The IT Crowd, ep 2

OK, I gave The IT Crowd a second chance and was still disappointed. While the second episode was not as bad as the first it still suffers from the same flat characterizations, broad comedy and grating laugh track. The wig and glasses on Richard Ayoade still remind me of Andy Millman on When the Whistle Blows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Whistle_Blows#When_the_Whistle_Blows) far too much. The interminable plotline revolving around Jen's obsession with a single pair of shoes to the point of deformity was neither funny nor remotely original. I did get a couple of laughs out of the way Maurice handled the fire situation and the fact that he built his own stress tester when he wasn't allowed to use someone else's. However, the biggest, ripest target, the doctor giving the stress seminar, was entirely wasted on the dullest, simplest of ironies (lol he is really stressed, too!). Roy still has yet to DO anything to make me notice he's in the show.

Nearly all of the time dedicated to Jen's shoes and Maurice's lack of soldering wisdom could have been dedicated to fleshing out the stress therapist for a better delivery on deflating a self help windbag rather than aiming for the low hanging fruit of 'women sure are car-azy about shoes!' and nerds not having any common sense.

What I find most frustrating about this series is its middling sensibilities. It doesn't have enough balls to do a Dada approach and let the situations grow to absurdist proportions like, say, The Young Ones. But it lacks subtlety and depth of character to become a show where you honestly care about what's happening to any of the characters either, such as (to be cliche) The Office. Just when the show looks like it is about to really skewer a target it pulls back and relies upon something safe and easy to digest. For example, the boss character (who's so remarkable I can't recall his name or title) has all the makings of a tyrannical dictator, demanding more and more unreasonable tasks from his crew. Instead he begins to demand these things and then pulls back and threatens to fire everyone. Far too simple a punishment if he's going to make demand such as "you can't have any stress." The show needs to actually follow through on what it begins before it will make any progress.

I'm going to watch the full first series this week or next (I actually do have some packing, travelling and editing to attend to this week) but I'm frankly not expecting much from such a highly touted series. Thus far still unimpressed.