The IT Crowd (2006)

The IT Crowd is a British sitcom that lasted four seasons for a total of 24 episodes. Centered on a three-person corporate IT department with little to no adult supervision, it is basically Black Books with two nerds and a twit. The characters hold up well, individually and as an ensemble cast, and the loopy corporate president (first father, then son) adds a quirky nuance to the show’s tangy idiot stew. The jokes are a bit old and often predictable, but they offer a certain familiarity that seems to be common in British comedy (for example, Fawlty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous, Are You Being Served, and The Catherine Tate Show). Roy is Irish, a temperamental technician who fairly functions in the real world and sometimes gets a girl (briefly). Moss is a Brillo-haired OC mama’s boy who is literal-minded and can only interest a girl in the most unlikely of circumstances. Jen is the clueless up-and-comer with no IT skills who is made the duo’s manager. Plots center around the idiot executive son hitting on women in the workplace or partying at company expense, or Jen claiming to understand and speak Italian, or Roy obsessing over the inconsistencies in his girlfriend’s life story (that she refuses to discuss further), or Moss bailing out Jen or getting into trouble with some technological toy he slapped together. It is all quite familiar (“Hello, IT. Did you turn it off and on first?”) yet othernerdly as you realize how lucky it is that this IT crowd barely gets by in the day-to-day world. 3.5 stars. (6-21-13, posted 3-2-16)