After hours Toolkit

Techie comedy draws flak and some fans

Staff ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 06 Feb 2006 18:15 GMT

The IT Crowd, a sitcom set in the IT department, hit the nation's screens last Friday and received a decidedly mixed reception.

According to industry figures, 1.8 million viewers watched the first episode, which is relatively poor return for the prime 2100 slot. Of those, a mere 100,000 switched off before the second episode, which was shown immediately afterwards.

This low viewing figure could be partly because these two episodes have been available online for the previous week. But the show, in which IT staff are portrayed as socially inept nerds, bosses as rampaging psychopaths, and women just care about shoes, found itself on the end of some hard-hitting criticism.

AA Gill wrote in The Sunday Times that one problem with the programme is that a lot of viewers, including himself, may have no idea what the IT department of an office is or does.

"I suspect it is one of those very, very little jokes that commuters share as a prophylactic against throwing themselves under the Tube," wrote Gill.

But aside from knocking what he clearly saw as a niche setting, Gill complained that the programme was bigger on situation than comedy.

"The whole thing is utterly and completely bereft of any smidgen of wit, humour or comic insight, and is possibly the least comedic comedy of the century. Its catch phrase is: 'Have you tried turning it off and then on?' Which is one option too many," he opined.

Writing on Bloomberg, Anna Picard complained: "The IT Crowd' is short on invention, plot and humour. I laughed out loud only once, and this was in the second half of the second episode, by which time most sensible people will have switched over."

Other critics were more positive however. The Observer's Kathryn Flett described the show as, "funny but also rather old-fashioned", while the Sunday Telegraph said it was "worth persevering with".

Did you enjoy the IT Crowd? Did you find its characters too clichéd, or was it a mirror-image of your working day? Let us know, by posting a Talkback below.