news of the death of the british sitcom have been greatly exaggerated
Last December or thereabouts, on BBC2 — or thereabouts — an entire evening was devoted to the demise of the British situation comedy, and why. And then a bunch of other stuff celebrating this “dead” art form.
They came to the conclusion that the reason for its demise was due to the following factors:
- the rise to dominance of the American sitcom (with tons more episodes per season, huge writing staffs, large budgets, and Eddie)
- the rise of alternative comedy, like The Royle Family and The Office (which are sitcoms without a live audience, but that’s just me)
- other reasons that I can’t remember because I have a low attention span
Boy did they time their declarations badly. Because, just a handful of weeks later — early February of this year to be exact — Channel 4 dropped an atomic bomb on the tv comedy world, and half the planet is still reeling from the fallout.
I’m talking about The IT Crowd, which is not only a ray of sunshine, a beam of hope, a warm spot in a progressively colder world, for fans of British comedy, but also a phaser stun blast, a nibble of Soylent Green, a surprise ankh in the Ultima box, for geeks.
Because, you see, The IT Crowd is absolutely jammed with more geek references than a Wil Wheaton blog post. Ever wanted a sitcom with Linux references, with Atari 2600 references, with Boing Boing and Slashdot references, with vintage computers lying all over the set and a star who wears Space Invaders characters on his t-shirt? No? Well, too bad, because you got it.
Here’s the premise: a dork, Roy, and a super-dork, Moss, work as IT engineers in the basement of a London corporation. Different-type-of-dork Jen, newly recruited to the company, is sent to head up the department. She knows nothing about computers and is a “people person”. The dorks know nothing about people and are “computer persons”. Comedy ensues.
There’s something sexy about Jen, as well, in the midst of all her totally fearless self-deprecating comedy, which is awesome. A woman who is terribly funny, and completely unafraid to totally humiliate herself in the most absurd ways on television, who somehow is sexy through it all. She’s like Gillian Anderson with a silly laugh that turns into a snort.
For Brits, congratulations, you got an awesome show. For Americans, unless you Torrent it or something, sorry. At this point, I’m not aware of it being picked up for any North American channels.
Other people beside myself and my friend Danny must have liked it as well: it’s been commissioned for a second series. I’ve had to make room at the Table of TV Godliness, right next to Spaced, which is great, because Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson were getting lonely up there all alone.
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