The IT Crowd (pronounced /ˈɪt/ or /ˌaɪˈtiː/ ) is a British sitcom, written by Graham Linehan and produced by Ash Atalla for Channel 4. The series has won BAFTA and International Emmy awards. Three series have been produced to date with a Christmas special planned for December 2009, and a fourth series commissioned for 2010.
Situation and plot
Main article: List of The IT Crowd episodesThe IT Crowd is set in the offices of Reynholm Industries, a fictitious British corporation in central London. It focuses on the shenanigans of the three-strong IT support team located in a dingy, untidy and unkempt basement – a stark contrast to the shining modern architecture and stunning London views enjoyed by the rest of the organisation. The obscurity surrounding what the company does, serves as a running gag throughout the series – all that is known is that the company bought and sold ITV (a fact which Denholm Reynholm forgot completely), and once made part-year profits of "eighteen hundred billion billion". The team consists of what Douglas Reynholm describes as "a dynamic go-getter (Jen), a genius (Moss) and a man from Ireland (Roy)".
Moss and Roy, the two technicians, are portrayed as socially inept geeks or, in Denholm Reynholm's words, "standard nerds". Despite the company's dependence on their services, they are despised, ignored, and considered losers by the rest of the staff. Roy's exasperation is reflected in his support techniques of ignoring the phone in the hope it will stop ringing, and using reel-to-reel tape recordings of stock IT suggestions ("Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and "Is it definitely plugged in?"). He expresses his "personality" by wearing a different geek T-shirt in each episode. Moss's wide and intricate knowledge of all things technical is reflected in his extremely accurate yet utterly indecipherable suggestions, while demonstrating a complete inability to deal with practical problems like extinguishing fires and removing spiders.
Jen, the newest member of the team, is hopelessly non-technical, despite claiming on her CV that she has "a lot of experience with computers". As Denholm, the company boss, is equally tech-illiterate, he is convinced by Jen's interview bluffing and appoints her head of the IT department. Her official title is "relationship manager", yet her attempts at bridging the gulf between the technicians and the business generally have the opposite effect, landing Jen in situations just as ludicrous as those of her teammates.
Main cast
Main article: List of characters on the IT crowd
- Chris O'Dowd as Roy : a laid back IT technician from Ireland, Roy is often shown to go to great lengths to avoid actually having to perform his duties at Reynholm Industries and is described along with co-worker Moss as a "standard nerd" by the then-in-charge and alive Denholm Reynholm.
- Richard Ayoade as Maurice Moss : Highly intelligent with lack of social skills, Moss is a "standard nerd" who struggles to communicate with anything that doesn't have a keyboard Moss lives at home with his mother, who also dresses him.
- Katherine Parkinson as Jen Barber : after claiming she has had "a lot of experience with computers" Jen is made head of Reynholm Industries IT department, where she is soon proven by Roy and Moss to in fact have no knowledge of IT at all. However, she finds her niche by working as the Relationship Manager between IT and the rest of Reynholm Industries.
- Chris Morris as Denholm Reynholm (series 1 & 2 recurring, series 3 'From Hell'): the founder of Reynholm industries, Denholm has very little understanding of IT. In series 2 Denholm is informed by the police of a problem with the company's pension accounts, leading him to immediately walk out a high story window, committing suicide. He appears once in series 3 when Douglas sees him briefly in the afterlife.
- Matt Berry as Douglas Reynholm (series 2 recurring, 3 main cast): The son of Denholm "that fled from a hefty lawsuit to go off womanising all over the world" using his father's cash, Douglas inherits Reynholm Industries.
- Noel Fielding as Richmond Avenal (series 1 & 2 recurring): once a young go-getter at Reynholm Industries, Richmond was the right-hand-man to Denholm, before finding Cradle of Filth and becoming a Goth - leading to his downfall as a successful businessman. As a result he ends up confined to the server room in the basement, next to the IT department. Richmond disappears in series 3 after developing scurvy and is not heard of again
Production
Filming locations
The first series of six episodes was produced and recorded in front of a live audience at Teddington Studios and series 2 and 3 were shot at Pinewood Studios, with some additional outdoors footage.
Broadcast
The first series premiered on 3 February 2006, the second series on 24 August 2007 and the third series on 21 November 2008.
In a first for Channel 4, each episode of the first series was available for download via the station's web site for the seven days preceding its initial TV broadcast. Downloads were only available for UK and Ireland viewers and were supplied in Windows Media Video format. All but the first two episodes were encoded with DRM restrictions.
The show is broadcast internationally, in Australia series 1&2 were broadcast on ABC, with syndication on ABC2, as well as being aired on UKTV and Foxtel, in Bulgaria channel GTV began airing the show in July 2008, Canadian channel G4 Canada ran the show during their Adult Digital Distraction segment in July 2007, in Czech Republic the show was broadcast on Česká televize and HBO, TV 2 Zulu hosts the show in Denmark, Comedy Central Germany started airing the first season in September 2009 .
Cultural references
The show tries to add a large number of references to geek culture and professionalism, mostly in set dressing and props. Dialogue (both technical and cultural) is usually authentic and any technobabble used often contains in-jokes for viewers knowledgeable in such subjects.
Home release
Series 1
The first series was released in the UK as "The IT Crowd - Version 1.0" on 13 November 2006 by 2 Entertain Video Ltd. The DVD start-up sequence and subsequent menus are designed to resemble a ZX Spectrum. The DVD also included a short film written and directed by Linehan called Hello Friend , which starred Martin Savage in a silent role, and also has appearances from Richard Ayoade and Little Britain's David Walliams. Other special features include deleted scenes, outtakes, audio commentaries on all episodes and a tongue in cheek behind-the-scenes documentary presented by Ken Korda, a film maker created and portrayed by Comedian Adam Buxton.
An American version of the DVD was originally planned to be released by BCI Eclipse for a 4 September 2007 release, but on 14 August 2007 it was announced that since the American version of the show had been pushed back to an early 2008 start, the DVD would be released on 18 February 2008. Review copies were sent out in January 2008, with multiple websites, such as TVShowsonDVD.com and tvdvdreviews.com, posting reviews. For unknown reasons the DVD was delayed again, and MPI Home Video received the rights for the show and released it on 31 March 2009.
Series 2
"The IT Crowd - Version 2.0" DVD was released in the UK on 1 October 2007, together with a box set containing both the first and second series. Initial plans to release series two without region encoding did not go ahead. Retail chain HMV sold an exclusive limited edition version featuring a set of four postcards in the style of popular viral photos such as Ceiling Cat — here replicated as Ceiling Goth .
The disc contains a commentary track, outtakes and "Recording The IT Crowd" featurette. Whereas the first series DVD menus parodied 8-bit games, the Series 2 DVD menus parody 16-bit games and make reference to Zero Wing (all your base meme), Mortal Kombat, Tetris and Lemmings. They were animated by London animation studio, CHASE. There are also several 'hidden' extras encoded into the subtitles. These are done in much the same way as the base64 subtitles from Series 1, and include three JPG images and a text adventure game file. Episode 4 has a BBC BASIC listing, and Episode 6 has light bars in the corner of the screen which can be decoded using a light reader.
Series 3
A box-set containing all three series was released in the UK on 16 March 2009 under the 2ENTERTAIN label. A single DVD featuring all six episodes was also released on the 16th of March. As with both the series 1 and 2 DVDs, the menus are based on different games. In particular, such internet games as GROW CUBE, Doeo and flow.
Future
Creator Linehan comme
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