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IT Crowd On-line

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sun Jan 29, 2006 10:08 AM
from the well-that-was-unimpressive dept.
Media Television IT
prostoalex writes "IT Crowd, a comedy television show by UK's Channel 4, introduced on Slashdot earlier, has released the first episode, available on the official show site in Windows Media format." Pretty standard fare- there are nice touches like EFF stickers and an RTFM shirt scattered about. Some funny stuff, but the laugh track makes it really unwatchable for me.
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  • meh ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 29 2006, @10:10AM (#14593115)
    Slashdot is my sitcom

  • Laughter Track (Score:5, Funny)

    by dougjm (838643) on Sunday January 29 2006, @10:11AM (#14593121)
    Thats no laughter track, thats just how us Brits laugh!

    • Re:Laughter Track (Score:4, Informative)

      by david.joy (618354) on Sunday January 29 2006, @11:17AM (#14593359) Homepage
      As I understand it very few British sitcoms use a "canned laughter" track, preferring either to film most of the scenes in front of a live audience or at the very least to play the finished episode on monitors in front of a real audience. The BBC in particular is particularly keen to use live audiences wherever possible (see the BBC Tickets page [bbc.co.uk] for information on how to join an audience), and whilst this particular comedy was made for Channel 4 rather than the BBC the same view is held across the entire British television industry.

      You can usually tell, anyway -- canned laughter tends to be rather clinical (it starts and stops very abruptly) whereas live laughter will grow or subside as the individual audience members get the joke at different times. That said, a lot of people accuse even live audiences of being distracting or sounding artificial, and that's because the audiences are encouraged by the programme-makers to make as much noise as possible, even if a joke isn't very funny. That doesn't mean they are canned, though.

      Unfortunately, it's usually difficult to find out which programmes are and which aren't as those programme-makers that do rely on canned laughter are very reluctant to make the knowledge public. And in all programmes the editors will have tweaked the laughter track a bit afterwards to smooth over glitches, cuts and re-takes.
      • That said, a lot of people accuse even live audiences of being distracting or sounding artificial, and that's because the audiences are encouraged by the programme-makers to make as much noise as possible, even if a joke isn't very funny. That doesn't mean they are canned, though.
        Sorry, but that's exactly what it means (that the laughter is canned, even if it's a different kind of can.
      • That said, a lot of people accuse even live audiences of being distracting or sounding artificial, and that's because the audiences are encouraged by the programme-makers to make as much noise as possible, even if a joke isn't very funny.

        It is, to an an extent, a directorial decision. I went to a sitcom shooting in Hollywood ("The Geena Davies Show" -- high prestige, huh?) where the warm-up guy, under direction from the production team, coached us in how to laugh. He'd say "Now remember, you're here to add
    • one of the questions is, "The show's filmed in front of a live studio audience. Did you find it difficult not to crack up in front of them?"

      There's another question the actress's past performance in a stage show called "Deep Throat". (Channel 4, prepare for Slashdotting!)

      Future episodes that I look forward to:

      #11 "The CD/DVD Tray Is Not A Coffee Holder"
      #13 "The CEO Nails Roy In The Head With His Chair"
      #14 "Roy Utterly Bungles His Google Telephone Interview"
      #17 "Meet Your New Colleagues In Bangalore"
      #21 "Mos
      • Firstly, "The Prisoner" wasn't a BBC show. It was made originally by Granada for ITV and as far as I know they still own it. But in fact the BBC has brought back "The Prisoner" -- it bought the rights and reran every episode at the beginning of 2005 on BBC 4. See the BBC 4 Prisoner web site [bbc.co.uk]. I can't speak for BBC America and so on as that is not strictly the BBC (it's part of a commercial subsidiary, BBC Worldwide).

        Getting back on topic, tbe purpose of a classical sitcom is not to portray real life accur

      • It's far too excessive.

        True, just watching them installing printer drivers, silently removing spyware and patching the corporate firewall would have been much more funny to the 0.005% of those in the know. (snort)

        Besides I don't know where you've been working but I've always seen characters like those lurking in the corners, including one that actually had 2 tshirts (one for summer, one for winter) who apart from that was a true wizard, one of the very few I've encountered. He did fail with the girls, and

  • I have been trying to download the episode with both safari and Firefox , however I seem to be having no luck.
    Looks like you have to be using windows , so perhaps mac users are out of luck . though I could be wrong and just having problems on my end.

    • Re:Mac attack (Score:5, Funny)

      by BasilBrush (643681) on Sunday January 29 2006, @10:42AM (#14593210)
      Have you tried turning it off and then on again?
    • I just watched it on my iBook so there doesn't seem to be a total Windows dependence - it is Windows Media, though, so you'll need the appropriate software to play it.

      There was the semi-official Flip4Mac [microsoft.com] being waffled on about a few weeks ago, I used the prehistoric Mac port of Windows Media Player instead. I don't think I've ever seen it work for a full 25 minutes or so before.

      Anyway, trying to avoid sounding like a true nerd and switching off the white noise: the comedy itself. It was pretty funny, and wa

    • I have been trying to download the episode with both safari and Firefox , however I seem to be having no luck. Looks like you have to be using windows , so perhaps mac users are out of luck . though I could be wrong and just having problems on my end.

      aha... you've failed the test. Please surrender your Geek pass to security on the way out... :) a true geek would have tried an alternate approach such as cutting & pasting and replacing mms:// with http:/// [http]

  • dont wanna stream? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 29 2006, @10:15AM (#14593132)
    wget http://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web .wmv [channel4.com]
    • Seems to be in "WMV3" format. Is there any player capable of playing this on Linux / AMD64?

      Rich.

      • works fine for me in mplayer just make sure you have the win32 codecs
            • It is hard to get a fully working mplayer with win32 codecs on x86_64, because you need to compile with -m32 for the codecs to work. Doing this means that you need all the 32-bit libraries that mplayer requires, and there are a lot of them. If you use rpm then installing the 32-bit libs as well as the 64-bit ones (for other apps) creates conflicts.
              So, it's possible, but hard. It's not worth the effort for me, so I just statically compile mplayer on a 32-bit box and move it over to my desktop.
              • I just install the 64-bit version, and then run a chroot that is purely 32-bit. I don't have much installed there - mainly closed-source stuff, open-source stuff like openoffice which barely builds cleanly 32-bit let alone 64-bit, and semi-open stuff like java which also doesn't do all that well on 64-bit (hello.java works fine, but good luck getting freenet/eclipse/netbeans/etc to work reliably...). Best of both worlds, although my install is using an extra few GB as a result...

    • curl -O http://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web .wmv

      You can add wget to a Mac, but curl is standard.

      Then you probably need to get VLC to watch it, but who's counting ;)

  • The link should be mms://edge.channel4.com/theitcrowd/episode1_c4web. wmv [edgechanne...e1c4webwmv], but it gets reformatted on posting making it un-clickable. Copy & paste...

  • The really interesting thing about this is that the show won't be broadcast on Channel 4 until next Friday. I believe this is the first time a UK broadcaster has made a programmes available online before broadcast.

    • Re:Online before broadcast (Score:4, Informative)

      by slashknott (927394) on Sunday January 29 2006, @10:23AM (#14593152)

      No, It's been done before more than once by the BBC.


      Mighty Boosh for one, Tittybangbang another. I'm sure there are more.

      • Man Stroke Women, being another..
      • Yes, but has it been done before with something that was made for terrestrial TV?

        (In my area, I can't even get Channel 5, let alone anything on FreeView... Not that I'm bitter, you understand.)

        Anyway. Having seen it, I agree with the comments about the intrusive laughter track. But I it's no worse than we've been used to for decades; it's just that many of the more recent comedies have been brave enough to do without one, so its presence is more obvious now.

        I also agree with comments about the old-

          • Open All Hours wasn't bad. The writing was a little formulaic, but the situation was fairly interesting, and Ronnie Barker was worth watching. (He was a better character actor than people gave him credit for.) Can't say it did a huge amount for me, though.

            OTOH, I hated Friends. Partly coz most of my college friends loved it, and I never understood why. It just seemed so smug, with all this fake coziness and forced charm. It seemed soulless. It also seemed as if having 300 writers led to a barrage o

    • Unless you count that leaked episode of Doctor Who last year.
    • Auntie's done this a couple of times with BBC3 shows. The Mighty Boosh and Tittybangbang spring to mind.

  • Thank god it's just audio visual (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Quirk (36086) on Sunday January 29 2006, @10:28AM (#14593170) Homepage Journal
    A realistic 'IT Crowd' would just shows fat, oily, pimply, hairy geeks. Fortunately Smell-O-Vision [retrofuture.com] didn't become a hit, or the 'IT Crowd' would have been, literally, an olfactory bomb.

  • This show would be better if it were like The Office. Have the IT guys in there aswell as nerdy users, but this intense focus on it is too much. They are gonna burn out within the first few shows.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
    • Yes, because the world of IT staff is such a limited premise compared to the world of a book store owner, for example.

    • Re:Its too much! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MosesJones (55544) on Sunday January 29 2006, @10:52AM (#14593253) Homepage
      Its by the same writer as father Ted and the producers of the office. Father Ted had 4 main characters and lasted for several series.

      Intense focus in a sit-com isn't bad, lets face it this is normal, low number of core characters and sets with occasional colour add ons.

      Fraser - 3 sets (appartement, Studio, coffee shop) - 5 main characters

      Cheers - 1 set (bar) depending on series between 4 and 6 characters

      Friends - 2 sets (appartement & coffee shop) - 6 characters

      Office - 1 set (Office) 4 main characters

      Father Ted - 1 set (the house) 4 main characters

      So Sitcom history seems to say that you almost NEED an intense small group of sets and characters.


      • So Sitcom history seems to say that you almost NEED an intense small group of sets and characters.

        If it doesn't have a small group of sets and characters... Then it's not a situational comedy, is it? It's either a sketch show, or standup comedy, or satire, or a late-night show, or a physical comedy show. Sitcoms have a few, recognizable, main characters, perhaps some recurring characters, and a small number of sets, because that's what makes it a sitcom. There are plenty of sitcoms that were totally unfunny
      • And he co-wrote the first series of Black Books, as well, which had a core cast of three.

        One thing that may be unfamiliar to American readers, is that the usual model of British TV sit-coms is that a series lasts for just six or eight episodes, very tightly scripted (normally by just one or two writers) and concentrated: the best of them will fit as many laughs into three hours of TV, as a typical American sitcom will get in a 26 episode run.

        Short series mean there's less danger of ideas getting stale; on t
    • Yeah, I agree. It only really made me chuckle a few times throughout the episode, and there was far too much shouting throughout that made everything looks rather forced and wooden.

      Richard Ayoade (the black guy, Moss) is an apalling actor. I know he's meant to look awkward and have a nerdy voice, but he comes across as some kind of robot. He was in a very weird show on Channel 4 a while back called Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, and he was presumably in that because all the acting was *meant* to be terribl

  • don't be a troll (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rdx38 (945382) on Sunday January 29 2006, @10:51AM (#14593252)
    its a sitcom. it isnt thaat bad its cute and gives you that nice sitcom escapism feeling. its funny too

  • Well done (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gomaze (105798) on Sunday January 29 2006, @11:41AM (#14593462) Homepage
    I think this show was and is going to be very well done. It will have to exaggerate concepts and situations for the average user. I do think that "Nerds" or "Geeks" will find that the hummer is to played out for most issues but we are a select group of people and not the main audience target.

    I work in IT doing support for an Internet provider and I am willing to bet that they are going highlight most issues that I deal with on a daily basis. Granted, they are never that extreme but who cares. This may even show the average user that they need to relax before calling in. I think that capturing what the IT world does on film will be very hard but it looks like this show is on its way to doing just that.

  • pretty decent (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gubachwa (716303) on Sunday January 29 2006, @11:48AM (#14593491)
    I was actually pleasantly surprised. It was pretty decent for a sitcom. I don't normally watch much TV, especially not sitcoms. (I consider 'Friends' one of the best reasons not to watch tv.)

    Are all the episodes going to be online, or just the premiere?

  • Tough crowd, tough crowd... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ursabear (818651) on Sunday January 29 2006, @12:00PM (#14593543) Homepage Journal
    It wasn't that bad. If one looks at it as humor, and not with an ultra-critical eye, it is pretty funny (if a little overacted).

  • What's wrong with a laughter track? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JackDW (904211) on Sunday January 29 2006, @12:36PM (#14593673) Homepage
    Why is a laughter track a bad thing? Bearing in mind that the laughter you hear on this show is the sound of the studio audience, watching the show as it was recorded, and not "canned".

    Today, it is fashionable to make comedy shows without an audience. However, this is not because there is anything wrong with a laughter track. Here, for example, is a list of successful English shows with laughter tracks.

    • Monty Python's Flying Circus
    • Fawlty Towers
    • Red Dwarf
    • I'm Alan Partridge
      • Which to me is slightly ironic, because when younger I watched the Mash TV series - it was shown n the UK on BBC2 over a number of years. It was funny but also thought provoking, moving and bleak.

        Yet when it was later reshown (by Sky I think), I was amazed to find that Mash came with a laughter track. (and it was canned laughter, not studio laughter). It utterly changed the whole tone of the show, and I basically couldn't watch it.

        I'd be curious to know if this laughter track was used as a matter of c

  • So jealous... (Score:3, Funny)

    by shish (588640) on Sunday January 29 2006, @02:14PM (#14594027) Homepage
    Their IT manager knows more about computers than mine ;_;

  • An interview with the writer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bob[Bob] (60151) on Sunday January 29 2006, @04:31PM (#14594688) Journal
    Here's an interview with the writer/director, Graham Linehan, published yesterday:
    http://telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2 006/01/28/btvline28.xml [telegraph.co.uk]

    • Re:Retro Computing (Score:5, Informative)

      by yoz (3735) * on Sunday January 29 2006, @02:28PM (#14594066) Homepage
      Well spotted! That particular machine (along with a load of other junk^H^H^H^Hvaluable retrocomputing paraphernalia you'll see scattered around the set) belongs to my father-in-law. Talkback raided a few different people's collections for the set - watch out for more, as I think they're changing stuff around to some degree every week.
    • You're right - Graham Linehan should go back to his more successful and hyper-realistic sitcoms like Father Ted, Black Books, Hippies and Big Train.

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