Bovey Traces

This was my TV review of the sitcom The IT Crowd, first published on a now-retired blog on 7 February 2006.   The IT Crowd Channel 4 – 9.00 P.M. Even with a pedigree like Graham Linehan’s ( The Day Today , Father Ted , and Black Books ), Channel 4’s decision to show the first two episodes of his new sitcom The IT Crowd  back-to-back is unclear. Perhaps they felt, as with Father Ted , it needed a couple of episodes to get to know the characters. So the first episode was spent mostly setting up the situation of Jen (Katherine Parkinson) disrupting the geeky world of computer nerds Roy (Chris O’Dowd) and Maurice (Richard Ayoade). Despite the inevitable IT clichés early on (technophobe Jen forgetting to plug her computer in) the show had got into gear by the second episode. Chris Morris was reminiscent of Reggie Perrin’s C.J. as the overbearing boss Denholm, and there was evidence of the surreal, knowing plot-telegraphing that Linehan excels at (involving a barefoot Jen and a Japa...

This was my TV review of the sitcom Pulling, first published on a now-retired blog on 19 May 2009. Last night saw the final 60-minute special of the brilliant  Pulling  on BBC Three, after the channel announced it was, ahem, pulling  the cult sitcom last year. For anyone who’s never seen the show, it follows the dysfunctional relationships of three female housemates, Donna, Karen and Louise. In the previous two series, episodes have mined some pretty dark areas for a sitcom (think  Sex and the City  as conceived by Joe Orton), including suicide attempts, copious drug abuse, stalkers, flashers and feline euthanasia. The final episode continued in the same vein, with themes of obsessive love (Louise returns from abroad several pounds lighter but burdened with an unwanted partner, whom she discovers she prefers comatose to conscious), terminal illness (Karen’s ex Billy reveals he has cancer and wants to go swimming with dolphins before he dies) and domestic abuse...