Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

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To put things into context: Harry Hill aside, all British TV Comedy right now is total shit.

-- Ruairi Wirewool (horseproduction...), January 15th, 2007. (Ruairi Wirewool) (later)

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what were the chances of that happening?
-- mark grout (mark.grou...), January 15th, 2007. (mark grout) (later)

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If you can put CT and Green Wing on a par, you truly show a lack of discernment IMO.
Frankly, now that GW has been and gone, I'm inclined to agree with Ruairi, minus the bit about Harry Hill.

-- You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (papiermachealamphibia...), January 15th, 2007. (Haberdager) (later)

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If you can put CT and Green Wing on a par, you truly show a lack of discernment IMO.
no it's just a 'higher' (or rather 'stricter') level of discernment.

-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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'the thick of it' will be back, later in the year, and so will 'peep show'.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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but in a another more accurate sense...
-- mark s (mar...), January 15th, 2007. (mark s) (later)

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but then i do like Harry Hill so it's apples and roundabouts.
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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rubbish
-- RJG (RJ...), January 15th, 2007. (RJG) (later)

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so you keep saying
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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RJG's TV Burp
-- Dom Passantino (juror...), January 15th, 2007. (Dom Passantino) (later)

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Hmm. I was only talking about currently-running comedy shows. If Peep Show returns for a fourth bite at the cherry (and TTOI for a second), I will only be too delighted. Of course, the one I'm really looking out for is Nathan Barley II.
-- You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (papiermachealamphibia...), January 15th, 2007. (Haberdager) (later)

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i think it would be a big ask for there to be a 'great' uk comedy series to be running all 52 weeks of the year. i have low standards perhaps; but i don't ask for a 'great' film each month either.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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of course i too want 'nathan barley' back.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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They could drop scissors on a dog's head this time.
-- Dom Passantino (juror...), January 15th, 2007. (Dom Passantino) (later)

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uh, rose-tinted view there i reckon - but at least it was generating interesting discussion.
one episode of Screen Wipe a month would be good. ditto TV Burp.

-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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ha ha Dom OTM
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

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Unread Messages
as with 'green wing', take away the hype and the expectation it'll live up to 'the day today' and 'nathan barley' was 23 minutes well-spent. i lolled anyway.
-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), January 15th, 2007. (Enrique) (later)

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i didn't laugh more than i did laugh etc.
-- vita susicivus (n...), January 15th, 2007. (blueski) (later)

And Screen Wipe rocks.

it was good, but not 300 times better than 'nathan barley'.

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steve otm

this happened in the show except he thought she turned out not be under-age (at which point NB thinking it now okay to pretend she WAS under-age was actually quite a clever little point about...something or other).

i did hate NB but yes no less than anyone else around him.

Actually, scratch that, that's not the idea at all. It's funny caricatures falling into situations and scrambling to return to the status quo whilst simultaneously being trapped; a very old-fashioned sitcom thread. I certainly didn't feel that is was trying to make a big insightful statement about something, at least, nothing larger than "it's better to like something than to dislike something."

'THIR-FUCKING-TEEN'.

In fairness, I guess originally Barley wasn't really a character, just a cipher, and in making him human Morriss and Brooker made him more, er, human. I just don't think that made for great comedy. It wasn't sharp enough to be genuine satire and it wasn't silly enough to be knockabout comedy. It was just 'dark'.

I doubt whether Channel 4 enforced any 'nicening'.
You know, maybe Barley always looked like that in Brooker's head, and if you boil the actions in any of the episodes down to the kind of 3-sentence description that you would find in TV Go Home, it wouldn't be that different. But TVGH gave the impression that Barley was a cartoonishly horrible amoral grotesque, and that's not what we got in the TV show. We got 'idiots'. I hoped it would be either venemous or ridiculous and it was neither.

pt. I

pt. II

i lolled?

Oh okay, I didn't read the website so I didn't know what was supposed to happen, I only saw (and liked) what did.

Koogs, I'm a big fan of the Spelling Bee, as I think I mentioned before.

Like, for whatever that's worth. It's not like I'm some great arbiter of taste or anything.

it is, apparently, series 2 of the Australian variant.

I think that’s still Aaron Chen.

yes, recognised him from Oz Taskmaster

Hamish from lego masters au was on Spelling B the other day.

colin from accounts starts again on bbc2 tonight.

New series of Colin From Accounts is terrible. I loved S2 but this new one is just awful.

Oh, that's a shame. I felt S2 started to go off the rails - his emotional immaturity was becoming a hard watch - so I'm not overly surprised, but I'm disappointed nonetheless.

I do wish that excellent Aussie motherhood comedy, The Letdown, had got a couple more series.

New series of Colin From Accounts is terrible. I loved S2 but this new one is just awful.

Well, that answers that question. I stopped watching it in season two after they went to visit his terrible family, but I did wonder if it had picked up again.

i didn't mind the fist episode of the new Colin. but i'm not sure the comedy bits weren't the least interesting bits.

second part tonight

(though i do feel sometimes that i would rather watch anything than nothing, especially if i have residual feelings for it, and maybe this is one of those)

I watched the first two eps of S3 last night and really enjoyed it!

Youtube served me up the first episode of World Of Pub, a 00's sitcom that happens to feature Peter Serafinowicz and Kevin Eldon, amongst others. Enjoyed it a lot, especially the notion of the Queen being invited to "the 200th anniversary of the East End".

That's surfaced in my algorithm a couple of times recently, too - I definitely want to give it a go, as I'm sure I missed it on the first go-round.

I think we may all have similar algorithms. It seemed like a radio comedy that didn’t suit tv at all. Still a fun enough way to spend half hour.

I'm annoyed that TLC have not put zombie Mock the Week up on their Youtube channel for me to watch without ads.

I have to say I absolutely thoroughly loved s03 of Colin From Accounts, one of the best things I've seen all year: genuinely laugh-out-loud moments in every episode and proper decent romcom action that never went sentimental but did properly tug at the heartstrings in a way I've not seen work so well since Love, that sitcom with Britta from Community on Netflix.