred_A]

It's far too excessive.

True, just watching them installing printer drivers, silently removing spyware and patching the corporate firewall would have been much more funny to the 0.005% of those in the know. (snort)

Besides I don't know where you've been working but I've always seen characters like those lurking in the corners, including one that actually had 2 tshirts (one for summer, one for winter) who apart from that was a true wizard, one of the very few I've encountered. He did fail with the girls, and the boys, and probably got bitten by dogs as well. But he did get his patches in to gcc, managed to debug Guardian (the Tandem OS which we ran in addition to a number of Unix at the time) and would silently chuckle when looking at your tty, spotting in seconds a problem that would take you hours to fix.

And yes we had plushy toys, dinosaurs and the plastic cat puke that always sat upon the newest machine. We also had a baseball bat with 'RTFM' engraved on the side hanging on the wall.

What we didn't have, was a cute redhead as head of IT. Sometimes fiction surpasses real life.

Anyway, I enjoyed that first episode, it reminded me of my younger days (well, apart from the redhead, luckily there were other sources for girls in the company), with a bit of BOFH added to spice things up. I regret that, being in France, I won't be able to see the rest of it (unless it too makes it to the net).

Re:Laughter Track

[pipingguy]

Together, us two cannot kill laugh tracks alone but might start a pan America distaste for them.

Laugh tracks are evil incarnate in the sense that they indicate where to laugh. If you have to be told what's funny (via manufactured laughter), you can be sure that it's not.

Did Fawlty Towers or Flying Circus ship with built-in laughter?

Re:Laughter Track

[slim]

Did Fawlty Towers or Flying Circus ship with built-in laughter?

Yes.

Re:Laughter Track

[pipingguy]

Not the ones I've seen.

It's pretty pathetic when producers/rebroadcasters have to TELL people when to laugh. Is this a uniquely American invention?

Re:Laughter Track

[Belgand]

The lack of a laugh track is a significant feature to Arrested Development which I feel is currently (that is, on the weeks they actually choose to show it) the funniest show on American television. Part of the appeal is because it doesn't lower the show to a lowest common denominator prodding you into laughing at obvious points. This allows the subtle jokes to slip past as part of normal conversation and means that actors don't need to stop and pause for a few seconds to let laughter subside. It allows for clever, witty jokes based on wordplay and double-entendres that might easily be missed unless you're paying attention. It's also necessary to the entire documentary-lite feel. Throw in a laugh track and while the show would still be good, it wouldn't be half of what it is now.

Mac attack

[FidelCatsro]

I have been trying to download the episode with both safari and Firefox , however I seem to be having no luck.
Looks like you have to be using windows , so perhaps mac users are out of luck . though I could be wrong and just having problems on my end.

Re:Mac attack

[BasilBrush]

Have you tried turning it off and then on again?

Re:Mac attack

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using linux and I've had no problems downloading or watching the thing...keep trying :)

Re:Mac attack

[Ford Prefect]

I just watched it on my iBook so there doesn't seem to be a total Windows dependence - it is Windows Media, though, so you'll need the appropriate software to play it.

There was the semi-official Flip4Mac being waffled on about a few weeks ago, I used the prehistoric Mac port of Windows Media Player instead. I don't think I've ever seen it work for a full 25 minutes or so before.

Anyway, trying to avoid sounding like a true nerd and switching off the white noise: the comedy itself. It was pretty funny, and was obviously more of the surreal Father Ted line than some razor-sharp nerd-specific humour - expect to see a vastly exaggerated version of reality, with the workers attempting to maim and/or kill the IT staff instead of some nerd-only Perl puns...

I do think I'm going to have to try the speech recognition thing on my non-boss, though... ;-]

Re:Mac attack

[FidelCatsro]

I feel like a bit of a twit , the moment I posted that I realised that I had it set up to send WMV to VLC instead of quicktime.
Was rather hilarious , I think that was Chris Morris as the Boss , the guy who made Brass eye.
Rather enjoyable .. would be better if they killed the laugh track , but I assume it is just teething problems .

Re:Mac attack

[pwgawron]

With Linux I have no problems to watch this movie. Properly configured Firefox + Mplayer on Suse 10.0 do the job.

Re:Mac attack

[advocate_one]

I have been trying to download the episode with both safari and Firefox , however I seem to be having no luck. Looks like you have to be using windows , so perhaps mac users are out of luck . though I could be wrong and just having problems on my end.

aha... you've failed the test. Please surrender your Geek pass to security on the way out... :) a true geek would have tried an alternate approach such as cutting & pasting and replacing mms:// with http:///

Re:Mac attack

[FidelCatsro]

I realised that just after posting ;) , it should be on my list of idiot checks . You know those times where you are trying to solve a rather complex problem and wonder why your debuging is to no avail , then realise you are debugging the wrong program.
Or rip out the motherboard and ram , start doing diagnostics on them , then realise you had the power supply switched to 0

Re:Mac attack

[linhux]

Worked fine on my Mac using the link provided in this post.

Re:Mac attack

[mattyrobinson69]

mplayer mms://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web. wmv

(presuming your mplayer was compiled for support for mms streams)

Re:Mac attack

[Matthendrix]

http://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web .wmv

Re:Mac attack

[andrewa]

Wouldn't it be a rather good idea to have the "power supply switched to 0 before you rip out the motherboard and ram" anyway....?

dont wanna stream?

[Anonymous Coward]

wget http://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web .wmv

Re:dont wanna stream?

[Waltre]

Thanks. For other prospective wgetters, don't forget to remove Slashdots whitespace from the URL...

Re:dont wanna stream?

[onedotzero]

Wow, and full speed transfer, too! I've never downloaded from a single source at over 500KBps before :D

--
onedotzero
the.digital.feed

Re:dont wanna stream?

[pixr99]

Wow, and full speed transfer, too! I've never downloaded from a single source at over 500KBps before :D

That's the magic of Akamai. There's a decent chance that your ISP has Akamai servers either right in their datacenter or nearby.

Re:dont wanna stream?

[speculatrix]

or use mplayer dump stream

Re:dont wanna stream?

[blackest_k]

Or right click link save as...
funny thou how Windows media player couldn't find it to save as. when its already downloaded it.

It hasn't got much going for it really, a cj boss (from reggie perrin, a duane dibley clone and an audience that was desperately trying to show how funny it was... not.

http://www.deadtroll.com/index2.html?/video/hellde skcable.html~content

thats funny

broken link

[zxsqkty]

The link should be mms://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web. wmv, but it gets reformatted on posting making it un-clickable. Copy & paste...

Re:broken link

[techefnet]

If you want to save this file run this command: mplayer -dumpstream mms://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web. wmv It requires http://mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer

Online before broadcast

[NickFitz]

The really interesting thing about this is that the show won't be broadcast on Channel 4 until next Friday. I believe this is the first time a UK broadcaster has made a programmes available online before broadcast.

Re:Online before broadcast

[slashknott]

No, It's been done before more than once by the BBC.

Mighty Boosh for one, Tittybangbang another. I'm sure there are more.

Re:Online before broadcast

[SpinJaunt]

Man Stroke Women, being another..

Re:Online before broadcast

[pjh3000]

Unless you count that leaked episode of Doctor Who last year.

Re:Online before broadcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Nighty Night being yet another.

Re:Online before broadcast

[Anonymous Coward]

the mighty boosh dear boy

Re:Online before broadcast

[rodbegbie]

Auntie's done this a couple of times with BBC3 shows. The Mighty Boosh and Tittybangbang spring to mind.

Re:Online before broadcast

[BovineSpirit]

The BBC has been doing it with shows such as 'Mighty Boosh', another comedy aimed at young adults... It's a shame that had to use such an annoying codec. Any ideas why they didn't just stick to mpeg-2, or offer a selection?

Re:Online before broadcast

[baadger]

I think you mean mpeg-4. Mpeg-2 is a pain for Windows users without a DVD drive and software.

Re:Online before broadcast

[wiredlogic]

I believe this is the first time a UK broadcaster has made a programmes available online before broadcast.

You forget the purposely "leaked" premiere of Dr. Who.

Re: Online before broadcast

[gidds]

Yes, but has it been done before with something that was made for terrestrial TV?

(In my area, I can't even get Channel 5, let alone anything on FreeView... Not that I'm bitter, you understand.)

Anyway. Having seen it, I agree with the comments about the intrusive laughter track. But I it's no worse than we've been used to for decades; it's just that many of the more recent comedies have been brave enough to do without one, so its presence is more obvious now.

I also agree with comments about the old-fashioned feel. The 'IT department' it shows is only really about PC support, which is a far cry from many IT roles. But then, that's not the point -- the show isn't really about IT, just as Father Ted wasn't about the priesthood, Black Books wasn't really about the book trade, and Big Train wasn't about locomotives. It's just a way to provide a bland office setting, and a couple of nerds.

I found the show pleasant enough. Not particularly original, different, or inspired, but I've seen a lot worse. Still, Hyperdrive is the one I shall make sure I'm home for -- despite all the comparisons to another well-known sci-fi comedy, I think that's an original show, well made, and finding its own identity.

Re: Online before broadcast

[ncurtain]

(In my area, I can't even get Channel 5, let alone anything on FreeView... Not that I'm bitter, you understand.)

Wait till they switch off analogue and you have to use digital. You'll be bitter then I assure you. People in the boondocks in the Americas will be feeling sorry just for you.

Anyway. Having seen it, I agree with the comments about the intrusive laughter track. But I it's no worse than we've been used to for decades; it's just that many of the more recent comedies have been brave enough to do without one, so its presence is more obvious now.

Did you ever see a programme called Open All Hours in your youth? Madness. Utter, imbecilic, useless, stupidity.

Then there was Friends. I thought I was missing something because of the foreign accents but it was just the laughter getting in the way.

Re: Online before broadcast

[gidds]

Open All Hours wasn't bad. The writing was a little formulaic, but the situation was fairly interesting, and Ronnie Barker was worth watching. (He was a better character actor than people gave him credit for.) Can't say it did a huge amount for me, though.

OTOH, I hated Friends. Partly coz most of my college friends loved it, and I never understood why. It just seemed so smug, with all this fake coziness and forced charm. It seemed soulless. It also seemed as if having 300 writers led to a barrage of one-liners with no connection, character, meaning, style, plot, or point.

Which has pretty much been my impression of all the US sit coms I've seen, in fact...

A while ago, someone (Jeremy Hardy?) commented on the difference between the UK and US film industries, to the effect that while American films featured drama, tragedy, and ugly real life, British films featured amiable people getting into a bit of a pickle. Which is odd, because in sit com terms things seem to be reversed: British sit coms often have ugly, cruel, nasty characters, real monsters in some cases (think of Edmund Blackadder, Father Jack, Arnold Rimmer, just about anyone who lives in Royston Vasey...). Whereas the worst US sit coms seem to have is amiable people getting into a bit of a pickle. Impossibly good-looking, amimable people. Smug, impossibly good-looking, amiable people. Who always seem to have an impossibly witty amiable thing to say. And then have to wait two minutes for the applause to die down before continuing.

US comedies are generally pretty popular over here, so I'm clearly in a minority with this one. But I just don't find any of them funny!

Re: Online before broadcast

[ncurtain]

How about the Simpsons. The early stuff was crap but when the writer realised the way to go he had it bang on.

I think friewnds was just an abreaction to soaps generally. Why do people watch depressing stuff; never mind writing the crap?

And why must the BBC run shabby sets on their typically low budget crud? Surely if it is good enough to get past the first series it is worth making properly.

But with all the free scripts landing on their desks every day, why bother making badly made not very good stuff in the first place?

One of life's conundrums. (Or is it a tenet of the Bahai faith?)

Re:Online before broadcast

[el_womble]

All the more reason to use MPEG-2. Fudge 'em

Re:Online before broadcast

[MarkH]

Not the case bbc.co.uk has been showing certain Comedy Series 7 days before they are broadcast. They include 'Mighty Boosh' last autumn

Re: Online before broadcast

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but has it been done before with something that was made for terrestrial TV?

They were on BBC Three which is terrestrial. Digital terrestrial, but terrestrial none-the-less. I guess you meant analog. Just thought I'd point that out. ;)

Re: Online before broadcast

[Ponyegg]

I think this is the clear line between character driven comedy and situation comedy. It's Monty Python vs Carry On.

A geek show geeks can't see?

[aliquis]

WMV? How convenient.
Shows for some.

Thank god it's just audio visual

[Quirk]

A realistic 'IT Crowd' would just shows fat, oily, pimply, hairy geeks. Fortunately Smell-O-Vision didn't become a hit, or the 'IT Crowd' would have been, literally, an olfactory bomb.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I've seen this kind of comment so many times. Can someone please explain the "fat computer geek" meme? I have spent 4 years in a comp sci degree and 10 years working as a software engineer, and it just doesn't seem to be applicable to the people I have worked with (or to me, I hasten to add). The reality is that they all look much like an average cross section of society (with a lower percentage of women obviously). Some very fit, some skinny, but most people pretty normal (and that's "rest of the world normal", not "plus size US normal"). I have only worked with one obese person, and she was in administration, not the tech side of things.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[Bazzalisk]

It's a weird thing, all the geeks I know who are noticeably fat spent a significant time in America. Is there something about the USA that causes its geeks to become overweight?

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[Quirk]

Can someone please explain the "fat computer geek" meme?

Tracing the linage of memes is tricky business. My guess would be one part Dudley 'Booger' Dawson played by Curtis Armstrong in Revenge of the Nerds, and one part derived from the archetypal nerd, R.M. Stallman. IIRC RMS use to partake in folk dancing, but injured an ankle, had to quit dancing and acquired a paunch, where RMS is concerned the hairy part is apparent.

Best guess on my part.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[jez9999]

No, there's something about the USA that causes its people to become overweight.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[greenrd]

I believe it's called "corn derivatives in food", or something like that.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[saskboy]

"Is there something about the USA that causes its geeks to become overweight?"

That would be "Burger King" you're wondering about.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[Minwee]

"Is there something about the USA that causes its geeks to become overweight?"

Yes. The food.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[mo^]

Cheap Pizza!!! (At least compared to the UK)

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[LizardKing]

Cheap Pizza!!! (At least compared to the UK)

Italian computer nerds must be elephantine then. For the price of a single pizza in the UK, I can get five in Italy - and they're even edible unlike the shite that Pizza Hut, Dominos and their ilk serve up.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[Thing 1]

I think it has something to do with the Earth's gravitational pull. In the future. 1985, to be exact.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[bill_mcgonigle]

Can someone please explain the "fat computer geek" meme?

It's perpetuated by fat computer geeks who yearn to not feel so alone (and fat).

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[cyborg_zx]

All the Italians I know eat very well. Good food is simply a part of their culture that we seem to be lacking somewhat in the UK. We may try but we fail miserably.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[21st Century Peon]

Don't forget Wayne Knight's fat computer geek/dino-meal Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park, although this was probably pandering to the stereotype rather than shaping it.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[elrous0]

Italian computer nerds must be elephantine then.

Being as pizza is an American creation, NOT an Italian one, I'm surprised.

-Eric

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[LizardKing]

Being as pizza is an American creation, NOT an Italian one, I'm surprised.

Bullshit. My girlfriend is Sicilian, and I can state on good authority that pizza is an Italian invention (Neapolitan to be precise). However, the thick, greasy stuff that you can get in the States is an American bastardisation of it. Real pizza has a thin crispy base, and never has pineapple on it.

Re:Thank god it's just audio visual

[mykdavies]

US pizza is an odd creation -- huge thick slices of greasy, cheesy dough, but strangely unsatisfying -- nothing like eating a slice of pizza from a hole-in-the-wall vendor in Italy.

Unfortunately, with the expection of Pizza Express, the UK is following the US example of how to make pizza...

Its too much!

[gasmonso]

This show would be better if it were like The Office. Have the IT guys in there aswell as nerdy users, but this intense focus on it is too much. They are gonna burn out within the first few shows.

http://religiousfreaks.com/

Re:Its too much!

[Spad]

Yes, because the world of IT staff is such a limited premise compared to the world of a book store owner, for example.

Re:Its too much!

[MosesJones]

Its by the same writer as father Ted and the producers of the office. Father Ted had 4 main characters and lasted for several series.

Intense focus in a sit-com isn't bad, lets face it this is normal, low number of core characters and sets with occasional colour add ons.

Fraser - 3 sets (appartement, Studio, coffee shop) - 5 main characters

Cheers - 1 set (bar) depending on series between 4 and 6 characters

Friends - 2 sets (appartement & coffee shop) - 6 characters

Office - 1 set (Office) 4 main characters

Father Ted - 1 set (the house) 4 main characters

So Sitcom history seems to say that you almost NEED an intense small group of sets and characters.

Re:Its too much!

[Kuxman]

Don't forget about Seinfeld. That had a small cast (4 main characters) and a handful of reoccuring sets.

Re:Its too much!

[wfberg]

So Sitcom history seems to say that you almost NEED an intense small group of sets and characters.

If it doesn't have a small group of sets and characters... Then it's not a situational comedy, is it? It's either a sketch show, or standup comedy, or satire, or a late-night show, or a physical comedy show. Sitcoms have a few, recognizable, main characters, perhaps some recurring characters, and a small number of sets, because that's what makes it a sitcom. There are plenty of sitcoms that were totally unfunny, "despite" having a small group of characters and sets. There are also shows that are funny, but not sitcoms; or that stretch the format a bit (for example, to include storylines that span multiple episodes with characters actually developing/changing their personality; or as in Extras have the same characters, but in different - if similar - situations).

In the same vein, succesful novels are often more than 30 pages. Whereas, surprisingly, many succesful short stories are less than 30 pages!

Re:Its too much!

[BovineSpirit]

Going back further, 'Steptoe and Son' had 2 characters and 1 set, 'Hancocks Half Hour' was written around him, 'The Young Ones' was 5 (inc. Alexi Sayles' characters) and 2-3 sets. It's all about the characters...

The animated shows such as The Simpsons and South Park have raised the bar somewhat as the don't need to build new sets everytime the characters go somewhere else, nor do they have to audition actors every time they introduce a new character.

Re:Its too much!

[da5idnetlimit.com]

Red Dwarf.

4 main characters (Including "The Cat" and the computer), a few additional ppl showing, maybe 4 sets

And a nice funny story

Re:Its too much!

[jez9999]

Yeah, I agree. It only really made me chuckle a few times throughout the episode, and there was far too much shouting throughout that made everything looks rather forced and wooden.

Richard Ayoade (the black guy, Moss) is an apalling actor. I know he's meant to look awkward and have a nerdy voice, but he comes across as some kind of robot. He was in a very weird show on Channel 4 a while back called Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, and he was presumably in that because all the acting was *meant* to be terrible.

The other 2 are unconvincing. The Irish guy is just a cad, and the woman is way too cute to be in a basement with them; she'd be out of there in 5 seconds in real life.

What's weird is the enormous amount of effort channel 4 seem to have put into advertising this very average work - I've seen billboard and TV ads around.

Re:Its too much!

[cyber-vandal]

There aren't many or enough but there are attractive women in IT. Hard to believe but it is true.

Re:Its too much!

[gnarlin]

Where? Name ten.

Re:Its too much!

[ElephanTS]

Richard Ayoade (the black guy, Moss) is an apalling actor.

I've got to disagree there - I loved this guy since Garth Marenghi (and some appearances on the Mighty Boosh). He seemed believable as a nerd. I'm sure one day he'll be huge.

Otoh, this show is totally lame. I don't buy the Irish guy or the girl at all. Worse thing Chris Morris (the boss) has been in too. I think C4 see the need for this kind of show (and there is a big audience for it) but this is not the vehicle. Too much shouting and not enough jokes. It's not enough to put a Commodore Pet and a ZX81 in the background and hope for the best.

Re:Its too much!

[Conor Turton]

Black Adder. 4-5 characters plus the odd bit parts but episodes mainly had 3 in, especially with the fourth series set in WW1.

Re:Its too much!

[baadger]

Errr five characters: Lister, Cat, Rimmer, Holly and Kryten.

Other things to remember, they had the entire universe to roam, in the last seasons reintroduced the entire crew and before that had frequent encounters with other people, virtual reality and time travel.

Re:Its too much!

[Sarisar]

Or the episode of One Foot In The Grave which had only ONE GUY in it, sat at home. He did answer the phone (but you only heard HIM speaking).. Actually I thought it was very funny.

The writing is always more important then the number of people or sets.

Re:Its too much!

[Anonymous Coward]

And list e-mail addresses so we can send in our "CV's" >_>

Re:Its too much!

[teefaf]

I worked with 2 of them over the summer - just go join Accenture if you wanna meet some. ;-)

Re:Its too much!

[carou]

And he co-wrote the first series of Black Books, as well, which had a core cast of three.

One thing that may be unfamiliar to American readers, is that the usual model of British TV sit-coms is that a series lasts for just six or eight episodes, very tightly scripted (normally by just one or two writers) and concentrated: the best of them will fit as many laughs into three hours of TV, as a typical American sitcom will get in a 26 episode run.

Short series mean there's less danger of ideas getting stale; on the other hand, a new programme can't afford to spend more than one or two episodes setting up the situation - with a longer season you could have filmed ten episodes before the writers or cast have really hit their stride, but that's just not an option for a producer in the UK.

Re:Its too much!

[DrSkwid]

The Office did have an IT guy in one episode, he was *very* well observed

Tim: Look, how long is this going to take ?
IT Guy: As long as it takes ........ (hits a key) ..... there done !

Re:Its too much!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Irish guy is just a cad, and the woman is way too cute to be in a basement with them; she'd be out of there in 5 seconds in real life.

So you mean that it's actually meant to be a documentary?

Re:Its too much!

[prefect42]

Nah, Kryten was an addition who was added later on.

Look back to the old stuff, like "Better than Life", much better.

Re:Its too much!

[baadger]

Kryten appeared in season 2 if i'm not mistaken, or maybe even end of season 1. I can't be bothered to check but I feel he added alot of value to the show.

Re:Its too much!

[Gord]

IIRC he apeared once in series 2 in an episode called 'Kryten' then in every episode from series 3 onward. I agree that he became a vital character of the show.

Re:Its too much!

[arodland]

Oh come on, everyone knows that Rimmer is a hologram, Holly is male, and Kryten never happened.

Re:Its too much!

[syousef]

Fraser - 3 sets (appartement, Studio, coffee shop) - 5 main characters

3 MAIN sets. Episodes of Frasier also included Niles' and Maris' house, Nile' appartment (when they split up), and lots of other sets used for just one episode like the Space Needle, and the house used for a wake when a doctor that worked in his building died.

Cheers - 1 set (bar) depending on series between 4 and 6 characters

Again occassional other sets.

I'm sure it's true of the rest of the shows too.

The reason you have a handful of main sets and characters are:
1) Audience familiarity. When they watch a sitcom, people want that same old comfortable feel to the show. Too many new places and the show changes enough that you're taking a risk with it - some people might love it, others might hate it!
2) Cost. The more main actors, and the more sets the more your costs skyrocket (particularly since sitcom stars can be paid 6 or 7 figures per episode).

Re:Its too much!

[RMH101]

you're bang on there: ex-accenture girls are where it's at. don't know why this is: whether they just hire them like that or it's part of the training or something they put in the coffee machines there, but....*damn*

Re:Its too much!

[DataCannibal]

You forgot Fawlty towers, the best sitcom ever, One hotel.. OK there was a reception, dining room, kitchen office and bar, plus a couple of very short outside scenes, Basil fetching money from the bank, Basil going to the betting shop, ..er..quite a few outside scenes.. four main charcters.. Basil Sybil, Polly Manuel, ..er.. the Major .. five main..er. Maybe the single set isn't such a decider after all. Maybe ist excellent scrpt and actors.

"I knew a girl once, Fawlty....took her to see India !.....at the Oval!"

Re:Its too much!

[cyborg_zx]

He appeared in one episode with a different actor in the role. Unlike the novels he was not a staple of the crew until series 3 when Robert Llewelyn took on the ice-cube headed mechanoid role.

Re:Its too much!

[Belgand]

The problem is that sometimes it really helps to have the extra time to develop a situation (not to mention meaning that fans get that many more episodes of a brilliant show cut down in it's prime). Arrested Development uses this significantly to its advantage. It's still a very well written show without a lot of fat, but it will often slowly build up a plot point or refer to a smaller point frequently over time allowing it to build up in the mind of the audience. Smaller runs means the shows tend to be much more focused on a single idea for that one episode creating more of a "the one where foo happens" scenario.

Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Seems to be in "WMV3" format. Is there any player capable of playing this on Linux / AMD64?

Rich.

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[fuct000]

works fine for me in mplayer just make sure you have the win32 codecs

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[Anonymous Coward]

mplayer reads it on my box (Mandriva cooker).

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[Richard W.M. Jones]

AMD64, not i386.

Rich.

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[Anonymous Coward]

you should be able to run 32 bit binaries if you have the supporting libs installed.

I've got a statically linked mplayer with all the codecs - untar it under /usr/local and away you go - if you trust my binary that is ... (no it isn't a trojan, honest)

http://www.disintegration.org/~david/mplayer.tar.g z

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[saden1]

*We* allow him to use Linux for the same reason *we* allow you. To learn, to experiment, to play, and to be free!

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[MentalMooMan]

It is hard to get a fully working mplayer with win32 codecs on x86_64, because you need to compile with -m32 for the codecs to work. Doing this means that you need all the 32-bit libraries that mplayer requires, and there are a lot of them. If you use rpm then installing the 32-bit libs as well as the 64-bit ones (for other apps) creates conflicts.
So, it's possible, but hard. It's not worth the effort for me, so I just statically compile mplayer on a 32-bit box and move it over to my desktop.

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[Rich0]

I just install the 64-bit version, and then run a chroot that is purely 32-bit. I don't have much installed there - mainly closed-source stuff, open-source stuff like openoffice which barely builds cleanly 32-bit let alone 64-bit, and semi-open stuff like java which also doesn't do all that well on 64-bit (hello.java works fine, but good luck getting freenet/eclipse/netbeans/etc to work reliably...). Best of both worlds, although my install is using an extra few GB as a result...

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[tolan-b]

Mmm, Fedora x86_64 at least supports (and makes available through the standard repos) dual 32/64bit libraries , ditto YUM.

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[Richard W.M. Jones]

The irony is that I've been using Linux since 1993, so probably longer than the GP. It should be possible to run the win32 codec in a 32-bit sub-process (of the 64-bit mplayer binary), but that's a lot of development work for me to do just to watch the odd silly video from the internet. It'd be better to encourage companies like C4 to use open codecs - after all it's not like they appear to be using DRM to "protect" this video.

Rich.

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be better to encourage companies like C4 to use open codecs

There are no free open video codecs.

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[rlauzon]

Where did you get the codec? I have Mandriva 2006 and both xine and mplayer reports that it uses an unknown codec.

Yes, I have installed the Win32 codecs from PLF.

Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)

[Richard W.M. Jones]

There are no free open video codecs.

You mean that Dirac and Ogg Theora aren't both free and open? Where is your evidence for this? Even MPEG-2 is both free and unpatentable in the EU (temporarily at least).

Rich.

Re:Unplayable here - use mplayer

[Anonymous Coward]

mplayer with the windows codecs works fine for me :)

nice work grand-parent!

don't be a troll

[rdx38]

its a sitcom. it isnt thaat bad its cute and gives you that nice sitcom escapism feeling. its funny too

Re:don't be a troll

[GrayMatter4tw]

This show did not make me laugh once. Seemed very poorly written, acted, and filmed.

Re:don't be a troll

[MayorDefacto]

First episodes are always, in my opinion, a bit weak. You have all of the character exposition to take care of and the writers and actors generally haven't totally hit their stride yet. Also, pilot episodes are usually made on the cheap because the producers and the channel don't know exactly how popular the show will be and generally don't want to break the budget on a show that ultimately ends up being unpopular.
The real test of sitcom greatness are the 2nd and 3rd episodes. In your typical 6-epsiode Britcom series, the 4th or 5th episode is usually the peak of the series-- the classic episode-- while the final episode (at least in the first series, when it's unknown if a second series will be comissioned) is usually a semi-cliffhanger that can still be viewed as closure if the series is canned.

WMF

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Media format makes it unwatchable for me.

next ep

[joe 155]

its worth mentioning that on "newsnight review" they said that although the first ep was ok the second was better... might be worth seeing the next one... although I do hate laughter tracks.

Re:next ep

[Cassius105]

There is no laughter track, its filmed infront of an audiance.

Re:next ep

[9-bits.tk]

I still don't like laughter tracks and live audiences infront of sitcoms etc

Re:next ep

[phatmonkey]

Surely this is the same thing?

Re:next ep

[prockcore]

There is no laughter track, its filmed infront of an audiance.

Practically the same thing. The audience laughs when the Laughter sign lights up.

It's just not funny

[Simon France]

It tries to play on the sterotype of the it business as well as trying to be trendy. It sucks, red dwarf is much better.

Re:It's just not funny

[Thwomp]

Yeah but does it suck because it's bad or because the Slashdot demographic isn't the intended audience?

Re:It's just not funny

[Simon France]

Why not? It seemed pretty much aimed at casual computer users.

If you can't get Mplayer working..

[schon]

.. then you're not much of a geek.

I'm watching it right now with Mplayer (Slackware 10.1)

snort track

[Anonymous Coward]

The laugh track should be of /nerds/ laughing.

Re:snort track

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean a bunch of nose snort laughs?

algorithm for removing laugh track?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have expected someone to have come up with an algorithm for removing these tracks by now.

bad characters, couldn't make it 5 minutes

[edstromp]

Thanks, but I couldn't get through 5 minutes. The show seemed like it was trying much too hard to be a parody, and in the end it was clear the writers had nothing but stereo types to work with and I moved on.

Re:bad characters, couldn't make it 5 minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree with the comment. This show looks too cheap and too "forced" to be funny.

IMHO they also mixed together very badly a bunch of common sitcom and cultural aspects from Britain and US, with the possible aim to make the product interesting overseas. Result is anywhere stupid past the 80s mentality. The laughter track makes it worse.

Posting on the web and ./ gives (huge) international audience (they look like having very good connectivity) and corresponds to a "first show" of a "proof show" on tv. I hope their accounting system is able to register how many minutes were actually watched on the average of "CONNECT" viewers.

Re:bad characters, couldn't make it 5 minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you considered looking for a sense of humour on ebay?

In the interview with the Cute Chick...

[Dystopian Rebel]

one of the questions is, "The show's filmed in front of a live studio audience. Did you find it difficult not to crack up in front of them?"

There's another question the actress's past performance in a stage show called "Deep Throat". (Channel 4, prepare for Slashdotting!)

Future episodes that I look forward to:

#11 "The CD/DVD Tray Is Not A Coffee Holder"
#13 "The CEO Nails Roy In The Head With His Chair"
#14 "Roy Utterly Bungles His Google Telephone Interview"
#17 "Meet Your New Colleagues In Bangalore"
#21 "Moss Disguises Himself As Steve Jobs To Hit On The Receptionist"
#24 "Avoiding Another Dot-Com Bubble By Cooperating With Oppressive Regimes"
#25 "The CD/DVD Tray Is Not A Coffee Holder, Part 2"

Re:Odd...

[limegreen]

They wanted to download it first before the /. effect.

Anyone hosting a torrent yet?

Use mplayer.

[cs02rm0]

mplayer mms://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web. wmv

Re:Use mplayer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Works better if you're not downloading the link thru wget at the same time.

Re:Use mplayer.

[Burz]

Incidentally, I could not get this to play with gmplayer (the HUI front-end) but the shell mplayer invocation worked fine.

One mplayer GUI that will work with mms protocol is KMplayer.

XINE tells me I need am mms plugin, but I can't find a binary deb for it.

Well done

[gomaze]

I think this show was and is going to be very well done. It will have to exaggerate concepts and situations for the average user. I do think that "Nerds" or "Geeks" will find that the hummer is to played out for most issues but we are a select group of people and not the main audience target.

I work in IT doing support for an Internet provider and I am willing to bet that they are going highlight most issues that I deal with on a daily basis. Granted, they are never that extreme but who cares. This may even show the average user that they need to relax before calling in. I think that capturing what the IT world does on film will be very hard but it looks like this show is on its way to doing just that.

Re:Well done

[arkhan_jg]

Speaking as a British geek, I laughed repeatedly, especially at the support calls. I've worked helldesk (still do, to a point) and recognise both Roy's frustration with a cluseless user and Moss going waaay off the deep end on technobabble. The office in the basement looks very familiar too, especially the piles of obsolete equipment cluttering the shelves...

It's overacted and a little forced admittedly, but given it's only the 1st episode, I'm sure the actors will settle down into their characters soon enough. It does remind me of 'black books' somewhat, but that's not surprising given Graham Linehan is responsible for both.

All in all, a thumbs up. "The button on the side - is it glowing? ... Yeah, you need to turn it on... Yes, the button turns it on."

pretty decent

[gubachwa]

I was actually pleasantly surprised. It was pretty decent for a sitcom. I don't normally watch much TV, especially not sitcoms. (I consider 'Friends' one of the best reasons not to watch tv.)

Are all the episodes going to be online, or just the premiere?

Re:pretty decent

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you. I started watching to try out my mplayer on AMD64 (some comments said you could not watch that movie on 64 bit linux).

Overall, this actually is the show I would watch again, in part because, unlike "Friends", this one has things I can actually relate to. Also, the episode guide summaries are quite tittilating (sp?).

One problem is that the target audience will not get most of the (arguably basic) jokes, such as RTFM t-shirt, EFF, playing song on bootup, the hardware names, etc.

Re:pretty decent

[antic]

I agree. I expected it to be lame but laughed in a few parts even though many of the jokes were predictable.

Mac - no stream

[Crisses]

curl -O http://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web .wmv

You can add wget to a Mac, but curl is standard.

Then you probably need to get VLC to watch it, but who's counting ;)

Re:Mac - no stream

[pi radians]

It plays fine in both Windows Media Player for the Mac or in Quicktime using Flip4Mac.

Great

[EvolveFuzzy]

There's 20+ minutes I'll never get back.

Re:Great

[TubeSteak]

At least it didn't come with commercials.

[Insert Laugh Track Here]

Re:Great

[makomk]

Probably only because Channel 4 couldn't get anyone to buy any. They actually got caught breaking the rules on minimum time between commercial breaks relatively recently, and they've developed the annoying habit of launching straight into the commercials right after the title sequence sometimes on certain of their more popular shows.

Re:Great

[VGPowerlord]

Not unless you invent a time machine and go back in time to warn yourself to not watch it. That's what I did, or so I told myself!

Re:Great

[Tim Browse]

launching straight into the commercials right after the title sequence

Like so many innovations in advertisting and broadcasting :-) that one comes from our friends over in the US. Like the technique of shrinking the end credits down to a thumbnail while they show/blather on about something else over the theme music.

I bet you can't wait until they do they other trick I noticed in the US - launching into commercials before the end credits. Now that's annoying.

Tough crowd, tough crowd...

[ursabear]

It wasn't that bad. If one looks at it as humor, and not with an ultra-critical eye, it is pretty funny (if a little overacted).

Re:Tough crowd, tough crowd...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it seems that many in the Slashdot crowd think that a sitcom is a type of documentary, and are judging it accordingly.

Mplayer?

[turgid]

What's wrong with hexdump -C?

Re:Mplayer?

[aliquis]

My brain lacks the codecs to, also even if I had the codecs I would lack hardware acceleration and the fps would drop significally.

Re:Mplayer?

[_Sprocket_]

The resolution sucks and it creates too many artifacts.

Re:Mplayer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never seen mplayer run except on its homepage as a screen shot.

Xine on the other hand works all the time.

But you can only use Windows codecs on 32-bit x86.

[aliquis]

Yeah, but you are running x86. (Also I don't know how "legal" it really is, would be way better to use another codec anyway.)

What's wrong with a laughter track?

[JackDW]

Why is a laughter track a bad thing? Bearing in mind that the laughter you hear on this show is the sound of the studio audience, watching the show as it was recorded, and not "canned".

Today, it is fashionable to make comedy shows without an audience. However, this is not because there is anything wrong with a laughter track. Here, for example, is a list of successful English shows with laughter tracks.

• Monty Python's Flying Circus
• Fawlty Towers
• Red Dwarf
• I'm Alan Partridge

Re:What's wrong with a laughter track?

[Poeir]

It's probably a standard, USian reaction to laughter tracks. Here, if anything is intended to be a joke, it gets canned laughter added after it. This ruins any subtle humor, since the canned laughter draws attention to every intended joke, and emphasizes the failure of jokes that aren't funny, which leads people to be hostile to laugh tracks in general.

Re:What's wrong with a laughter track?

[Tim Browse]

Which to me is slightly ironic, because when younger I watched the Mash TV series - it was shown n the UK on BBC2 over a number of years. It was funny but also thought provoking, moving and bleak.

Yet when it was later reshown (by Sky I think), I was amazed to find that Mash came with a laughter track. (and it was canned laughter, not studio laughter). It utterly changed the whole tone of the show, and I basically couldn't watch it.

I'd be curious to know if this laughter track was used as a matter of course in the US, or whether the original US broadcasts were shown without laughter track, as God intended.

Re:What's wrong with a laughter track?

[MayorDefacto]

Don't hate the playa, hate the game. I agree, the problem isn't the laugh track, it's the absolutely god-awful joks that trigger it. If producers of sitcoms allowed "natural" laughter response to well-written jokes and didn't rely on a flashing red "applause" sign to tell the studio audience when they want to insert laughter, everything would be much better.

Re:What's wrong with a laughter track?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with laughter tracks is that I don't appreciate being told what's funny - I can decide for myself what's funny and what's not. The early Red-Dwarf series didn't have a laughter track, and were better for it. Only towards the end (when it was arguably past it's best) did they resort to a laughter track.

Re: What's wrong with a laughter track?

[gidds]

I'm afraid that all the Red Dwarf episodes have had a laughter track, right from the beginning. As did practically all comedies back then. (The only exception before that I can think of is, appropriately enough, Hitch-hiker's.) In fact, I believe the only RD episodes you can hear without laughter track are the few extended versions on a couple of the DVDs.

As I said elsewhere, I suspect that we're more aware of it now, because it's no longer ubiquitous.

A laughter track is good for one thing: telling you which are the funny bits, and when to laugh. (It also provides a comfort factor; some people don't like to laugh alone.) However, a comedy series with a laughter track is seen only in relation to the number of gags. And gags, while often good, are short-term, often shallow, and in too great a number actually detract from the meat of the series. So unless it's so shallow that the gags are the meat of the series (which in this case remains to be seen), the lack of a laughter track gives some space to delve into funny situations, drama, bizarreness, style, reality, format, characterisation, darkness, ideas, discomfort, general strangeness -- you know, all the things sit coms aren't supposed to have.

Still, some seem to have done rather well without one: I've mentioned Hitch-hiker's, but there were also The Day Today and Brass Eye, and of course many more in the last few years. While I haven't enjoyed all of those, I'm glad they've given the genre enough of a shake-up that we find ourselves having this discussion!

Re: What's wrong with a laughter track?

[Gord]

The difference with Red Dwarf being that, at least for the first few series, it was filmed in front of a live audience, thus the laughter comes across as more genuine rather then the 'canned laughter' that was used in the later series and in 'The IT Croud'. IIRC they stopped filiming in front of a live audience at around series 6.

Personally I've no problem with laughter when it's from a live audience as they only tend to laugh at jokes that are actually funny rather than the ones that the producers thought should get a laugh and the laughter is more 'human' sounding.

Re:What's wrong with a laughter track?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing, it's the same as most shows like Friends, Seinfeld, etc. etc.

Re: What's wrong with a laughter track?

[gidds]

I don't think that RD ever used 'canned' laughter as such.

The first six series were mostly recorded in front of a live studio audience; there were many film inserts (especially in series 5 and 6), but AIUI they played those to the studio audience via monitors, so what you hear is still the genuine reaction of a live audience.

Series 7, was recorded in a movie manner, without an audience. But AIUI the laughter track was made in a fairly similar way: they got a real audience, played the completed episodes to them, and taped their genuine reaction. So while it's not a 'live' audience, in the sense that they weren't present during the performance and the performers weren't aware of them, it's still a real audience laughter track, with real people (well, okay, fans :) giving their real reactions to the episodes.

Series 8 went back to the recorded-live-in-front-of-a-studio-audience format, due in part to complaints about the previous series. Which, having watched Series 7 again, I think is something of a shame. But that's another discussion...

Anyway. My impression is that 'canned' laughter as such -- recordings of individual laughs inserted wherever the producer thinks appropriate -- is actually fairly rare on British TV. (Terrestrial, at least.) Does anyone know different?

Liked it

[Nahooda]

I pretty much liked it. Hope, the other episodes will be available online as well.

Especially Moss is a funny character, reminds me of some geeks I know and a bit of myself. He and Jen make a good team for some nice jokes (e.g., when she's pretending to talk to someone on the phone and he wants to plug it in afterwards).

I don't like the third main character, even don't remember his name, since he seems a bit overacted.

Their boss talking to the computer ("Hello?" - Pause - "Helloho?") is hilarious as well. His stupidity reminds me of General Melchett from Black Adder.

-Dennis B. Schramm

Re:Liked it

[catnap_seven]

Looking forward to the rest of the series, looks promising. Great to see Chris Morris back on TV again as well, check out Brasseye & The Day Today if you get the chance.

Re:Liked it

[Paolo DF]

However, I must add that the "hello? Computer" joke comes straight from Star Trek. And you geeks should know when it happened! ;-)

Re:Liked it

[destuxor]

Black Adder...can you imagine Rowan Atkinson playing in a geek film? He'd be the supreme system administrator. I'm cracking up just visualizing some overpaid, underworked, narcissistic IT manager walking up whining that the UNIX systems aren't playing fair with Outlook again (you know...typical manger vs. administrator vs. technician interactions). It doesn't take much imagination to see what happens after that!

Crashed

[aliquis]

I tried running them from /tmp as a regular user (not extracted by root), don't know if that matters but I guess not, anyway it crashed:

Please supply the text font file (~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf).
subtitle font: load_sub_face failed.
[wmv3 @ 0xafee20]VOP DQuant info: 0.000 1/ 1 ??% ??% ??,?% 0 0 96%
[wmv3 @ 0xafee20]concealing 300 DC, 300 AC, 300 MV errors
[wmv3 @ 0xafee20]VOP DQuant info: 0.003 2/ 2 ??% ??% ??,?% 1 0 96%
[wmv3 @ 0xafee20]Transform used: 4x8
[wmv3 @ 0xafee20]concealing 300 DC, 300 AC, 300 MV errors .....
MPlayer interrupted by signal 11 in module: flip_page
- MPlayer crashed by bad usage of CPU/FPU/RAM.
    Recompile MPlayer with --enable-debug and make a 'gdb' backtrace and
    disassembly. Details in DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports_what.html#bugreports_crash .
- MPlayer crashed. This shouldn't happen.
    It can be a bug in the MPlayer code _or_ in your drivers _or_ in your
    gcc version. If you think it's MPlayer's fault, please read
    DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html and follow the instructions there. We can't and
    won't help unless you provide this information when reporting a possible bug.

MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: enable_cache

MPlayer interrupted by signal 2 in module: uninit_acodec

Re:Crashed

[Anonymous Coward]

Pants.
Could be drivers - Try -vo x11
Maybe try some different video clip - non-wmv?
At least it did run to some extent (are you running a 64bit machine?)
It's been fine on all the machines I've tried it on before, and awfully useful as most distros don't come with great media facilities because of all the legal stuff.
Oh well, just thought I would post it in the hope it would be useful - sorry it didn't work out :(

My 2 second review...

[NoMercy]

It's funny-ish, but I don't see it running past more than a few episodes before it gets pulled, it's been geeked up too the point where there's no credible office humor. I can't see any decent relationships being possible between any of the characters, which are too few in number to carry anything for any length of time.

It's not horrid, but there's no way I can see the stereotypes, and ancient jokes being enough to support it. 3/10.

Re:My 2 second review...

[Conor Turton]

It's funny-ish, but I don't see it running past more than a few episodes before it gets pulled, it's been geeked up too the point where there's no credible office humor. I can't see any decent relationships being possible between any of the characters, which are too few in number to carry anything for any length of time. It's not horrid, but there's no way I can see the stereotypes, and ancient jokes being enough to support it. 3/10.

Well Simon Trevaglia has managed to have his BOFH column running for a decade now using the same style that the IT Crowd does. AFAIK, he was one of the contributors to it.

BOFH Archives

Re:My 2 second review...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's by the guy who wrote Father Ted (3 priests on a small Island) and Black Books (3 people in a bookshop) - both of which were extremely funny and ran for 3 series. There's a lot of humour to be had from a trio of losers

Although on what I've seen of this so far, priests beat geeks.

Re:My 2 second review...

[slim]

It's funny-ish, but I don't see it running past more than a few episodes before it gets pulled,

That doesn't tend to happen in the UK: probably because the airtime isn't quite as valuable as a US-wide major network slot. If someone's commissioned a series, then the whole series will get aired. So your first opportunity to get "pulled" will be when you're trying to get a 2nd series commissioned.

Having said that, a UK series is generally only 6 episodes: some of our more exportable shows (Dr Who!) are now being commissioned as 12 or 13 episodes in order to fit with the American TV seasons.

I think the UK system gives more of a chance to slow-burners and word-of-mouth successes. I don't think "Coupling" was an instant success in the UK, but it grew to be popular enough for a US remake. The US remake was pulled after 2 episodes, I gather.

I've not seen The IT Crowd just yet. Father Ted and Black Books were both fantastic, but Graham Linehan can miss sometimes. His "Hippies" failed to sparkle; I think the writing was probably up to scratch, but the actors failed to deliver.

Re:My 2 second review...

[Anonymous Coward]

BOFH is great, but does it appeal to people who don't have an interest in computers?

BOFH is also a lot cheaper to keep running since it only has to be written but not produced into a TV show. Simply put, BOFH is not a TV show intended for general viewing, so it can't be used as evidence to show that The IT Crowd can last.

Re:My 2 second review...

[NoMercy]

I remember one series, set in my home town of portsmouth and on the ships, got pulled after two episodes, the third I believe never got aired. It can happen, though mabie they'll just shunt it to one of the new digital channels :)

Re:My 2 second review...

[NoMercy]

BOFH is a strong guy, who gets what he wants by manipulating the system, excessive use of blackmail, bribery, and physical pain. The humor is exctracted painfully from the people who make IT guys lives hell.

IT Croud, is three welp like geeks, one of them doesn't even know anything about computers. The humor is in the suffering of the IT people themselves.

I know which I prefer.

Retro Computing

[Makito]

Anyone spot the Commodore PET sitting in the back? ...ahh memories...

Re:Retro Computing

[yoz]

Well spotted! That particular machine (along with a load of other junk^H^H^H^Hvaluable retrocomputing paraphernalia you'll see scattered around the set) belongs to my father-in-law. Talkback raided a few different people's collections for the set - watch out for more, as I think they're changing stuff around to some degree every week.

Re:Retro Computing

[happy monday]

Wow! When I joined the computer club in school as a 13 year-old they had a Commodore Pet. it was the first time i'd ever seen one. i was used to the far superior Commodore 16 which I had at home. I don't remember using the pet though, I thought it was ancient even back then. Come to think of it this must have been around 1988! But it was cool, in a way. Kind of unusual for a school at that time, I think. Why, what are your memories of that computer?

Re:Retro Computing

[Makito]

Wow, that's very cool, esp when you can point out something on TV and say - "Yup! That's mine..."

Re:Retro Computing

[Makito]

Hehe, I think I was maybe 7/8 years old at the time? My dad brought me up on the C64 so when I went to my new class for the first time I felt right at home. It was sitting alone in the corner, and even the teacher was a little weary of it - afterall, it was the time of the school-Macintosh marrage. Naturally I had to show a bunch of the kids how to type things and save them on audio tapes.

Re:Retro Computing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep - but who else spotted it was a series 2 model, as the series 1 had the integrated tape drive.

And here's me thinking I was an ex-geek

Hot Ear

[jonoid]

Moss: "She's a little bit weird, to say the least."
*sprays water on his ear*
Roy: "What's that?"
Moss: "Oh, just water. Sometimes I get a hot ear and this helps cool it down."

I am affected by the same condition! I keep a spray bottle filled with water on my desk when my ears get too hot.

Re:Hot Ear

[adrianmonk]

I am affected by the same condition! I keep a spray bottle filled with water on my desk when my ears get too hot.

Well, since we are talking about being really nerdy already, and since this is slashdot, I might as well go into the nerdy stuff. Your ears getting hot makes a strange kind of sense, because as I understand it the main function of the outer part of your ear (the earlobes, etc.) has nothing to do with hearing. Instead, it's there to radiate heat. It's basically a heatsink for your head (and body).

Incidentally, this is why elephants have really big ears: they have extra difficulty radiating heat because their ratio of volume to surface area is really high (since volume grows with the cube and surface area with the square). It's also why elephants flap their ears around.

By the way, the thing you describe seems to be called Red Ear Syndrome, and here's a web discussion page about it. It's not that informative a web site (mostly "I thought I was the only one!" comments), but it's something.

Now, if someone could just tell me why my ears get tingly on the inside when I get really hungry, that'd be helpful.

Re:Hot Ear

[Fweeky]

"Now, if someone could just tell me why my ears get tingly on the inside when I get really hungry, that'd be helpful."

That'll be the brain parasites eating your brain because your blood sugar level's too low to sustain them.

Re:Hot Ear

[wcrowe]

Now, if someone could just tell me why my ears get tingly on the inside when I get really hungry, that'd be helpful.

A rise in blood pressure due to hyperinsulinism, perhaps?

Unrealistic

[Ramble]

It wasn't too bad, however I would like to see it being a bit more realistic, the woman beating that guy to death and the odd boss just wouln't exist in real life. They got the nerd bit spot-on though, anyone spot the FSM poster?

Re:Unrealistic

[Tim Browse]

You're right - Graham Linehan should go back to his more successful and hyper-realistic sitcoms like Father Ted, Black Books, Hippies and Big Train.

Re:Unrealistic

[chrism238]

You must really dislike Dilbert cartoons, then?

Re:Unrealistic

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see it being a bit more realistic, the woman beating that guy to death and the odd boss just wouln't exist in real life.

1. The two best parts of the show.
2. Comedy is based on its schism from reality.
 
  Schism, Not just a historical religious term anymore!(c)(r)(tm)

So jealous...

[shish]

Their IT manager knows more about computers than mine ;_;

Subtle References

[DavidD_CA]

I liked the subtle references in the show, mostly in the form of bumper stickers and signs on the wall. Did anyone notice the Flying Spaghetti Monster? What else was in there?

Re:Subtle References

[Anonymous Coward]

when your man tries to answer a non-ringing phone and says he's going to have a little lie down, there are A4 posters/adverts for Underworld and Alien8 from Ultimate-Play the Game.

Very retro. I have some similar ads from an 80s mag somewhere ...

What ever will I do ...

[MrNougat]

... once all six episodes are finished? Will I just have to watch them over and over again?

needs more 'norms'

[ElephanTS]

yus, I think you nailed it there. Not enough interaction with 'norms' etc.

Re:Odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

The editors give weight to names they recognise. The successful submitter prostoalex is a regularly accepted submitter, and so he is likely to get stories accepted even though other people are rejected.

It is cronyism at its finest, which is why a good many stories that would be interesting are rejected, while we continue to get drek from **Beatles-Beatles, Roland Piquepaille, and other assorted scum.

This is also the reason that many people are starting to move away from /. and go to places like Digg (though that has its own problems).

My advice? Don't bother submitting articles. Don't put too much energy into /. at all - just use it for what it is useful for, and ignore the rest. I'd advise blocking their ads as well to deny them revenue, until they get the point that people want some real changes in what stands for /. these days.

Re:But you can only use Windows codecs on 32-bit x

[Anonymous Coward]

recompile mplayer with -m32 to watch that on AMD64

D'oh

An interview with the writer

[Bob[Bob]]

Here's an interview with the writer/director, Graham Linehan, published yesterday:
http://telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2 006/01/28/btvline28.xml

Re: WTF's funny? track

[ncurtain]

As I understand it very few British sitcoms use a "canned laughter" track, preferring either to film most of the scenes in front of a live audience or at the very least to play the finished episode on monitors in front of a real audience.

You may have more understanding than I do but the BBC sucks trousers at edited laughter. They have maybe two or three shows (though I can only think of one) that are actually funny. And they are ruined by canned laughter.

A modern studio is at best linked to a live audience. But the editors are so out of touch with the real world they use the same cans for all their clips.

Stuff that isn't funny gets X decibels, stuff that is remotely amusing gets 2X, then something that might have been funny if the clips had been cut together professionally get 3X and so on until they run out of useful decibels.

Then there is the canned applause like you get on Big Brother. (No I have never watched it but sometimes you can't help hitting the remote at the wrong moment.) They suck sweat-pants.

Format other than WMV?

[mrpostal]

Does anyone have this show in a format a bit more friendly to mac/other users? Everytime I foray into the world of WMV on a mac it often ends in disaterous results.

MPG, DivX or XviD would be nice.

Re:Format other than WMV?

[onebuttonmouse]

WMV plugin for QuickTime.

Sorry ...

[hummassa]

That said, a lot of people accuse even live audiences of being distracting or sounding artificial, and that's because the audiences are encouraged by the programme-makers to make as much noise as possible, even if a joke isn't very funny. That doesn't mean they are canned, though.
Sorry, but that's exactly what it means (that the laughter is canned, even if it's a different kind of can.

Ehrm, no.

[schon]

See This thread.

Re:But you can only use Windows codecs on 32-bit x

[Anonymous Coward]

that won't work on my ppc though.

A nerd show?

[dangitman]

If this is supposed to be an IT/nerd show - why do they insist on using such stupid and unusable video formats, and prepending the URL with that stupid "mms" thing?

Is that part of a joke or something? That IT doesn't work properly?

Re:A nerd show?

[binford2k]

dunno. I emailed them and told them that I wouldn't bother watching it until it's made available via a less retarded method.

Re:A nerd show?

[zachdms]

mms is the relevant protocol. That being said, it is Officially Not Recommended you provide an mms link - you'd want to link to an ASX file pointing to that mms connection.

But in the end mileage varies extremely based upon prejudice. *shrug*

Some funny stuff?

[spec8472]

Not sure of the definition of "some", but in the 23 odd minutes, the only bit I found remotely funny was the lift scene.

C'mon, these guys arn't funny -- just sad. Which, considering some of the geeks I know, is really saying something.

Keep 'em coming

[Anonymous Coward]

That boss chick is hot.

More islands in the stream:

[ncurtain]

The annual independent film festival put on by Robert Redford's Sundance Institute continues to expand its Web offerings. This year, 50 of the 73 filmmakers chosen to compete with short films have agreed let their creations stream on the festival's site.

http://news.com.com/Sundance+online+poses+quandary +for+filmmakers/2100-1026_3-6030181.html?tag=nl

Re:More islands in the stream:

[flinkflonk]

Sadly, although the idea behind it is rather good, they also became victim to the propaganda about Flash being perfect for showing movies. I think it speaks against that propaganda that I get to view these movies as "3 seconds video, 3 seconds pause, 3 seconds video, 3 seconds pause". That's not streaming as I know it. (and before you funsters tell me to get a faster internet connection, this is a 100MB which goes directly - just one hop - into this country's 2.5GB backbone, and even without that with a download I could have watched it without those pauses).

Re:More islands in the stream:

[ncurtain]

You think perhaps Robert Redford porned his soul?

If you want to have technobabble, get it right!

[EddWo]

You see the driver hooks a function by patching the system call table, so its not safe to unload it unless another thread is about to jump in there and do its stuff, and you don't want to end up in the middle of invalid memory.

Shouldn't that be "in case another thread" not "unless".

Re:If you want to have technobabble, get it right!

[Jaseoldboss]

Who spotted the reference to Mark Russinovichs blog on the Sony rootkit?

It's never safe to unload a driver that patches the system call table since some thread might be just about to execute the first instruction of a hooked function when the driver unloads; if that happens the thread will jump into invalid memory.

Breaking Comedy Rules

[Will_TA]

I think this series will fail because it breaks comedy rules. Moss has no appeal. Roy has some very limited appeal, and could appear as an occasional extra on The Office. Jen is the only character with appeal because she does try. She's the Captain Manwaring, to the one joke Moss and Roy.

All IT jokes were pulled from other sources - The power button, talking to computers.

The only things I found funny were things other than IT about the show, which could be done in any other show

Re:Breaking Comedy Rules

[ruewan]

I don't know rules of comedy, but I found the first episode pretty funny and the second episode is so funny that I can only take it in bits.

Re:Unplayable here

[zachdms]

Skipping aside all other issues...

Than just use the 64-bit codecs Microsoft already released for their 64-bit encoder....

Episode 2

[nowaycomputer]

Episode 2 is now up

Late viewing

[klept]

This post is 2 to 3 days tardy. But just wanted to say I enjoyed IT CROWD. The last 5 min for me were hilarious, and reminded me of a real life story where I was the guy talking about my glasses . The rest of the show before that was pretty mediocore, but what can I say? I like British TV comedy. I give it about half a season to last

IT Crowd Episode 3 for UK only

[Anonymous Coward]

Blegh :( Can't get Episode 3 because Channel 4 is limiting it to UK people..

Attention to detail

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else notice that one of the techies was reading slashdot in the first or second episode? You could just make out the Slashdot colour scheme.