Here's some background about myself: I am 24 and have been a computer engineer/geek since I was 16, when I joined a support company as a apprentice. I have experience in working on the road, in the workshop and also on phone support. (basically what the IT crowd is meant to portray?)


mini review of the IT crowd

Affter watching the IT crowd on Channel4, there seems to be mixed feelings. Some people say it's brilliant, I'm not sure if I was watching the same program?. There was about 1 funny part in the first one, where the woman was pretending to talk on the phone and the bloke says he came in to plug in the phone. This was soon spoiled as they used the same 'joke' when she was pretending to use her computer.

Taking a few things from what I've read:

Geeky References:
There seem to be little real life geeky references. With a mass of information available to the writers to research on the internet I would expect a lot more, The only way you knew it was to do with computers was the title of the show and the few old computers they had lying around in the basement. The only other 'geeky reference' seemed to be the RTFM T-shirt.

Support Calls:
This joke was overdone around 1997? with the video of the support engineer smashing his pc up, the recording of calls where there is a complete novice on the other end of the phone etc. I know some will relate to it but it is not 'that funny'.

Geeks Portrayed As Being Social Outcasts:
It seems that the geeks are portrayed as total outcasts, firstly by being put into the basement (another inaccurate representation, most IT support people are based in a main office next to the networking HUB/Patch/Servers etc) but as if that is not enough they seem to have no social skills at all (you would have thought the very fact they have to talk to people on the phone and face to face when fixing their pc's they would be pretty social).
I think it plays on a lot of unfair things: people who like to use emails rather than use the phone, surely this isn't something to laugh about and is as justified as laughing at someone who has a disability??

Insulting Geeks:
Ok, This is one thing which annoyed me the most and I know a lot of other geeks feel the same, There is a difference between being funny and going over the top. The show is inaccurate in its portrayal of geeks with what seems no knowledge of anything relating to them, creating a wrong image of them and potentially changing the stance of people, creating yet more possibility of insults and even worsening bullting in schools. The show is advertised as family entertainment, yet is written with no discretion towards the group it portrays.

Overall I think the IT crowd was illogical (IT engineers/geeks are very knowledgeable), not funny, included bad acting and was insulting. The studio audience seemed to be laughing at strange points and were sometimes the only thing which distinguished anything as being a 'joke'.

I just thought I'd add some bits, after looking over the net at different forums it seems the majority of people are saying bad things about it and seeing the 3rd ep hasn't changed any views, if anything it has confirmed them.

The portrayal of geeks in the show seems somewhat outdated.

This forum seems to be the only one giving the show praise.

Hopefully they will get better.... they have manged two out of three good ones.... the need more IT jokes in though, it doesn't actually seem to be about IT lol

Todstein

You Have raised some good points here although I feel to a degree you may be being a bit harsh on the program. True it does seem to that the acting is bad, the script is bad, the jokes are unfunny (not to mention outdated) and it horribly exaggerates an all ready widely accepted sterotype but.... wait a minute where was this going again? Oh yeah, all that stuffs at first glance I'm sure that if you cared to watch again.... Oh no it would still be the same.

Personally I have quite enjoyed the series so far, more on a 'meh, it passes the time' sort of scale, but it has had it's funny moments, I would say more than what a lot of viewers are giving it credit for. I have been working it IT support for a long time now and I'm not offended by the show. A lot of people were saying that they hope(d) the show was going to be like a televised series of the BOFH stories. This in itself would probably cause them to stereotype the other extreme of IT. I think that true sys Admin fall somewhere nicely in the middle of geeky and sadistic. Perhaps geeky with a sadistic sense of humour.

meh, just my two-penneth

tod, chill fella. I've been in IT since 85. All those appalling stereotypes float to the surface every now and then. I work with two of the characters now.
The whole place thinks my server room is a tardis and my workshop is a cyber-cafe. Don't let them in on the secret ;-)

It's a comedy, not a docu-drama! Enjoy it for what it is. No one got Father Ted for the first few epsiodes (not that this is in the same league, admittedly).

ooops. shoot me, I'm being a buffoon.

I just see this 'show' as being lets pick on the little guy

Which is pretty stupid and wrong, the majority of people in the uk probably use a computer.
The whole of the show and it's portrayal seems to be that of a bystander, and is reminiscent of the views 10years ago.

To take the piss out of a group, already bullied and picked on by some parts of society is pretty stupid.
Things were moving on and a lot of geeks felt accepted, even to the extent of being proud to be a geek.

Anyone remember the geeky kid in school who was bullied??

The fact it is a 'family show' makes it worse, forcing views of 10years ago on the youth of today, causing them to think it's acceptable to bully geeks?
(already shown by some of the posts on here)

Yet you wonder why they would sooner email you than phone you??

Yer it's really funny that they feel so oppressed by society that they find it hard to communicate irl, lets all laugh and make our children do the same

quote:

Originally posted by todstein:
I just see this 'show' as being lets pick on the little guy

Which is pretty stupid and wrong, the majority of people in the uk probably use a computer.
The whole of the show and it's portrayal seems to be that of a bystander, and is reminiscent of the views 10years ago.

To take the piss out of a group, already bullied and picked on by some parts of society is pretty stupid.
Things were moving on and a lot of geeks felt accepted, even to the extent of being proud to be a geek.
[/i]

You are not going to believe this, but for once i actually agree with you on this one... things have moved on a lot (although not very much in schools, but definatly within that adult comunity).

quote:

Originally posted by morphedparadox:

quote:

Originally posted by todstein:
I just see this 'show' as being lets pick on the little guy

Which is pretty stupid and wrong, the majority of people in the uk probably use a computer.
The whole of the show and it's portrayal seems to be that of a bystander, and is reminiscent of the views 10years ago.

To take the piss out of a group, already bullied and picked on by some parts of society is pretty stupid.
Things were moving on and a lot of geeks felt accepted, even to the extent of being proud to be a geek.
[/i]

You are not going to believe this, but for once i actually agree with you on this one... things have moved on a lot (although not very much in schools, but definatly within that adult comunity).

I'm glad someone on here speaks the truth and is at least honest.

There was some super harsh jokes in Ep. 3

Tod, why do you have such a neg view of our trade? Comedy in this vien is just picking on stereotypes - its what Lineham does for a living (Father Ted - thick Irish priests - absurd but funny).
Don't feel everyone is on a downer about IT, it's just nonsense put about by small minded fools.
There's all sorts in our job - and all sorts of jobs have the piddle taken out of them in programmes. It's not like every third show is ripping it out of IT bods is it?
Just relax and be happy in the knowledge that you ca say "I work in IT, so somehow that makes me better than you" as the old t-shirt used to say :thumbsup:

quote:

Originally posted by snurfen:
Tod, why do you have such a neg view of our trade? Comedy in this vien is just picking on stereotypes - its what Lineham does for a living (Father Ted - thick Irish priests - absurd but funny).
Don't feel everyone is on a downer about IT, it's just nonsense put about by small minded fools.
There's all sorts in our job - and all sorts of jobs have the piddle taken out of them in programmes. It's not like every third show is ripping it out of IT bods is it?
Just relax and be happy in the knowledge that you ca say "I work in IT, so somehow that makes me better than you" as the old t-shirt used to say :thumbsup:

I don't have a negative view about our trade.

That's exactly the reason why I posted the review etc.

quote:

There's all sorts in our job - and all sorts of jobs have the piddle taken out of them in programmes. It's not like every third show is ripping it out of IT bods is it?
Just relax and be happy in the knowledge that you ca say "I work in IT, so somehow that makes me better than you" as the old t-shirt used to say :thumbsup:

We need more IT based shows. period. There seems to be a lack of them, we used to have [.tv] but that got canceled. In america they used to have TechTV, but that merged with G4, and became G4TV (G4 is now in the processes of killing every single good show that it has). There is just nothing tech related on TV anymore

Doesn't the writer always pick on the irish (Father Ted, Black Books)?

Methinks that you are all geeks.
The harder you try to explain why the IT Crowd is not representational of IT Support Desks you just display your geekiness.
Admit it. You all spend your leasure hours watching endless repeats of Dr Who and spend your working hours discussing RAID systems and how the rest of the staff in the building don't know the difference between a byte and a nibble. I know I do.

quote:

Originally posted by geek99:
Methinks that you are all geeks.
The harder you try to explain why the IT Crowd is not representational of IT Support Desks you just display your geekiness.
Admit it. You all spend your leasure hours watching endless repeats of Dr Who and spend your working hours discussing RAID systems and how the rest of the staff in the building don't know the difference between a byte and a nibble. I know I do.

Well sort of accurate

Shame the writers of the it crowd wern't as accurate tbh, none of those points are included in the it crowd

I don't watch dr who tho, altho I do watch some sci-fi stuff

quote:

Originally posted by geek99:
Methinks that you are all geeks.
The harder you try to explain why the IT Crowd is not representational of IT Support Desks you just display your geekiness.
Admit it. You all spend your leasure hours watching endless repeats of Dr Who and spend your working hours discussing RAID systems and how the rest of the staff in the building don't know the difference between a byte and a nibble. I know I do.

So you were the guy who followed me all day... same time next wednesday

I saw a quote where it was explained that they did not want to exclude viewers by making it too tecky. The original idea apparently was to place the series in a travel agents. The IT bit is just the vehicle

In that case they made the wrong mistake..... Geeky programs potentially have the biggest crowds.... with all the bitTorrenting and all

Firstly I do hope the person being offended by the show is attempting to "troll" and not being serious, if you're afraid of being identified with the "sad" stereotypes and that's a problem for you then you need to do something about your lifestyle. Or delete the files of your persecutors mwhwhahahahahahah ahem.

Anyway...

I've not been that impressed by the show so far. The writing hasn't been particularly sharp and they don't seem to have come up with any particularly good plot ideas. I think the problem boils down to this, most Sitcoms (or a lot of British ones at least) get their humour by taking a character, exagerating their personality traits in a way that's "different" and writing about how they react to different situations.

For example...

Basil Faulty, an irate person as a hotel manager (a position where you might expect someone to be good with people).

Dave Lister, a slob as a spaceman.

Father Ted, a erm... whatever word covers "that money was just resting in my account" as a Priest. Father Ted as a series also has Jack (Drunk Priest) and Dougal (Idiot Priest) for even more potential.

Hopefully you see what I'm getting at...

Now with IT Crowd you have two geeks being put in geeky situations. You simply don't have the potential for unexpected reactions that you do in the other examples. Furthermore the situation they're in as IT people in a corporate basement makes it a bit tricky to provide variety to their "lives" without it being contrived, putting them in a computer shop/consultancy would have been better for this. Maybe you could make them redundant at the start of S2

As for the characters themselves Moss is obviously the uber-geek and Roy seems destined to be revealed as a normal, likeable person really and end up with Jen. It'd be a shame if this happened as I think the best chance of laughs stand would be making Roy into a colourful eccentric geek type - and say, have him try to get a religious holiday from work by dressing as a pirate...

But that's just my two pennyworth

Well Todstein, I've been in IT for 25 years and found the references amusing and topical.

Humour isn't universal.

quote:

Now with IT Crowd you have two geeks being put in geeky situations. You simply don't have the potential for unexpected reactions that you do in the other examples. Furthermore the situation they're in as IT people in a corporate basement makes it a bit tricky to provide variety to their "lives" without it being contrived, putting them in a computer shop/consultancy would have been better for this. Maybe you could make them redundant at the start of S2

As for the characters themselves Moss is obviously the uber-geek and Roy seems destined to be revealed as a normal, likeable person really and end up with Jen. It'd be a shame if this happened as I think the best chance of laughs stand would be making Roy into a colourful eccentric geek type - and say, have him try to get a religious holiday from work by dressing as a pirate...

But that's just my two pennyworth

Dude, the FSM holiday just has to be done.... that is an excelent story. I hope they don't get Roy and Jen together, because its just too much fun watching them not realise it ... big twist could be she actually ends up with Moss, and becomes a geeket.... teehee mini Mosses Woo Yay

Am I the only person who seems to have got the Science Fiction references? I'm thinking of the part where Moss has his fingers spread out on a table, and he is stabbing a knife into the gaps between his fingers almost as if it were an Aspbergers-like compulsion. This is a beautiful and completely thrown-away homage to Bishop in "Aliens". It's doubly clever because it throws it at you completely without context, and you either miss it or are flattered by recognising the in-joke.

Also, re: the portrayal of Geeky blokes is funny because it's true. It's painful when someone tells the about being able to remember the ASCII table but not your girlfriends name, but a self-depricating brag when we say it about ourselves.

I've been a developer, an IT Manager, and a Project Manager since '95, and I think they've either missed or hopefully not yet tapped into the fact that IT geeks are loaded. I never wore an anorak with a rabbit lined hood as a kid, but maybe a gorgeous East-European Internet bride? Possibly the odd cameo appearance if it takes off.

I feel it in my water that although the scripts are of necessity character driven rather than situation driven during the startup phase, once they get up and running, and if Freemantle media stick with it into a third series, it has the feel of a Cult classic about it.

No...Stabbing the knife between your fingers is a game played long before