Fun
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When we talk about streaming culture,��we’re usually enthusing about what’s new, but one of the best things about streaming is how it’s made old and obscure cult hits available to a new generation. Presenting Cult Corner: your weekly look into hidden gems and long-lost curiosities that you can find on streaming.
There have been a lot of tech comedies out there, from Silicon Valley to the short-lived Betas, and there have been even more office comedies. Still, in this crowded genre, The IT Crowd stands out in its own delightfully quirky way.
Starring Richard Ayoade (director of Submarine and The Double), Katherine Parkinson (Humans), and Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids, Moone Boy), The IT Crowd focuses on every office’s default rejects — the IT department. Moss (Ayoade) and Roy (O’Dowd) are great with technology but hopeless with people, Moss because of his inability to read social cues and Roy because he’s an asshole. Together they embrace the governance of their new, technology impaired manager Jen (Parkinson) because of Jen’s social skills. The IT Crowd started as a show about a band of complimentary misfits finding their way through the workday, but by its second season, it quickly became one of the most delightfully bizarre comedies around. This is a series that can create an entire plot about a cannibal trying to eat one of its main characters and not make it weird.
It’s the characters of The IT Crowd that really shine. Whereas other comedies starring distinctly nerdy characters are often mean to their protagonists (looking at you, Big Bang Theory), The IT Crowd shows there’s a nice side to nerdiness in its portrayal of Moss. It’s not Moss’ geekiness that makes him a funny character but his often-terrible timing and perpetually upbeat nature. In fact, Moss’ perpetual niceties serve to highlight the horribleness of the show’s other main characters, Roy and Jen. Roy never looks crueler than when he’s being mean to his best buddy, and being constantly compared to Moss highlights Jen’s secretly acidic side. This series is also home to one of my favorite characters of all time, Douglas Reynholm (Matt Berry).
Douglas replaces his father as head of Reynholm Industries and then, in pure British comedy fashion, proceeds to be the most absurd human to ever exist. He yells unexpectedly and for no reason, strategically poses for no one but himself, and speaks like a self-obsessed Disney prince. It’s the oddest combination of characteristics that shouldn’t work but do. However, the best part about its comedy is its portrayal of office relationships.
There are no will-they, won’t-they love triangles in The IT Crowd. There are only shenanigans to break up the monotonous day-to-day of office life. Yes, Moss, Roy, and Jen are hopelessly entangled in each other’s lives, but only in that confusing way close office friends become. It’s the grounded relationship of the central trio that allows the show’s constant insanity to shine through, and now you can watch the Season Five special on Netflix.
