Slashdot Mirror
IT Crowd (UK) Coming Back For Season 4
sammyF70 writes "Every geek's favourite non-sci-fi show (the original UK one, not the abysmally bad German and US remakes) is coming back for a fourth season! According to the IMDB's message board, it should be on the air 'Juneish.' While you wait, you can check out what kind of vintage hardware will be on the show this time, and remember: if you illegally download movies, you will face the consequences!"
Every geek's favourite non-sci-fi show
You have got to be joking because that show certainly isn't, it's about as funny as a wet rag.
But even so -- no laugh-track should be an option, just like "laugh track" should *not* be an option on The Godfather, Schindler's List,
Are you fucking kidding me? That would be absolutely awesome. Especially for Schindler's List. I mean, who would take that movie seriously in the first place?
... and then they built the supercollider.
What I am starting to notice is that when I talk about IT, I am talking about programmers, developers. But others are thinking about tech-support which I personally put closer to janitors and such. And no, I don't think low of janitors, but there is a difference between the person who keeps the building running and those who run it. Of course as a web developer lots of "real" developers consider me barely worth stepping on.
This show is probably funny if you are in a support role and have to deal with the endless clueless users. However if you are a user with a clue and you ever had to deal with clueless tech support not for support but to get them to do their bloody job, it is not so funny. And of course if you are a clueless user, then you will just find it offensive.
I think the show is "young". It tries to hard. It is like a teenager trying to impress girl by wearing ten different aftershaves at once and buying 100 red roses and a corsage the size of the rainforest. It lacks the flow of older series with more experienced staff. It tries so hard to create stereo-type characters that they lack any normality, any humanity that allows you to sympathize with them, see them as real people, not just caricatures.
Take the bit about the shoes that are to small. It is to extreme, size 8 in 5? And yet all her other clothes are normal. Certainly a woman that vain would also be putting herself through hell with other parts of her body? The gag doesn't fit in its make believe world. And the problem with that is that while the gag may be funny, gags should be short. We got it, the shoe is to small. Haha. NEXT! Stand-up comedians who do gags quickly switch subjets, think the late night tv monologues, it makes no sense for Jay Leno to whine about his pinto because he would never own one, so don't dwell on it.
Longer running comedy stories, need to make the world "believable". That is why Porridge and Only Fools and Horses work so well, the characters are not just a bunch of gags in half an hour, but human beings living a life. A funny one, an unlikely one, but "believable".
The IT Crowd tends to be liked by the kinda people who claim "Every geek's favourite non-sci-fi show" despite clear evidence to contrary.
It is funny, but funny is easy. Good lasting comedy, that is very very hard and the IT crowd ain't it. It is closer to that kids show you really really liked and then your grow up and wonder how you could every tolerate it.
Frankly, I am to old to still crack up about how stupid people can be with computers. Yeah yeah, they don't know how to operate a button. I know, the joke has been done. Move on.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
IT Crowd pokes fun at the stereotypes
You could do all of that in 1 episode and still have time left over to make a comedy programme, too.
To go on for 4 series with one trivial theme (IT people == socially inept == funny) shows a lack of originality and laziness in the writing. Surely anyone with an ounce (or 28.5 grams) of discernment would say "Yes, we've got it. Now what else have you got to make me laugh?" after the first few minutes ... and would have switched over before the end of the half-hour slot. It's only a single "joke" and that the same small number of people are still laughing at it after 4 years of watching it be recycled every episode makes me thing they'll laugh at anything.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons