I'm a bit slow, sometimes, when it comes to getting on to 'next big thing' things on telly - hence why I'm glued to Heroes on a Wednesday night on BBC 2 rather than doing the whole 'oh yeah, saw it on Sci Fi Channel first.' I suppose it means I'm not part of the it crowd.
Which, my completely pre-meditated spurious links brings me to The IT Crowd, the Channel 4 comedy which has just begun its second series. I think the title put me off the first series. Either it was about a bunch of IT bods, or about an 'it' crowd, and in either case, it didn't jump out at me. Or maybe it clashed with something else.
But thanks to the fact there is sod all else on the box on Fridays - and given that this summer's weather has been awful from the start, you'd have thought some bright spark in programming somewhere would have thought to dig out something decent by now - this year, the return of the IT Crowd was a banker for a quiet Friday in last week.
And, aside from Mock the Week over on BBC 2 (repeated tonight at 11.05pm), I haven't laughed so hard in ages. Like all good sit coms, the situation is simple - people working in an IT department. And by virtue of the fact that they work in an IT department, the characters can be that little bit odder (if you work in IT, don't take offence, you know it is true.)
The other important trick is to make the absurb situations which make the programme watchable, seem plauible. This is where recent series of My Family have fallen down, because there is no build up to the absurd, and that dreadful new one with Hugh Dennis (Outnumbered, BBC 1, Tuesday nights) which doesn't actually get to the absurd.
So back to The IT Crowd. Last week, almost seamlessly, we went from the lead female character (Jen) going on a date with a closeted-gay man, to a gay musical called GAY, to one of the male characters (Roy) having to make out he was disabled after getting caught in the disabled loo, and the other main male character (Moss) ending up working at the theatre after getting caught in the staff toilets. As with the best sitcoms, trying to recreate it in words here will only result in abject failure.
Advice: Watch tonight. Brief details: Matt Berry makes his debut on The IT Crowd tonight as the new boss of Reynholm Industries. If you thought Denholm (Chris Morris) was crazy [I have no idea who he is, perhaps I should get season one on DVD] just wait till you meet the bundle of over-the-top energy that is his son Douglas! In tonight's episode the company is rocked to the core when Denholm kills himself. At his funeral Roy thinks he too is going to die and causes a bit of a scene.
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