There's lots of detail in this show. Firstly there are three characters: the incompetent head of IT, Moss who is very, very nerdy and Roy who seems like a classic IT person. You have three very distinct characters to start with that are easy to identify with.
Jen is attractive in a way that is likely to appeal to IT folk. She's slightly clumsy and inept, and not too pretty, so that makes her desirable. She's geeky without realizing it. I realize that may be horribly judgmental to say 'not too pretty' and I'm sure that actress would not want to hear that, but I'm sure part of her appeal is that she's not some plastic model type, but a real woman.
Then there are stories which revolve around life within a large office without the heavy, ponderous 'humour' of The Office. The show is lighthearted and the situations slightly ridiculous.
Finally, there's the IT aspects where the most outrageous things happen. People here have cited Jen 'breaking' the Internet by Googling Google. But there are many others and they lampoon both people's perception of how IT folk behave, and the same people's lack of IT knowledge.
I agree. It's easy humor. I've worked with a guy that lived in Antarctica for years, a mad dandy, a chef and wine specialist, and a bunch of people who've built interesting and cool things people use every day.
The IT Crowd seems to think that computers don't contribute anything to the world (meanwhile most of the audience is spending their time on a PHP based graphing app) and that 'IT wonks' don't do anything cool.
This is wrong. Half the stuff that most people say changed the world in the last 10 years was made by computer geeks.
those are all dramas, big budget dramas too. I have yet to encounter a 30 minute comedy I would consider brilliant. But this show gets chuckles and the jokes are easy enough for most people to understand, even my non-IT wife understood the Googling Google joke.
No, Arrested development is not brilliant in the same way as The Wire. In fact, nothing is as brilliant as the wire; TV for me was ruined after the wire concluded.
I find IT Crowd to have good actors but an unremarkable script. I think that technology jokes are easy pickings - they're so rare that geeks wet themselves if someone drops the word firewall in a sentence....
Yes... partially agreed. I think the acting makes it extremely watch-able. And there are some excellent episodes (for example; "The Internet" is a nice little circular jab at non-geeks & geeks alike or in the latest season I was quite tickled by the Countdown episode)
FWIW I find IT Crowd funny, but it's not on my 'must have' list. - Office, Green wing, Alan Partridge, blackadder, brasseye, day today, extras, league of gentlemen, psychoville, police squad, 30 rock, etc would all be above it.
IT Crowd is great, but I wish it was a bit more cutting/daring rather than settling into a formulaic sitcom.
Yeah I forgot about things like spaced. I just like my comedy a bit more cutting witty obscene bizarre etc rather than "This is a funny situation isn't it". The IT crowd has been a mixed bag for me, moments of genius mixed with whole episodes of 'this is a sitcom for really old/slow people who need their jokes explained over an entire episode'.
