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Peep Show

Started by rue the polywhirl, December 29, 2019, 01:10:45 PM

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Hand Solo

Quote from: thenoise on August 23, 2020, 07:30:07 PM
I took that as a hint of El Dude brothers Mark, the student that hanged around with Jez before he got a boring job and bought a flat. In those early episodes they really had respect for each other - Mark tried to work out how Jeremy was 'cool' and got the girl etc, while Jeremy relied on Mark to do all the 'proper grown up' things (and let him stay in his flat rent free). Im not sure exactly when they started hating each other.

I'd imagine it started exactly when Jez stopped paying rent.

The Mollusk

"Work-shy freeloader."

"Tight-fisted cockmuncher."

paruses

Yea that El Dude reading sums it up well.

When I say jarring I mean on a rewatch after several series have passed. In itself it's quite a nice little vignette.

Urinal Cake

I think Mark is the one who changes, Jez stays mostly the same. Mark loses his career and is forced to work to support a child he has with a woman that he hates.  He's lost some of his superiority over Jez. Apart from the Dobby incident Jez on the other hand seems as carefree as ever.

Billy

DVDs of this can be found pretty cheaply at CeX these days - 50p a series up to Series 6, then rising oddly sharply to £2 for S7, £4 for S8 and £8 for S9, presumably because that's the point when DVDs started selling less so there's fewer copies to be found hence the higher pricing. I found the Series 1-6 boxset for £2.50 there the other day so I've been watching them all for the first time in over a decade.

I was in my teenage years when I discovered the show when S3 first got aired, at first being a bit creeped out by both the POV (and David Mitchell's wide-eyed face) but quickly grew to love it. By the time S5 was shown I was essentially using it as a guide as to how (not) be an adult, genuinely fearing as a 19 year old I was destined to be Mark Corrigan and doing everything I could to stop it. Agreed that the wedding episode in S4 would have been the perfect end point and it loses its way around S8, but there's still plenty of good stuff after and Dobby is a genuinely brilliant addition in the fifth series. Favourite episode is the university one in S2, which still genuinely breaks my heart in the last few minutes - even now knowing what happens in the final series.

Slightly horrifying to think that all the main leads are a couple years away from turning 50 now, or into their 50s in Matt King's case. 2023 reunion special?

neveragain

Quote from: Urinal Cake on August 23, 2020, 11:00:13 PM
I think Mark is the one who changes, Jez stays mostly the same. Mark loses his career and is forced to work to support a child he has with a woman that he hates.  He's lost some of his superiority over Jez. Apart from the Dobby incident Jez on the other hand seems as carefree as ever.

Jez at least realised he was gay (or bisexual) in the last season. He also gives the self-aware reply "Probably never" to his life-mentoring client who asks when he thinks he'll make it as a musician.

thenoise

Quote from: Urinal Cake on August 23, 2020, 11:00:13 PM
I think Mark is the one who changes, Jez stays mostly the same. Mark loses his career and is forced to work to support a child he has with a woman that he hates.  He's lost some of his superiority over Jez. Apart from the Dobby incident Jez on the other hand seems as carefree as ever.

I predicted that they were going to 'switch places'. It wasnt unreasonable that Jez might bumble his way into a job he genuinely enjoyed and was good at (although naturally lazy he would pursue things quite diligently if he was inspired to do so), while Mark's erratic behaviour got him blacklisted from loan manager positions, and he is too resigned to failure to retrain so just hangs about the house not doing the washing up, perhaps persuading himself that he's a writer (while failing to pay rent to Jeremy, who has now bought the house from Mark - with ghe money Mark self-published another terrible history/business cross over book, unsold copies of which are threatening to take over his bedroom).

paruses

#127
Quote from: neveragain on August 25, 2020, 03:41:55 PM
Jez at least realised he was gay (or bisexual) in the last season. He also gives the self-aware reply "Probably never" to his life-mentoring client who asks when he thinks he'll make it as a musician.

I never really bought that Jez was bisexual even though he and Super Hans suck each other off and he gives hand jobs to The Orgazoid (is that the bloke's name?). Those seemed more out of circumstance, obligation, or laziness than sexual persuasion. Does he ever express a physical attraction to another man in any of the preceding series? He has a crush on the monk boyfriend but again that seems out of insecurity than attraction.

When she finds out about the hand jobs, Big Suze Nancy says she always thought he would end up doing something like that as if she agrees 100% with me i.e. Jez has just got himself into a situation.

[Edit to correct to Nance]

ajsmith2

Quote from: paruses on August 25, 2020, 06:21:23 PM
I never really bought that Jez was bisexual even though he and Super Hans suck each other off and he gives hand jobs to The Orgazoid (is that the bloke's name?). Those seemed more out of circumstance, obligation, or laziness than sexual persuasion. Does he ever express a physical attraction to another man in any of the preceding series? He has a crush on the monk boyfriend but again that seems out of insecurity than attraction.

When she finds out about the hand jobs, Big Suze says she always thought he would end up doing something like that as if she agrees 100% with me i.e. Jez has just got himself into a situation.

Nancy not Big Suze, as it was series 4. Sorry for pedantry.

paruses

Yes of course.

I'd have thought I'd have remembered every single scene Nancy was in too.

sutin

Quote from: paruses on August 25, 2020, 06:21:23 PM
I never really bought that Jez was bisexual even though he and Super Hans suck each other off and he gives hand jobs to The Orgazoid (is that the bloke's name?). Those seemed more out of circumstance, obligation, or laziness than sexual persuasion. Does he ever express a physical attraction to another man in any of the preceding series? He has a crush on the monk boyfriend but again that seems out of insecurity than attraction.

When she finds out about the hand jobs, Big Suze Nancy says she always thought he would end up doing something like that as if she agrees 100% with me i.e. Jez has just got himself into a situation.

[Edit to correct to Nance]

Completely agree with this.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Also agreed. It was playing fast and loose with the character.

sutin

Thinking back, that final series was a bit shit in general. I thought bringing April back from that perfect early episode was lazy and unneccessary af.

QDRPHNC

Although it did give us the dinner party episode, parts of which came close to capturing the spirit of the earlier series.

Hand Solo

Quote from: QDRPHNC on August 25, 2020, 07:13:29 PM
Although it did give us the dinner party episode, parts of which came close to capturing the spirit of the earlier series.


king_tubby

Quote from: paruses on August 25, 2020, 06:21:23 PM
I never really bought that Jez was bisexual even though he and Super Hans suck each other off and he gives hand jobs to The Orgazoid (is that the bloke's name?). Those seemed more out of circumstance, obligation, or laziness than sexual persuasion. Does he ever express a physical attraction to another man in any of the preceding series? He has a crush on the monk boyfriend but again that seems out of insecurity than attraction.

When she finds out about the hand jobs, Big Suze Nancy says she always thought he would end up doing something like that as if she agrees 100% with me i.e. Jez has just got himself into a situation.

[Edit to correct to Nance]

Hmm, when he has sex with Sophie and she tells him she's only slept with four (or five?) men he thinks 'I've slept with more men than that'.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

If we are assuming that's not just a one liner, that ends '... And im basically straight'.

sutin

Quote from: QDRPHNC on August 25, 2020, 07:13:29 PM
Although it did give us the dinner party episode, parts of which came close to capturing the spirit of the earlier series.

Easily the best of the bunch.

Quote from: king_tubby on August 25, 2020, 07:19:00 PM
Hmm, when he has sex with Sophie and she tells him she's only slept with four (or five?) men he thinks 'I've slept with more men than that'.

That's much too throwaway to be a window into Jez's bisexuality. I just imagined he slept with those men out of circumstance or boredom.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: sutin on August 25, 2020, 07:12:24 PM
Thinking back, that final series was a bit shit in general. I thought bringing April back from that perfect early episode was lazy and unneccessary af.

It frustrates me far more than it reasonably should that they retroactively ruined one of the most perfect endings to an episode by bringing her back - with him watching her walk away, knowing that he's absolutely impotent to do anything about it because he lied his way into the entire situation, the idea that she might actually have been "the one", but he'd never know: "This is okay. This is just a moment that will haunt me forever."

Nope. Fucked it.

Icehaven

Yeah but...how many men who consider themselves to be basically straight have slept with even one man out of "circumstance or boredom" (not counting prison)? I think Jez is the kind of bi where he sleeps with men but doesn't even consider having an actual relationship with a man (until Joe, but even then it's part of a love triangle where he's slept with the woman too so it's not as if he just gets a boyfriend.) I think Jez occasionally having sex with men is very much in character but the Joe storyline nearly isn't.

Hand Solo

Quote from: icehaven on August 25, 2020, 08:18:51 PM
Yeah but...how many men who consider themselves to be basically straight have slept with even one man out of "circumstance or boredom" (not counting prison)? I think Jez is the kind of bi where he sleeps with men but doesn't even consider having an actual relationship with a man (until Joe, but even then it's part of a love triangle where he's slept with the woman too so it's not as if he just gets a boyfriend.) I think Jez occasionally having sex with men is very much in character but the Joe storyline nearly isn't.

I think Jez in the early series has sex with men because he's off his head on whatever and it's part and parcel of being in that state (the bad thing) but because of his internalised homophobia he just shakes it off as blacked out shenanigans. He doesn't mind talking about it because it fits in with his Bohemian lifestyle and arty experimental self-image. The later stuff with Joe he isn't off his head on drugs so with no cop-out he sort of has to accept his bisexuality/gayness, also he's having a mid-life crisis which pushes him into flaunting it because he's getting older but seeing a much younger man gives him a sense of vitality.

sutin

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on August 25, 2020, 08:17:31 PM
It frustrates me far more than it reasonably should that they retroactively ruined one of the most perfect endings to an episode by bringing her back - with him watching her walk away, knowing that he's absolutely impotent to do anything about it because he lied his way into the entire situation, the idea that she might actually have been "the one", but he'd never know: "This is okay. This is just a moment that will haunt me forever."

Nope. Fucked it.
I couldn't agree more. It's fairly bizarre that April doesn't remember him either, right?

Billy

On the commentary for the wedding episode in S4, they reveal that originally April was meant to reappear in that as the woman working at the coffee shop who Mark asks to marry. They briefly then toyed with the idea of bringing Sally back in that role from earlier that series (Mark's school reunion pal he almost has an affair with) before they thought that both would be a bit too much of a coincidence so made her an anonymous new character instead. Agreed I think as the moment works better with a complete stranger.

sutin

It's so weird that Toni is never referred to again after the first two series.

Hand Solo

Quote from: sutin on August 26, 2020, 02:16:20 AM
It's so weird that Toni is never referred to again after the first two series.

The actress was meant to be in a few other episodes but had prior commitments so they replaced her with another character, specifically Michelle he has the 'threesome' with in the Mugging episode, same as they did with Sophie's brother Simon who was replaced with 'cousin Barney' because they couldn't get the guy back.

frajer

When it first aired I didn't realise Sophie's brother Simon and cousin Barney were even different characters/actors. It was only on a recent binge watch that it clicked.

Yeah the swapout with Toni for a Toni-Lite character was a shame because it would have followed on very nicely that Jez fucked it up royally with Nancy and then had to move in with the awful woman he cheated on her with.

Side note - I do enjoy it when the perpetual fuckabout Jez misjudges how much he can get away with and ends up being dominated by a strict partner (not necessarily via the means of a strap-on, but hey why not). His second or third dalliance with Mark's sister when she ended up creating him a Google calendar schedule that he wasn't allowed access to was a good'un too.

ajsmith2

#146
Quote from: Hand Solo on August 26, 2020, 02:33:54 PM
The actress was meant to be in a few other episodes but had prior commitments so they replaced her with another character, specifically Michelle he has the 'threesome' with in the Mugging episode, same as they did with Sophie's brother Simon who was replaced with 'cousin Barney' because they couldn't get the guy back.

I thought in both of those cases (and esp with Barney) the fact that each was a nearly identical new character obviously only created to fulfil a plotline already written for an existing character they couldn't get the actor for was just as jarring than if they'd just recast the roles. Ok, a recast Toni wouldn't have worked well either as she was a major character in series 1/2, but I think they could have got away with recasting Simon EDIT: actually Jamie for the Barney episode as it's a POV show and having him played by someone else would show how little Jez or anyone else cared about him or paid attention to him*

* interestingly, Arrested Development had already kind of done this was Ann, who was originally meant to be played be a different actress in every episode as a gag about how unmemorable she was, although this ended up falling at the second hurdle when the 2nd actress who played her, Mae Whitman, was so effective at playing bland that they kept her on: https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2385181/why-arrested-development-originally-wanted-to-recast-mae-whitmans-ann

ajsmith2

Quote from: sutin on August 26, 2020, 02:16:20 AM
It's so weird that Toni is never referred to again after the first two series.

We've come to remember Toni so fondly these days because she's only in the golden first 2 series, so she's become like a mark of quality. Also she's a sexy slightly older 'slight hangover from the 90s' type sophisticated experienced woman. She seems slightly too old and experienced for the scene in the same way that Jez and Mark would become themselves later in the series.

Hand Solo

I forgot, it's Jamie not Simon who's Sophie's brother.. these videos cover him and the Michelle swaps:

Jamie and Barney

Michelle

JaDanketies

I think they kinda dropped the ball on the Mark and Sophie's baby episode too. It was hardly the transformative change in Mark's life than it would've been. The baby hardly existed. I think this was epitomised in a scene where Mark had them under the office desk while he played computer games.