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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.
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.
its a sitcom. it isnt thaat bad its cute and gives you that nice sitcom escapism feeling. its funny too
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.
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.
.. then you're not much of a geek.
I'm watching it right now with Mplayer (Slackware 10.1)
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.
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.
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).
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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.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
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