IT Crowd Series 4

[pfm]

This week’s episode of The IT Crowd was brought to you by Steve Jobs :P

[ChrisM]

That bit with the telephone in the shirt pocket (and the loo) has happened to me before. (Not the arcade bit afterwards, although that would have been entertaining.) The phone survived too.

A good episode. I thought the Italian translation joke was a bit predictable I mean, if you have a handy thing to translate for you (a computer program and voice recognition software in this case, but it could have just as easily been a bloke and an earpiece.) it makes sense that help going to be taken away- cue a bit of creative bum-fluff from Jen. It still worked very well though, didn’t it?

[pfm]

> It still worked very well though, didn’t it?

Yeah, somehow it did, despite being the most predictable thing ever. It’s setups like that where the performances have to be great or else…boredom ensues.

Oh and who the hell WAS the beautiful girl in this episode??

[Ridley]

Oh and who the hell WAS the beautiful girl in this episode??

That would be Roy in a jacket.

[genericnerdyusername]

I reeeeally enjoyed that episode. That is all.

[ChrisM]

Heh, heh, yeah. Bad boy Mos.

[pfm]

Very weak Jen and Douglas parts I thought. And why the hell didn’t we get a proper balloon payoff with Roy? Instead we got it explained with a title…not remotely funny. There should have been a balloon there and that’s why he froze. Lots of potential situations for Roy and Moss bunking off but we hardly got anything. Moss turning into a comedy ‘badboy’…meh.

[Phil]

Any idea where I can watch this online? Youtubers used to upload episodes, but I haven’t seen them for this series.

Granted, if the weekly consensus seems to be orbiting the word “meh” I’m probably not missing too much, but I’d still like to give it a shot before buying another DVD.

[Ridley]

Possibly because Channel 4 is giving them out on their youtube 4 on Demand service:

http://www.youtube.com/show/theitcrowd?pl=9EAD9638207596A5

Though I assume you have to convince the internet you’re British somehow…

—-

This week’s episode missed a trick with Roy’s phone in the office not ringing when Jen dialed. Maybe an obvious one but I would have appreciated it.

[genericnerdyusername]

Naw, it was good imo. :)

[Pete Part Three]

Definitely up there with Episode 2 of this run; better than last week and leaps and bounds above the week before. Liked the caption at the end, particularly The Simpsons-esque resolution of dangling plot lines. Loved Moss stealing DVDs. Loved the Vista joke. Nice to see the actor Kevin Eldon, although his bit may have been a bit *too* broad.

[Nick R]

And why the hell didn’t we get a proper balloon payoff with Roy? Instead we got it explained with a title…not remotely funny.

“Gave Roy a little fright” was an amusing phrase!

I thought that was a great episode. It also contained at least the second reference to “Are We Not Men?” this series.

I did guess the reveal of who Bad Boy Moss would be talking to right at the start of the episode. Lots of comedies have featured “Scared Straight” scenes were kids get shouted at by a prisoner/cop/soldier, and I’m sure at least one of them has done the same gag where the kids turn out to be toddlers, and I spent ages after the episode trying to remember which. (Simpsons? Malcolm in the Middle? Maybe I’m getting mixed up with the school assembly scene in Hot Fuzz…)

[Phil]

Awesome Ridley, thank you. But sure enough…

“This video contains content from Channel 4, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.”

I’ll figure out some way to trick it. Thanks for the link!

[pfm]

You could easily guess ‘Vista’ was coming but it was still hilarious. Also, seeing someone run up a downwards elevator is never not funny.

[genericnerdyusername]

Edit: Shit misread your comment.

[Danny Stephenson]

This week’s episode missed a trick with Roy’s phone in the office not ringing when Jen dialed.

I was thinking that as well, but having Kevin Eldon was awesome…

[pfm]

> but having Kevin Eldon was awesome…

Apart from the fact that it’s the worst thing he’s ever done. Just cause he’s in it doesn’t make it good. Look at Hyperdrive.

[Rad]

How do we view Graham Linehan’s writing?

We all deeply respect him and The IT Crowd certainly has a lot of great comic moments but a lot of episodes don’t pay off the way they should or have some structural problems. Is that something we just accept as part of his writing that is cancelled out completely by the good parts or is there is a certain messiness to his writing that is The Graham Linehan style?

Example: Series 2 Episode 2
Douglas appears almost completely out of the blue, plot with Roy just ends, GL admits on commentary ‘it’s a bit of a deus ex machina’.

Now I was really annoyed when that happened but I know people on here thought it was a really good episode. Having watched it since on DVD I now love that scene especially the wink to Jen after he promises no more sexual harassment cases.

This week’s episode had a really dodgy suplot with Jen that just ended with no real resolution but because GL so readily admits to problems with the episodes, the ‘Douglas forgot to fire Jen and that whole thing went nowhere’ (or whatever it actually was) line looks like an in-joke to his problems writing episodes.

My problem is when I watch ‘The Work Outing’ which I think is a classic sitcom episode I think he can do so much better. But then maybe ‘The Work Outing’ was just one of the standout moments you get in a series. For as we all know Thanks for the Memory > Parallel Universe.

What do you guys think?

[Jonsmad]

Well that episode was way out ham even by Graham’s standards!

[ChrisM]

It had it’s funny moments and it was highly watchable, but it wasn’t as good as the previous episodes. I don’t mind following more minor characters now and again, (it can be an interesting change in fact) but the boss character (who’s name I forget) just lacks the dimensionality for that to work properly. I don’t think this should have been the last episode in the series anyway. (I’m slightly shocked how quickly that series flew past, by the way!)

The Star Trek sex tape was amusing though. And it was cool to see Richmond again… although I didn’t find that sequence as funny as it could have been. He was so much funnier in his original role.

[Pete Part Three]

Fantastic to see Richmond again, but shame it was at the end of an episode that could be summed up as “meandering shite”. The wildly varying standards of quality this series has been incredible, but this was at the bottom of the pile with episode 3.

I think Matt Berry has the uncanny ability to make a half-funny line very amusing, and I’d love for him to get more recognition. But his character in The IT Crowd should only ever be supporting. Roy and Moss had very little to do here, which is never a good thing.

I’d forgive this episode if there was slightly more of a story to it, but it just went nowhere.

I can’t say that the prospect of bringing in new writers fills me with much hope for this. The show treads a fine line in broad comedy, which even Linehan occasionally seems to misjudge.

[Ben Paddon]

I have to say, I think this series has probably been the weakest one so far.

[Jonsmad]

http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/08/02/11483/america_has_another_bash_at_the_it_crowd

IT Crowd USA Pilot here.

I’m getting deja vu of Robert being in the USA Red Dwarf Pilot and everything else being different around him and the script being same but different and some of the jokes working and some of it being shit.

[Ben Paddon]

There are a lot of changes in the American pilot for no real reason, like Denham’s “Team, team, team!” moment apparently being a ruse to keep the IT department in check. The loss of Moss’s “slightly larger gladsses” for the “in Britain, a plan…” would’ve been okay if the joke had worked.

Really didn’t like the American Jen, either. Can’t quite put my finger on why. She’s too enthusiastic about… well, everything.

[Danodin]

Wow no wonder it never got greenlit, everything bar Richard being hella awful. Neither Roy or Jen work for me. Their characters need to be more different to the originals and, for the love of the gods, recast! I mean, the woman playing Jen isn’t even nice-looking, let alone funny enough to make it work.

[Ridley]

Wow no wonder it never got greenlit, everything bar Richard being hella awful.

They did the angle on Reynholm at the start better.

I mean, the woman playing Jen isn’t even nice-looking

Gwah..?

[Danodin]

They did the angle on Reynholm at the start better.

Right, I’ll give them that. But because it’s not Chris Morris it’s not funny!

[cliff]

Yeah I think a Mr Reynholm back from the dead would be a nice twist but I do love Douglas..

FATHEEEERRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

[si]

I want this so much…

http://bit.ly/ahp74s

http://bit.ly/aIcXHz

http://bit.ly/c6TDN8

[Danodin]

Wow!

[Ben Paddon]

I’ve just cacked me pants.

[Phil]

That box is better than half the episodes it contains.

[hummingbird]

Hell, yes. Gotta have that.

[John Hoare]

The inclusion of the green door is brilliant.

[Ridley]

The inclusion of the green door is brilliant.

That box is better than half the episodes it contains.

You know you’re both mentioned on the DVD, right?

[John Hoare]

Bloody hell.

You know, I haven’t got the DVD yet – I was not buying DVDs as part of an extensive cost-cutting exercise across all departments – but I shall now have to order it immediately. (Also, I did just order The Camomile Lawn in order to see Jennifer Ehle’s tits, anyway.)

[Ridley]

11:47 into Bad Boys on my Xbox’s clock.

The Guide to Sitcom Writing is worth the price alone. If only to know how you can blame Mr. Ellard (and NTS by extension) if you don’t like series 4. :p

[Phil]

>You know you’re both mentioned on the DVD, right?

wat

[Jonathan Capps]

transripz plz

[Ridley]

It’s one line!

“But Andrew’s, uh, reviews were different. Andrew… and his frie- uhh and the other people who were writing about the show at uh, at uh, Signal To Noise they- they- he- he obviously had such affection for the show but when we had screwed up and when we weren’t doing something right he, he let us know in the most, um, polite and well-argued and, um, insightful way possible.”

[si]

As a result of watching the DVD Menu documentary, I’ve been playing Windosill all evening.

[Nick R]

Graham Linehan did a Reddit Q&A the other day. He says there won’t be a fifth series, but there will be a special next year. (And “mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmaybe a film”, a line I couldn’t read without thinking of this.)

Here’s the specific thread where he explains why it’s ending, and describes the “virtual writers’ room” method that he was attempting to use for series 5 (alongside Ellard and the Burnistoun guys, as far as I know… I don’t know if any other co-writers had previously been announced).

And on audience filming:

i love shooting in front of an audience. Gives it a special magic when it works. But it’s so bloody hard, so much harder than doing single camera, and at the end of it everyone complains that it’s too quiet/loud/fake, so part of me doesn’t wasn’t to go through the stress.

That said, I can’t see Count Arthur working quite as well without an audience.

[Pete Part Three]

For the best, I think.

I found series 4 so inconsistent and it seemed that Linehan was stretching himself with 6 episodes. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the idea of farming out scripts as it never seems to work well for UK sitcoms. It sounds like he was aiming for the sort of thing Trey Parker does with South Park, but that would always struggle to work on UK telly where scripts are only ready when they’re ready.

Some specials to wrap things up would be nice.

[pfm]

It’s a shame it’s over (bar the special) and that things, again, more or less boil down to money, but Graham’s definitely making the right choice in not going ahead and producing a crap 5th series just for the sake of it.

Tbh when I saw Chris O’Dowd on Rob Brydon a few weeks ago talking about the films he’s doing I thought then ‘oh, there won’t be another series’ even though he said it was still happening. The way things are going they would be lucky to get Chris and Richard Ayoade back for 6 weeks. Weren’t they already struggling with Richard’s time in series 4?

[Phil]

Series 3 mainly coasted on my goodwill (excellent “The Speech” aside), and series 4 killed it dead.

I definitely think the show has at least one full series’ worth of material left in it, but if Graham is having trouble finding that material then I absolutely think it’s best to cap it off and move on.

[Carlito]

I generally find one episode per series which I love, a couple I like and about half I could take or leave. It seems unlikely to ever top The Work Outing or Are We Not Men? so why keep trying? Peaked too soon. Or maybe just right, ultimately.

[pfm]

> and series 4 killed it dead.

‘A fire…at Sea Parks??’

[Ridley]

Same thing happened in Red Dwarf with a gag that completely escapes me at the moment.

It was Kryten’s “I’d better get out of here!” after forgetting his legs have been crushed.

…

*starts shoveling soil back onto thread*

[Phil]

Compare & Contrast: Funny Restaurants

[Connell]

Absolutely agree with that review. The quality of the writing, and the show in it’s entirety waned severely in the later series’, a terrible shame as it was one of the most fresh and innovate comedys to come out of England in recent years.

I hear they’re planning a film version of the show, anyone heard that either?

[Author]

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