Stuff You Just Don't Get.

[Thierry Ennui]

The Office was one of those ideas that in such times - ie, when TV folk were obsessed with vérité - needed to be made. Despite being well-conceived/scripted (which it was, to be fair), BBC2 commissioner Jane Root was reluctant to give it any backing whatsoever. (Of course, when the show finally took off several months after birthing, she was quick to claim credit for its 'discovery'.) But the beauty of The Office - for me, at least - was all in the first series, with its low-rent, claustrophobic atmos and subsequently-trapped characters. Making the whole premise bigger for the second series didn't work at all for me.

I think with Phoenix Nights, there seemed far fewer airs and graces and it was more durably likeable for its knowing cartoonishness. (Plus Peter Kay comes across as a more genuinely decent person in general than Gervais. But I wouldn't really know.)

My theory for why The Office was great and Ricky Gervais nosedived immediately afterwards is along similar lines. I think the limitations placed on him by the mockumentary style toned down some of his worst excesses. For example, any songs in The Office had to be diegetic, so it forced him to tone down the mawkishness and be creative. In contrast, there was a section in the Extras special six years later where he just plonked the whole of 'Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want' by The Smiths over the scene.

I don't think much of Gervais as a person either, but apparently Peter Kay is also a bit of a prick. He's fallen out with loads of people, like Dave Spikey, Daniel Kitson and Neil Fitzmaurice.

[Patrick Thistle]

Going back to my comment on Ricky Gervais. It's just that he seems to be the same character in everything I've seen him in, ranging from Stardust to Muppets Most Wanted to his TV series to his stand up. Which leads me suspect "David Brent" is actually Ricky Gervais. Hence the one trick pony comment. The trick is he makes us think he's acting.

[Patrick Thistle]

Peter Kay is another person who pops up in various things but is always Peter Kay doing a character. Even when he's a villain in Doctor Who.

[Jah Womble]

Or 'somebody from the brewery' on Coronation Street.

Viz Gervais, my first experience of him (barring his stint fronting Seona Dancing - which, like most, I only discovered was him after his fame) was as in-house fool on the original Xfm. Even though I'd not knowingly heard of him, I can remember thinking 'this guy's such a pain I really hope he doesn't get famous'. He then turned up a year or so later working in the office beneath ours at Talkback, as one of several odd choices of on-screens for The 11 o'clock Show.

The rest is mystery.

[Various Artist]

I never got into Peep Show despite enjoying almost everything else Mitchell & Webb have ever done. Can't explain it; just didn't click with me.

This is me, too. I think a large part of the problem is the title – for the first year or two it was on I genuinely confused it with some 'candid camera' show that must've been aired around the same time, and then I was out of the country for a couple of years. By the time I cottoned on, there were five or six series already made and I couldn't be arsed catching up.

Peter Kay is another person who pops up in various things but is always Peter Kay doing a character. Even when he's a villain in Doctor Who.

Also my thoughts entirely. The sole exception is his truly outstanding Geraldine in Britain's Got The Pop Factor..., a character he disappeared into so completely I could practically forget there was a man under the costume and makeup. That programme also had the unimpeachable 'The Winner's Song', a spoof of all the X-Factor-type of, well, winner's songs that was so deadly accurate it's amazing anyone ever dared sing another one non-ironically.

[Hot Pepsi]

The US version of The Office is actually better. This sort of explains why.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I don't know if you could come across two better examples of the difference between US and UK comedy. There are 17 times as many episodes of the American show as the UK one. They tweaked the US one after a series to make steve Carrell's character more likable and the show more optimistic, which is fair enough, because the UK show is about an awful cunt and a bunch of people trapped in a nightmarishly claustrophobic world. You can't make 26 shows a year like that. Your huge team of writers will all lose the will to live.

The thing about the shows that they list there though is that they're just not very interesting. I appreciate that it's obviously a generational thing, but there's something incredibly woollen headed about parks and recreation

[Hot Pepsi]

That’s madness. Parks & Rec is fantastic.

I love Seinfeld and the UK office (I’ve only watched a bit of Curb Your Enthusiasm), but ironic detachment and comedy about assholes gets tiresome after a while because, as DFW suggests, it’s ultimately a dead-end.

Shows like The (US) Office, P&R, and 30 Rock were about how people tolerated and found meaning among all the bullshit by forming connections with their fellow bullshit-sufferers.

That’s not only more satisfying, it’s also a richer mine for stories over the long haul. As you say, trying to do more than a few seasons of David Brent would be unbearable. But it would also be tedious. The ups and downs of genuine human relationships is much more interesting.

Even though they kept the series short, I started to lose patience with the UK office toward the end, I don’t really want to watch it again, and I have no more patience for Ricky Gervais’ schtick at all.

However, Gervais was part of the decision to make a Michael Scott less of an worthless asshole than his UK equivalent. Gervais said, reportedly, that useless people have an easier time staying in management in the UK than in the US. So in the US version, they repeatedly showed that Michael Scott was actually very good at selling paper. I don’t know if that comparison between the US and UK is accurate or how Gervais would know that. I also don’t recall where I heard that.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The big problem I have with Parks and Rec is that it is essentially a small town version of the west wing, played for laughs. It exists in a gentler america where conservatives are libertarian tinged Eisenhower republicans, and liberals are well meaning but ultimately inept, and boy do they all get into hilarious scrapes. Whereas in real life Ron would be a jackbooted agent of the New Fascism, and passing ordinances to keep transgender people out of the 'wrong' bathroom, and backing the police in their right to shoot black people when they feel like it. It's essentially got that gloopy thing about it that the West Wing had where it exists in a completely idealized gentler America. There's a lot about it that is good, (I think Amy Poehler is great) and In a lot of ways it's the polar opposite of Seinfeld, which I can't handle at all because it is essentially a comedy about three utter cunts, and their gobshite friend who is trapped in a world of terrible men. (Which I think is the point of Seinfeld)

I also agree with a lot of what you say about the UK office. I watched half of it from behind a sofa. It's an enormously draining experience if you have any capacity for Empathy, and I have no desire to ever watch it again. But the relationship between tim and dawn was brilliantly written and acted. I don't know what the US version of this relationship is like, but the Tim/Dawn side of things was beautifully drawn and showed a certain degree of perception and insight that isn't really present in anything else Gervais has been involved in.

[Jah Womble]

This is me, too. I think a large part of the problem is the title – for the first year or two it was on I genuinely confused it with some 'candid camera' show that must've been aired around the same time, and then I was out of the country for a couple of years. By the time I cottoned on, there were five or six series already made and I couldn't be arsed catching up.

Also my thoughts entirely. The sole exception is his truly outstanding Geraldine in Britain's Got The Pop Factor..., a character he disappeared into so completely I could practically forget there was a man under the costume and makeup. That programme also had the unimpeachable 'The Winner's Song', a spoof of all the X-Factor-type of, well, winner's songs that was so deadly accurate it's amazing anyone ever dared sing another one non-ironically.

Wow - don't think I could agree less here, FWIW. The whole problem with that 'spoof' was that it was far too in love with - and seemingly in cahoots with - its supposed target. I had no particular beef with any individual performance (including that of Kay himself) but could see almost zero irony in the programme at all.

IIRC, it was made by ITV (correct me if otherwise - it was at least ten years ago) and therefore felt very 'monitored' in terms of how far it might be allowed to go. Many of us would've enjoyed seeing these ghastly things savaged to pieces - but Kay's show and character itself were clearly designed entirely for the very same audience that watches the programmes that inspired them.

I suppose I can see why this was the case, but it felt like an opportunity missed to me. And an opportunity that probably can't now arise again.

But then that's probably why it was made.

[Hot Pepsi]

That’s true. There are a lot of financially comfortable liberals who like to imagine all of this is just a “disagreement,” that can be managed by mere tolerance and “civility.” A lot of TV writers are probably like that is starting to grate.

Parks & Rec never portrayed any of the city councilmen, etc, as racist or homophobic, even though that would probably happen sooner or later in Indiana. But the people working in local government - certainly the sort of people who work in the parks department - are often more pragmatic, rather than ideological. At least that’s been my observation.

The West Wing was trying to teach us all kinds of grand lesions about democracy and the American dream and all that shit. So it’s wide divergence from reality is hard to stomach after a while, especially now. Being that uncynical about Washington is, at some point, irresponsible , isn’t it?

But P&R was never really about how local government works or doesn’t work in the real world any more than The Office was trying to teach us something about the paper industry. A lot of the jokes were “funny because they’re true,” but there was no grand narrative.

The Tim/Dawn equivalents in the US version eventually figure it out, get married and have kids. It was genuinely touching. IIRC, in the UK, Dawn moves to Florida or somewhere with her boyfriend and Tim is left empty-hearted.

[Jah Womble]

Nope, she ditched him for Tim on the way to the airport in the Hollywood-esque Christmas special.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

but she comes back in the Christmas special. I suppose the advantage of having 200 episodes more than 12 is that slow moving Tim can eventually get to the finishing line.

[adams house cat]

Surprised no-one has said it, but: Twin Peaks!

I enjoyed it and the music is fabulous.

[WOM]

Indeed. The first series, anyway. The recent sequel was a baffling mind-fuck of epic proportions.

[Hot Pepsi]

Nope, she ditched him for Tim on the way to the airport in the Hollywood-esque Christmas special.

I didn’t see that!

Still, it was different in that Jim and Pam got together around the middle of the US series rather than at the end. I think Friends exhausted the TV-watching audience’s appetite for a “will-they-or-won’t-they” dynamic that only gets resolved in the finale.

[WOM]

I agree. Big Bang does the 'hey, people actually evolve' thing pretty well.

[3 Colours Red]

Just a shame it's so one-dimensional and unfunny.

[Hot Pepsi]

It has a lot of good moments. Or did. I haven’t seen it in a few years.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The people in it would want to evolve. The characters are 50% older now than they were at the start of the show.

[WOM]

Just a shame it's so one-dimensional and unfunny.

Booooo.....

[Patrick Thistle]

I didn’t see that!

Still, it was different in that Jim and Pam got together around the middle of the US series rather than at the end. I think Friends exhausted the TV-watching audience’s appetite for a “will-they-or-won’t-they” dynamic that only gets resolved in the finale.

I hated the last episodes of Friends and especially the Ross-Rachel thing. Utter mawkish wank.

[3 Colours Red]

Booooo.....

I calls it as I sees it.

[Various Artist]

Wow - don't think I could agree less here, FWIW. The whole problem with that 'spoof' was that it was far too in love with - and seemingly in cahoots with - its supposed target. I had no particular beef with any individual performance (including that of Kay himself) but could see almost zero irony in the programme at all.
IIRC, it was made by ITV (correct me if otherwise - it was at least ten years ago) and therefore felt very 'monitored' in terms of how far it might be allowed to go. Many of us would've enjoyed seeing these ghastly things savaged to pieces - but Kay's show and character itself were clearly designed entirely for the very same audience that watches the programmes that inspired them.

Aww, come on, the 'runners-up' were Two Up Two Down, the boy/girl vocal group where the girls were in wheelchairs...
Hmmm, maybe I benefited from never having actually watched an episode of one of those programmes, which you couldn't get me to do with a bargepole. Perhaps I was sufficiently outside the 'bubble' to enjoy the spoofery without worrying about the potential spectrum of how far it could've gone but didn't. Maybe I was just shocked at finding myself vaguely wanting to watch something with Peter Kay in.

Indeed. The first series, anyway. The recent sequel was a baffling mind-fuck of epic proportions.

I thought that was the very raison d'être of Twin Peaks...??

[Jah Womble]

I didn’t see that!

Still, it was different in that Jim and Pam got together around the middle of the US series rather than at the end. I think Friends exhausted the TV-watching audience’s appetite for a “will-they-or-won’t-they” dynamic that only gets resolved in the finale.

Apologies for the spoiler!

The 'will-they-won't-they?' aspect of The Office (UK) was well-sustained while the show was still hovering around vérité, but utterly sold down the river for the finale, IMO.

I'm afraid I've never seen the US version - remakes or wholesale plunders of existing sitcom formats are a complete anathema to me. This is no reflection on its quality - I just can't see the point, is all. Create something original and let your characters exist within that.

(Various: Fair comment.)