When I started watching it I didn't see what the big fuss was about it, the jokes were not clever and pretty obvious in the set ups, I was thinking what the heck, serious 1 for me was very underwhelming, then got to the episode with the gay musical and haven't looked backed since , the dinner party episode aswell was genius , so just abit of advice to people who want to give up on it, stay with it until series 2 it's worth it, I'm on my 4th re run now
sharei think its similar to a lot of sitcoms in that the pilot episode is never that great but the show develops quickly over the course of the first season.
i think sitcom pilots most always suck because they have to establish the particular "gimmick" of the show before really getting things going properly. I tried getting into this show a while ago but was put off by the horrendous pilot. i just recently powered through the pilot taking into consideration how crappy most are and now i'm at season 3 and its easily one of my favorite sitcoms next to seinfeld, friends, and red dwarf.
I watched this on Netflix per a recommendation on one of the boards here a few days ago- only saw the pilot episode. It was okay, but the laugh track was extremely intrusive, to the point of being distracting.
However, the above posters do make some good points about pilot episodes, so I will give it a chance.
"Twilight follows the brightest day, And every cat in the twilight’s gray,
Every possible cat."
It was filmed live so those laughs are all genuine
Keep in mind that it's considered cool and hip to automatically dismiss any television show where there's laughter in the background. To them, all shows without laughter in the background are automatically better than those with.
Let's just ignore the fact that of the 10 best comedy series of all time, at least 7 of them have canned laughter or a studio audience depending on which shows you include in that.
Great point about sitcoms needing to establish themselves within their gimmick before hitting their stride. Remember, Seinfeld was actually quite bad at first and even the pilot of Red Dwarf was weak compared to the rest of the first couple of seasons when it was still the same show (once Kryten became a regular cast member, the show became very different). Sitcoms also have a tendency to go over-the-top on the characterizations and the gimmick in the first episode or two before settling down to their sitcom levels and becoming more about the characters and less about the setting.
I've watched 2 episodes so far and am enjoying it quite a bit. It's dumb, but it's fun.
...easily one of my favorite sitcoms next to seinfeld, friends, and red dwarf.
I also was not crazy about the show at first...but I kept watching and I kinda love it. I'm watching the final episode on Netflix right now. Why are there only 6 episodes per season?! Bollocks.
shareA woman I work with recommended I watch the IT Crowd and told me how much she loved the Moss character.
I must be oppositionally defiant because I instantly knew I would dislike whomever this Moss guy was and that I would hate the show if I ever bothered watching it. So I stumbled across it one night on Netflix and thought "Well, I like Chris O'Dowd so let's see if this is any good." Became one of my favorite all time shows and yeah, I love Moss. The show is all brilliant but I can say without hyperbole that The Gay Musical had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe and actually feared for my health at one point. One of the funniest episodes in television history. I've dunce spread the IT Crowd gospel to anyone who will listen and turned several doubters (like me) into fans.
Are you kidding me?
Season one has amazing episodes.
Calamity Jen with the whole shoes/stress story line is hilarious.
And it has probably one of the best episodes of the show, where everyone thinks Jen is dead. that episode was really great, full of laugh out loud moments.
I agree 100%. It went from jus ok to fits of laughter for me once it got to the gay episode.
shareI hope that is true. My friend has started making me watch through this with him, and "underwhelming" is the perfect description.
It really reminds me of the joke show "When the Whistle Blows" from Extras. Obvious jokes and catch phrases repeatedly incessantly, the audience howling with laughter all the while.