Welp, I'm bored. So I think I'll just write about The It Crowd, a full year and then some after the premiere of the first series. But I won't even talk about the first series. Go find it for yourself – it's good, and very available on the major torrenting circuit.
First, my favorite episode of the first series has always been “Yesterday's Jam” - the second episode. It had a sense of complete, utter surrealism about it the other five in the season couldn't match. So I'm very happy to see that the second series is an extension of that, not allowing such petty things as Continuity and Good Sense to get in the way.
I've never seen so many sacred cows trotted out, and then ritualistically slaughtered in a way that would never pass on American TV – not even on the new cable drama, “American Abattoirs”. The three are brought out to a musical, simply titled “Gay: The Musical”, and things go downhill from there, taking Disabilities along for the ride.
Then the boss dies, the son (resembling, to my eyes, the Fifth Doctor in outfit) takes over, and the concept of a “pimped out” cell phone powerful enough to give a man an orgasm is, for the first time I am aware of, introduced to the viewing audience.
The third episode opens with the best anti-piracy ad yet made by man (only God could do one better, against geneticists), involves a surprisingly polite German cannibal with a cello, and a bootleg Korean DVD – one of which leads to a mobilization of the police.
And the most recent episode, which I have just finished watching, is a dinner party with the people from work. And it just takes off from there. I felt a sense of shark-jumping right around the time the woman Richmond gets paired with makes her first appearance.
So far, the theme of this series appears to be, “The (blank) From Hell” - “Work Outing”, “Boss(es)”, “Cooking Class/Police Priorities”, and “Dinner Party/Name”. The IT office has been revamped (likely a result of Jen's addition to the TEAM!!!!) and there is a feeling that more screen time has been given to the main characters than before – it's probably about the same, but their presence in the stories feels more concrete. Feels like Moss and Roy are actively (that is, accidentally in-story) causing the events to come about and suffering the not-always-obvious consequences, rather than get swept along by them as they would do in the first series, and as Jen seems to do this year.
So do I like it? Yes. It's the geekiest comedy ever made. There's going to be an American version of it, but I can think of a couple of good prior examples for it working out or not: The Office and Red Dwarf. You may recall that they passed and failed on how well the localization process went – this kills the best-known joke of Yesterday's Jam (the new number for Triple-9). I am optimistic, as the writers of IT Crowd are clearly aware of the international nature of the show, and even the surrealism of the Triple-9 joke works out without an understanding of the events that lead into it (there actually was a number change, but more along the lines of the addition of a 411 line).
Find this show online or from a local video shop, and watch it. If you haven't downloaded it already – aaah! FBI dude with a silenced pistol! *spills jam on keyboard*
Imagine, once ten thousand people call you a friend, you can have your very own tumor, and people who pester you to be their friend in public (remember that recent Candorville?) will die off all the quicker.
And remember, as with smoking, drinking, and various other things that are fairly hazardous to your health, there are only two things that matter with the latest craze: approval (or lack of disapproval) from a government agency that ought to be watching it, and influential people who swear by it."