This weekend we had the first two episodes of Channel 4’s new comedy series ‘The IT Crowd’. It has been available for download for the last week from the web, so I’d heard a couple of opinions of the show, however we waited until Friday to see the show.

The reviews I’d had from friends who had seen the show were pretty mixed, ranging from a ‘not bad’ to one person – who oddly enough works on an IT support desk – who thought it was absolutely dire. Having watched the first two episodes, I really enjoyed it, and Beth thought it was pretty good too. The writer of the show was also behind Father Ted, which I think gave us a pretty good idea of what to expect – as Beth said, it was pretty much Father Ted in an IT department. Thinking about it, you could almost describe it as a cross between Father Ted and a Dilbert cartoon!

Watching it, I suspect that the reason my support desk friend didn’t like it is that a number of the jokes are very much at the expense of support desks. For example right at the beginning of the first episode we have one of the support team ignoring a ringing phone, something that I guess most people who have to phone IT support think they have encountered – certainly there is one particular team at work who we are sure leave their phones off the hook at times! Watching it as someone who works in IT you definitely need the ability to laugh at yourself, for example the efforts to not have to speak to someone on the phone, even sending an e-mail to the fire brigade to report a fire, and the whole sequence where the two techies cause a good deal of stress in the stress reduction session.

Anyway, in our opinion the series certainly seemed to get off to a good start, and if you’re a fan of Father Ted, I’m sure you’ll find much to enjoy in the IT Crowd.