Black Books

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It hasn't aged as poorly as some of its counterparts (Spaced, for instance)

Tangent time! Has Spaced aged poorly? Tim's insensitive comments about Brian's 'non gender specific' friend wouldn't fly today, but what else? It's obviously a product of its time - what with prominent references to stuff like The Phantom Menace, Playstation 1 and the internet still being the domain of geeks - but that's not a bad thing in itself, is it?

I rewatched it fairly recently (well, four years ago) and was delighted to find I liked it as much as I did in my youth. The actual youth I was watching it with didn't think it was particularly dated, either.

[Jim Bob]

Lucy Davis' drunk acting in the Lifecry/children's book episode is probably the worst I've ever seen though.

Urgh, yes.  It's an atrocious performance.  "Shut up, Tanyyyaaaa" (@16:30 here).

[QDRPHNC]

That's actually my favourite episode.

I swear to god this is nothing to do with Linehan's current... situation, but I've never really gotten the love for Father Ted or Black Books. They're funny enough, but they're very broad (bordering on campy), cheap-feeling... eh, I don't know what the word is.

[Sebastian Cobb]

whimsy?

I know what you mean, sometimes it felt like daftness for daftness sake, and the ott canned laughter didn't help.

[checkoutgirl]

Tangent time! Has Spaced aged poorly?

Not in my opinion. Watched it all again the other week and still love it. Then again I'm 41 with no interest in dubstep or Netflixandchill so maybe I'm not the right person to say.

[Jim Bob]

whimsy?

I know what you mean, sometimes it felt like daftness for daftness sake, and the ott canned laughter didn't help.

*sigh*

It's not canned laughter.  There was a live studio audience for both Father Ted and Black Books.

[Sebastian Cobb]

oh. imagine i said 'sweetened studio laughter'.

[QDRPHNC]

whimsy?

I know what you mean, sometimes it felt like daftness for daftness sake, and the ott canned laughter didn't help.

Yeah, but an immature kind of whimsy. Feels like the sort of thing two moderately witty 18 year olds could write. I don't think there's as wide a gulf between Father Ted and the IT Crowd as many people think.

Weirdly enough, I feel exactly the same way about M. Night Shyamalan's stuff.

*sigh*

It's not canned laughter.  There was a live studio audience for both Father Ted and Black Books.

*SIGH* indeed.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

whimsy?

I know what you mean, sometimes it felt like daftness for daftness sake, and the ott canned laughter didn't help.

Are you sure there wasn't a live audience present? 'Cos sometimes, some of the funnier bits on that show get clapped. I've always thought canned clapping on a comedy show was a bit cheeky. You can see why our American cousins like to proclaim " filmed in front of a live studio audience" about their sitcoms as a matter of honour.

I think the most dated thing about Black Books ( The first series at least) is practically nobody having mobile phones. Landlines all over the place.

[checkoutgirl]

oh. imagine i said 'sweetened studio laughter'.

Is it sweetened though?

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Are you sure there wasn't a live audience present? 'Cos sometimes, some of the funnier bits on that show get clapped. I've always thought canned clapping on a comedy show was a bit cheeky. You can see why our American cousins like to proclaim " filmed in front of a live studio audience" about their sitcoms as a matter of honour.

I think the most dated thing about Black Books ( The first series at least) is practically nobody having mobile phones. Landlines all over the place.

They aren't allowed in the shop. No mobiles. No Walkmans. ...None of that, or any of the rest of them. Singed Bugger Cat.

[neveragain]

I swear to god this is nothing to do with Linehan's current... situation, but I've never really gotten the love for Father Ted or Black Books. They're funny enough, but they're very broad (bordering on campy), cheap-feeling... eh, I don't know what the word is.

Silliness? That's their style. And - while I know you were only giving your opinion so it's not a dig - I don't see anything wrong with that. The world in Father Ted is just as believable as e.g. This Country or Detectorists (and the performances, though on a different register, just as strong).

Not every show has to be a naturalistic mockumentary is my unwarranted point.

[QDRPHNC]

I like silliness though, Reeves and Mortimer for example. Linehan's writing just feels very unrefined to me, whether it's Ted or Black Books or IT Crowd.

Not sure I get your point about performances. Mostly find the performances in these shows pretty poor, with a few exceptions - Ardal O'Hanlon, Dylan Moran... And maybe they suit the overall slapdash style, but I think that's what I'm trying to get at.

[Clownbaby]

I kind of agree with the ''immature whimsy'' about Black Books. For me, a lot of the wordy offbeat lines that maybe Bill Bailey's character said didn't land because they just didn't tickle me and felt maybe a bit contrived


With Father Ted hardly any of it feels contrived to me because the actual people in the situations, are very funny to me. At the same time I totally get why some might really dislike the way everyone performs in Ted. I think it boils down to the cast in IT Crowd, Black Books and Father Ted. I think everyone in Father Ted is the right kind of deranged and the whimsy works. Linehan tried roughly the same kind of character dynamic as Father Ted but in two less funny settings and with two less funny groups of people playing the main characters. That's just what I think and I also think I worded that a bit shit

[Noodle Lizard]

Is it sweetened though?

As with most four-camera sitcoms, there was a physical audience for most of the regular interiors, and anything shot on location (i.e. streets, probably the fast food place) was shot in advance and the audience were reacting to taped playback. The reactions will be mostly genuine, insomuch as we're hearing more or less what was actually recorded at the time. The laughter is "sweetened" in editing/sound-mixing insomuch as they might pad it out to cover a transition or tone it down so the actors can be heard better. A lot of Black Books gags involve close-ups or seeing things from a certain angle, and those were probably pickup shots filmed after the audience taping, so you sometimes get less-enthusiastic responses to those.

It's worth remembering that a studio audience knows they're there specifically to laugh, and since there's so much stopping and starting and scenes being filmed out of order sometimes, it's not as if they're seeing anything like what we're seeing and sometimes might come out of a taping with no idea what the episode was about. But any obvious joke is a cue for them to laugh, that's their bit. One of the many reasons it's less popular now is that audience members started to try and make themselves individually identifiable by their laughter - The Big Bang Theory apparently deals with this all the time, and there's supposedly a guy who's banned from almost every live taping in Hollywood because he'd laugh so loudly and obnoxiously at every one he went to (he was going to any and all of them as often as he could)..

[Jockice]

I like the bit where Bill Bailey sat at the wrong pub table because he was drunk.

[Endicott]

If you're talking about the scene in the first (or 2nd) episode, that was Bernard not Manny who sat in the wrong place because he was drunk.

[Jockice]

If you're talking about the scene in the first (or 2nd) episode, that was Bernard not Manny who sat in the wrong place because he was drunk.

You're right! Quite funny, whoever it was.

[neveragain]

Not sure I get your point about performances. Mostly find the performances in these shows pretty poor, with a few exceptions - Ardal O'Hanlon, Dylan Moran... And maybe they suit the overall slapdash style, but I think that's what I'm trying to get at.

Just that it's fine for a performance to be broad if it suits the style of the show. Maybe not a point worth making but I've seen a lot of criticism about traditional sitcom performances lately, and there's still as much skill and craft required in exaggerated clowning as in a really natural performance.

I sort of get what you mean with unrefined but I see that more in IT Crowd than Fr. Ted or Black Books; despite the odd tangent, I've always found their structure quite tight (indeed, at Linehan's own admission, they often owe a lot to plots from Seinfeld or One Foot In The Grave).

[Clownbaby]

Just that it's fine for a performance to be broad if it suits the style of the show. Maybe not a point worth making but I've seen a lot of criticism about traditional sitcom performances lately, and there's still as much skill and craft required in exaggerated clowning as in a really natural performance.

I sort of get what you mean with unrefined but I see that more in IT Crowd than Fr. Ted or Black Books; despite the odd tangent, I've always found their structure quite tight (indeed, at Linehan's own admission, they often owe a lot to plots from Seinfeld or One Foot In The Grave).

Aye, if you made a triangle out of Black Books, Ted and IT Crowd, the shrivelled nubbin point would be IT Crowd

[Ornlu]

If you're talking about the scene in the first (or 2nd) episode, that was Bernard not Manny who sat in the wrong place because he was drunk.

"Ah yes. What did you order?"
"Lager"
"Here's a... creme de menthe"

[the]

One of the many reasons it's less popular now is that audience members started to try and make themselves individually identifiable by their laughter - The Big Bang Theory apparently deals with this all the time, and there's supposedly a guy who's banned from almost every live taping in Hollywood because he'd laugh so loudly and obnoxiously at every one he went to (he was going to any and all of them as often as he could).

Are The Big Bang Theory on to the other 400 hyperactive asphyxi-laughers that make up the remainder of their audience

[jobotic]

Does nayone here laugh very loudly for one second and then immediately stop and be silent? For every joke they hear.

Whatever the reason for it the laughter in Black Books is unbearable.

[Endicott]

"Ah yes. What did you order?"
"Lager"
"Here's a... creme de menthe"

There's an outtake on the DVD where Dylan fucks up and brings the lager over. Complete with beer mat stuck to the bottom.

[rue the polywhirl]

I just crammed all 3 seasons in the past week and safely say that it's all a bit unreservedly wonderful. Didn't find it dated or have a problem with the laughter track. Definitely steps up after series 1, the slapstick, scripts, squalor and surrealism just moves up a sharper level. Piano episode is probably my fav but I also love the one where Bernard reads some Freud and decides Manny has to be a psychopathic killer and Manny making the chicken striptease and pole dance while carving it is my favourite moment in the entire run. I really want the dolphin t shirt that Manny wears. Tamsin Greig is also amazingly chiselled in this, a cross between Freddie Mercury and a gorgeous supermodel.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Tamsin Greig is also amazingly chiselled in this, a cross between Freddie Mercury and a gorgeous supermodel.

....as drawn by Ronald Searle, then bought to life ( always got to get that bit in.)

[markburgle]

That's actually my favourite episode.

I swear to god this is nothing to do with Linehan's current... situation, but I've never really gotten the love for Father Ted or Black Books. They're funny enough, but they're very broad (bordering on campy), cheap-feeling... eh, I don't know what the word is.

I think I know what you mean, but you seem to be failing to credit them for the fact that the broadness is overdone in a knowing way. E.g. "Pat Mustard wants to know if he can put his massive tool in my box" - just the sheer nerve of doing such a crassly broad line is what's funny, more than the line itself. That does give a "cheap" feel (assuming you meant tonal cheapness) - but that's part of the fun

[Noodle Lizard]

Someone mentioned earlier that there may not be as wide a gulf between Black Books and The IT Crowd as we think, but I showed my American wife Black Books for the first time and she loved it, to the point where she's started rewatching it of her own accord. But she couldn't get into The IT Crowd at all, despite it probably being more immediately relatable (modern references, less uniquely "British"). It's not as if she can't laugh at stupid/cheap gags or broad characters - Black Books and even more "classic" sitcoms like Fawlty Towers are full of them - but she didn't laugh once at the few episodes of The IT Crowd we got through.

I've never particularly liked The IT Crowd, but this made me look at it a bit more analytically trying to figure out what makes it not work nearly as well as BB, despite having largely similar premises/character dynamics and even entirely recycled plots. The obvious answer would be "It's just not written as well", and that may be it, but I think there are some more immediate things that make it off-putting too:

- It's ugly. Obviously all of Linehan's sitcoms have been set in dingy or otherwise grim locations, but the parish house in Father Ted and the bookshop in Black Books are oozing with a kind of bleak charm. With the bookshop in Black Books, you almost want to be there, despite the toast on the ceiling and unidentifiable rodents roaming around. There's a romance to an old fucked-up bookshop too that I think is innately appealing, and it's certainly enjoyable to spend time in there (from a comfortable distance) no matter what the story is.

With The IT Crowd, it's all brightly-lit, dull and nowhere near as esoteric as those other settings. Of course that's sort of the point, but maybe the point is that, at its core, it's just nowhere near as good a setting as the others, regardless of what you do with it.

- The characters are too broad for their environment. This kind of ties in with the first point about setting, but it's something that really sprung out at me watching it this time. I don't think anyone's entirely opposed to broad, silly characters, but there's an uncanny cheapness to it when they're presented against a dull corporate backdrop. Bernard can pretty much go as mad as he wants to because he's an extension of the mad environment he's built for himself (which scarcely even follows the rules of physics), but to have similarly "big" characters doing that in a sterile office setting just comes off more lazy and stupid than anything else - especially when "office" comedy had recently been done very successfully with a much more subtle approach (can't remember the name of it).

- It doesn't feel "nice" (which is a terribly reductive way of putting it, but there you go). While Black Books features Bernard (and other characters) casually bullying, manipulating and outright abusing others, the characters themselves are so well-drawn and "likeable" (if not sympathetic) that you're almost rooting for them in spite of how horrible they are. In The IT Crowd, it often feels just grim and unpleasant, like Roy's plot with the woman who'd been in an accident or pretty much any of Matt Berry's plots. At no point do you ever feel like you're on their side, whereas with Bernard you kind of want him to succeed, whilst also sympathising with Manny and everyone else he assaults with his personality. I'd say Fran comes closest to an IT Crowd character in terms of being obnoxious and pathetic without the charm to negate it, which is why I think her plots often work the least well.

- It relies too much on "in-jokes". I understand it was going for the booming "nerd" demographic, but there were too many moments per episode where we're meant to laugh out of recognition rather than because the joke was especially funny in and of itself. That inherently makes it less universal and it ages poorly to boot. While Black Books, Father Ted, Fawlty Towers etc. are certainly "of their time", there's little in them that makes them impenetrable to someone watching 20+ years later because their ultimate focus is on humans and the environments they're responding to/a product of, whereas even the most recent episodes of The IT Crowd are difficult to enjoy now because they rely so much on pointing at individual moments in culture or technology which had become more or less irrelevant a year or two later.

- It's limited by its format. I'm not even sure if I agree with this as a rule, but there's definitely something to be said for four-camera sitcoms being made redundant by the kind of comedy that was becoming popular post-2000. We instinctively accept when we see something from the 90s or before that this was the "done thing" when it came to TV comedy, and so it's far easier to forgive their tackiness. The IT Crowd looks like it's from the mid-2000s, and there's a disconnect between its cheap set laugh-track format and its era. Earlier sitcoms benefit somewhat from that immediate visual identifier that it's "from the past", and later sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother basically don't even pretend to be filmed in front of a live audience for the most part, but The IT Crowd tries to carry on with the 90s sitcom format with no real justification other than "this is what worked before". Granted, it evidently did work - I think The IT Crowd was probably Linehan's most successful project overall - but that certainly contributes to it not being looked back on as fondly as sitcoms that actually were era-appropriate. While Father Ted and Black Books pushed that format to and beyond your expectations of it, The IT Crowd feels hampered by it more than anything else.

I'm sure there's more to it, but that's what I've got for now.

TL;DR - Black Books is scientifically better than The IT Crowd.

[neveragain]

Very good points. I would also add that the characterisation of Roy is very weak and I think that affects the performance. Is he a geeky giggling nerd or a sighing everyman? Is he good with women or socially awkward? Is he intelligent or just daft? None of these things are nailed down (and not in a multi-layered way).

It's guff.

[Dewt]

The material in the IT Crowd would have made for a very good series of short YouTube videos totaling around 20 minutes.