Digital Sextant

The IT Crowd

Why haven’t you watched this show yet? It’s amazing. Well, maybe not amazing, but really funny.

It’s your standard Britcom, with a set location, a couple wacky characters, and hijinks galore. It reminds me a lot of Black Books, though I thought this show was more immediately funny (whereas Black Books is a slow-burn show). The premise is simple, Jen, an up-and-coming mid-level manager with no expertise in computers, gets hired as the boss of two stereotypical IT geeks, Roy and Moss. Silliness of the Britcom variety ensues. Some additional thoughts:

• It has the hallmarks of the classic sitcom, including a clunky laugh track. After The Office, I think there should be no laugh tracks anymore, save something intentional as on Gary Shandling.
• This show (along with HIMYM) demonstrates the fine art of sitcom writing at its best. Like haikus or sonnets, traditional sitcom writing depends on a very narrow niche of conventions and opportunities. It needs to be 23 minutes or so, it must rely on stock characters (for the most part) and a few stock locations, it mustn’t advance its plot much in any given episode (usually only once or twice per series) and yet it must still surprise. The IT Crowd works in all of these media very well.
• The stereotypes of the IT folk are particularly funny — the slob Roy and the nerd Moss are each embodiments of an aspect of geekdom that geeks have become proud about.
• The set design is excellent, with EFF and Open Source propaganda everywhere, as well as images of Jim Woodring’s Frank and lots of other jokes. My favorite thus far was Moss’ t-shirt in the second episode, a screen capture of the Kill screen from Pac-Man.
• As with many of the best sitcoms, the secondary characters are well crafted bits of hyperbole. My favorite is Denham, the mustachioed uber-boss who tosses around verbal abuse and hilarious new initatives, but equally compelling is the Goth, Richmond, who broods behind the red door in the basement and by whom the rest of the characters are equally scared and irritated.

Denham

Richmond

If you’ve got Netflix, the first two seasons are available as instant features to boot.