A thread for 'The Thick Of It' (and 'In The Loop' as well)

incidentally, what happened with chris langham and those, ahem, allegations? :(

Interesting how both shows portray unelected reps having much more power and influence than actual politicians - lack of accountability etc. civ servants (and strong polis like thatcher) loved YM for that v reason and i bet campbell and his like similarly love The Thick Of It - it makes them look soooo hard and ministers so weak.

IA was on R4 last week saying he's making another ten eps and expanding it to look at the oppo. could be interesting given the Cameronisation of the tories. Estelle Morris was on the same show complaining about the way TTOI was so testerone-based (again, v YM) and apptly there will be more women in the second series. (perhaps the young policy wonks oppo gf?).

that's great news. in the US you have 'the west wing' with lots of very highly paid writers in teams; here i guess they'll rely on the artisan production timescale of armand and co. i'd love it if they expanded it to 'west wing' proportions. i don't think it's particualrly far from reality, according to my civil service friends anyway.

Estelle Morris was on the same show complaining about the way TTOI was so testerone-based

given that she was kind of bullied out by the male cabal around lord adonis and campbell, you have to ask: 'eh?'

which one: peter capaldi (the campbell character) or the even more mental "jamie"?

I think Morris's objection was more that the show chose to focus on such a masculine department rather than to deny it was a genuine representation. She wanted AI to write about a female-led dept, which might have made for the gentle jolliness of Dada's dreams.

You mean - which scottish mentalist do I think is more terrifying? I wouldn't want to put the wrong number of sugars in either of their teas.

I was on about the campbell one, yeh. There's this one scene (I don't think it's been on BBC2 yet) where langham asks him is he ever gets lonely. "Fuck no" he replies. Most writers/actors/directors might have been tempted to put in some vulnerability at this point, maybe does get lonely from time to time. But no chance, it's delivered in such a hardcore "Fuck no, don't be a twat" way that you get the impression that this guy is a political machine. Written and performed brilliantly, without a doubt.

I've yet to make it through an entire episode. Telly shouldn't be such hard work.

also, isn't new labour a v. soft target by now - i mean don't we all know that the party is run by brutal control freaks who manipulate the 'truth' for their own ends, etc? I think a critique of slightly smug middle class satirists wld be more 'daring' at this point

there are gags, and the reason there's shouting and swearing is -- it's set in a high-pressure govt department. it's like asking why people in 'black books' sell books.

also, isn't new labour a v. soft target by now - i mean don't we all know that the party is run by brutal control freaks who manipulate the 'truth' for their own ends, etc? I think a critique of slightly smug middle class satirists wld be more 'daring' at this point

mm, maybe, but which television programmes have actually attacked this soft target? i think the problem with the smug and unfunny 'yes minister' was that it was somewhat removed from the reality of thatcher-era political practice.

I do agree w/ you abt Yes Minister, tho - obv. there's a lot of structural/performance craft there, but it's awfully self-satisfied and yes, it looked totally toothless as soon as Thatcher claimed to love it.

Curb Your Enthusiasm?

*honestly racks brains*

like what?

xposts

the drama docu abt the Islington restaurant where Brown and Blair sealed their 'pact' - not about NuLab in power

drama docu abt the death of David Kelly - COMEDY, but yeah ok, kinda (almost simultaneous w. TTOI though? -- TTOI was about may 2005, when was this?)

My Dad the Prime Minister - haven't seen.

that crappy thing abt PR etc. w/Stephen Fry and John Bird - not about nulab, surely?

Rory Bremmner - shit

Dead Ringers - not really dcedicated to nulab but yeah incorporated elements.

at least one crappy Andy Hamilton thing on BBC1 - ?

Possibly the worst thing I've ever seen on TV, I'd rather sit down with a plate of liver and devilled kidneys to watch Gunther von Hagens strut his stuff

to my mind, if something's smug, it's probably shit, and BB&F is both, but that's just me.

Bremner = "Mike Yarwood w/ O levels"

Interesting that it's Sixsmith (of the 'bury bad news' Jo Moore/Stephen Byers scandal, cos as Wikipedia makes clear, he felt that his career as a civil servant had been sacrificed as revenge for the end of Moore's as a special advisor... hence TTOI is particularly hard on special advisors.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Sixsmith

i dunno i just think it's far more than 'yes minister' done in an 'office' stylee.

I do like -

- Who's the only gay in the village?

- Dunno, Eddie Grundy?

don't think we'll be seeing this in the same form too soon.

BBC4 political satire The Thick of It returned for a one-off special last night, attracting just over 200,000 viewers.
The Thick of It has been showered with critical praise and awards, but, while attracting respectable ratings, has not yet broken into the top rank of multichannel shows in terms of audience figures.

Due to Chris Langham's personal problems, last night's one-off outing for The Thick of It focused on Peter Capaldi's potty-mouthed government spin doctor, Malcolm Tucker, and an opposition shadow minister played by Roger Allam.

The Thick of It was watched by 237,000 viewers between 10.30pm and 11.30pm, according to unofficial overnights.

[...]

The darts final attracted 1.25 million viewers between 10pm and 11pm. Overall, the darts averaged 955,000 viewers between 7.30pm and 11pm."

just saw trailer for a new one

next tuesday

H3nry K. M1ll3r
is stoked for 'The Thick of It.'

same here bro

"why do they wear clothes with writing on them? and why are they so fucking fat? and stupid?"

i will miss part 2 owing to french camping holiday/cricket tour...is there any way of obtaining it? doubtless it'll be on youtube or alluc before too long.

"that is the worst thing i have ever seen. and i was in nam."

OK I haven't laughed so hard at any British comedy in ages.

"I hope you go to jail and get nobbed...by men!"

"The trouble with people is that they're fucking horrible."

was this the Christmas one they just repeated? it's so fucking brilliant - don't know why i missed it at the time.

"I hope you get..nobbed..in prison..by..men"

yeah this was shown at xmas more or less. same night as 'this life +10'! not on the dvd, maybe they'll do a double.

the tory is really funny, i hope they keep him.

total crush on the opposition team gurl :/

i couldn't watch the extra opposition thing cos Tiscali Homechoice do not provide red button option ;_;

it was basically the tory stylist guy persuades... the tory (roger allam?) to do a radio interview praising the outgoing PM, but it goes haywire. i think it was more or less to set up tuesday: the possibility of dan miller (who is in one of the early episodes) standing against the nutters in a labour leadership contest. the tories want the nutters in because they think they're unelectable.

calling him Peter Mannion is not really on.

i lolled at 'Peter Onion' tho, brought back memories.

"not in a 'it's not you it's me way', but in a 'no, it's you, you vacuous fascist sloaney bitch' way'"

"you don't deserve to live"

"I know the public...I've met them"

also, peter capaldi >>>> tory spin doctor

he actually showed some cracks, which of course made him much more human and empathetic. especial lols at his dependence upon ollie, despite his apparent contempt for him

"young men with issues around stabbing"

wtf with the fucking fratellis being used to advertize part the second? wot a turn-off.

I have the new one and the xmas special to watch at home. Cannot WAIT, The Thick Of It is brilliant.

second one wasn't quite as out and out hilarity as the first and i found it just too hard to keep up with but still enjoyed trying

'this office is about as secure as a hymen at a South London comprehensive'

'are you a fucking horse'

'I have the cold cock'

Plenty of out and out hilarity I thought last night.

the whole thing with the cleaning lady was probably the best bit.

8080

it was good but not as good.

I didn't see the first one but the second was one of the funniest things I've seen in years:

"Maybe in the future, there'll be robots knockin' about, Davina McCall will be Pope and you'll be able to download... rice"

Who watched the BBCi 15min opposition-view special straight afterwards? You just can't beat Roger Allam.

i watched the second one again and it grew on me -- though i missed the tories.

"i will fuckin' eviscerate you. now i don't know what that means exactly, i didn't have your education, but i think i'll tear your fuckin' cock off and busk it from there."

now on BBC 2, in half an hour. have not yet seen. this promises to be awes.

"We're not The Independant; we can't put the word "Cruelty" with a picture of a dolphin or a polar bear under it. That's not a front page, that's just cheating"

"I'm irrelevant I'm irrelevant I'm irrelevant... what do you know about Hitler? he had a moustache and lived over there. Fuck it all!"

"He thinks he's been leaking, wait till I've finished with him - he'll look like Mel Gibson's Jesus"

"These are good biscuits and they cost £4"

the "15 shades of grey" bit is poetry.

everyone correct, although my favourite two phrases:

"I'll send a warning shot across his throat"

"You're the heavyweight of hope"

The Ollie-Ben double-act ascended new levels of abject wonder this episode, which felt, in the best way possible, like a never-ending manifestation of hell. With the audience was backing Satan all the way. Whoever doubted that Malcolm would prevail?

*With the audience backing Satan all the way

ayo, americans, is the US version going to air in the US?

i can't find the pilot anywhere.

^^^^

no one on this side of the atlantic has any idea what you're talking about.

there's a US version??? hahaha puhleez

yeah there was a pilot done by mitch hurwitz with oliver platt, so i dunno why you're all puhleez because it sounds good!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903651/

and john michael higgins who is v funny

yeah but like.. no swearing, right?

troo

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226774/

^^^second film of note to be filmed in Northampton in recent times.

Just behind "Kinky Boots".

Not sure how recent this was but it doesn't mention Coogan as a cast member at all.

Director and writer Armando Iannucci has already satirised the psycho that lurks deep within the political psychology of Whitehall in his TV series ‘The Thick of It’.

article needs retranslation into english.

i'd imagine coogan's in for a cameo or summat.

ok the film is a stone classic

very keen to see it then.

They showed the first season on BBC America a few years back, it was awesome.

psyched
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/fk-off-fairey/

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/loop-485x500.jpg

seconded on the psyched. Is that a UK release as well?

Click on the link, read the link, THEN post . . .

saw it at the glasgow film festival. i really enjoyed it, though odd how chris addison et al play different characters. not something i noticed after a little bit tho. plus anna chlumsky!

Like Bugsy Malone with real guns.

the poster for this is shit imo.

i can't remember my favourite line but it's basically jamie saying why play classical music when you can just have a badge saying 'i went to public school'?

this was so good. the line about having to try and crack one off to sharks on the discovery channel in his hotel room because if he watched porn it would end up on the register of members' interests got big topical lols.

The funniest line in this film is way too funny to spoiler on this thread but yeah, just fucking hilarious from start to finish.

A new high-water mark for creative swearing though. Even if the UN HQ did look an awful lot like the Royal Festival Hall.

oh my god.

slight qualm with what Matt said, though; it was fucking hilarious from start until about 5-10 minutes from the end, where SORTA SPOILER BUT ONLY SORTA it suddenly became devastatingly bleak, almost tearjerking, which was probably necessary and certainly effective

Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult

^^^as my facebook status comment already attests, the slight pause before "lemon" (rather than the actual saying of it) is the comedy moment of the decade

although I've already forgotten the best (probably) line, which was spoken by Simon Foster to Toby during his reading of the extracts of the riot act

yeah the ending is massively depressing

I like how it was a sort of logical extension of the Thick of It, ie here's what happens when this kind of petty venal politics is applied to something really life or death, and not a government injoke ministry of no obvious purpose

enjoyed Tucker's climactic swearing suckerpunch at the American guy. Jamie also properly demonic

it was basically subplot, but Capaldi vs Gandolfini was short, sweet and as awesome as any verbal duel I've seen on screen this decade

they really should have just shaken hands at the end or something

and yeah basically so glad they kept on the Jamie character

SHUT IT, LOVE ACTUALLY

my biggest laugh was probably for "on a subconscious level, maybe in some way, I was trying...to stop...the war" tbh

oh yeah and i remember the other one i mentioned above...willy banjo

that's enough spoilers, i've covered most of my massive thigh-slapping lols but nowhere near even a tiny proportion of my medium-to-substantial ones

just saw In The Loop here @ Tribeca fest; we don't know the show over here. Capaldi = genius.

good angry -- one might say enraged -- comedy.

(also one of the best Iraq war films. of course the scenario could be in the future, w/ Obama & Brown invading Pakistan)

well, at least I missed the show on BBC America, along w/ 300 million of my countrymen.

i can't remember my favourite line but it's basically jamie saying why play classical music when you can just have a badge saying 'i went to public school'?

Yeh, bit that got me was "it's just fucking ... vowels"

why do they have a SECOND ranting demonic Scot -- is he on the show too? are there many of them in yr central government?

I honestly don't think 80% of the Yanks who see this are going to get Capaldi's punchline "Don't ever call me English."

Second ranting Scot is the only other character kept verbatim from the TV series, and he's awesome, think the idea is that once you're spared Capaldi you're then faced with a slightly less nuanced but even more visceral barrage of Caledonian abuse...when Capaldi signed off a phone call "I love you" to him, it was in its quiet way one of the more delicious lines of the film

The New York press audience loved the filthiest lines. I nearly lost it when Capaldi called random Washington tourist lady a "vinegar-faced cumbag."

Never suspected that the next actor to match Joe Pesci in passionate comic profanity would be the sweet aide de camp from Local Hero.

so Tom Hollander (who reminds me of Gervais) was not on the show?

I was thinking that about Capaldi! 27 years between his defining roles...and in the other one, aye, he was pretty much diametrically opposed to this

Tom Hollander wasn't on the show, no. Speaking of which, the two-part special (each an hour long, so feature-length in all but name) was a masterpiece, almost on a level with this movie. God, they nailed it on the big screen, though.

my biggest laugh was probably for "on a subconscious level, maybe in some way, I was trying...to stop...the war"

Ditto.

My god, that was Capaldi in Local Hero?

Laffed non-stop all through this, but forgot all about it about 5 minutes after leaving the cinema. Gandalfini was good though.

Incidentallly, Ian Martin, the swearing consultant for TToI, has an hilarious column in the Architects Journal, of all places:
http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/the-critics/ian-martin/preserving-the-ruins-of-our-heritage-reviving-the-ruins-of-our-high-streets/5200866.article

well, at least I missed the show on BBC America, along w/ 300 million of my countrymen.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, April 24, 2009 4:21 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no-one saw it in england either!! it was very low-budget, kind of a media-class cult almost.

in the series i think they introduced the second angry scot just for a gag: when toby/olly (chris addison) goes to work for capaldi, he finds the whole place teeming with the "caledonian mafia" and tells jamie "i thought you were going to be the *nice* scot"

swearing consultant?

I have to assume Capaldi's LH romance with the mermaid didn't work out. "Feck off, ya soggy bint!"

I'd call this merely top big-screen TV, a la The Simpsons movie, except that the fury of it does linger. I embrace its thesis that if you have a shred of faith in the US or UK government, you're a fucktard.

no-one saw it in england either!!

about to get a repeat in the .au - thank goodness we don't know = care about Langham's legals.

never got the specials though :(

I honestly don't think 80% of the Yanks who see this are going to get Capaldi's punchline "Don't ever call me English."

Yeh I think that's meant to be the case, at least from Gandolfini's confused look anyway. That other and other Scots-shoulder-chip stuff went down better in the Glasgow cinema I was in than anything since Braveheart.

both those bits got loads of applause at the Glasgow Film Festival. Most cheering in a cinema I've been in since the scientist was watching Man U v Celtic in the Day After Tomorrow.

Rebecca Front has been confirmed as playing the new Minister for Social Affairs & Citizenship in the new series. Which should be pretty cool.

A new TV series? Better make it quick before Cameron becomes PM.

iirc it's going to be about the run-up to the new election. which is pretty unlikely to be before june 2010. show will go out in the autumn.

btw it looks like all of Thick is on YouTube

Pretty sure Capaldi's character could go and work for the Tories without too much trouble.

Hmm, not sure about that myself. Narcissism of small differences to thread.

iannucci has made cryptic comments basically saying tucker would still be in the show if the tories won. he could just about go either way, though it'd be fun to see him working for the opposition.

can't remember how 'spinners and losers' (the most recent special) ended, but i think the party still needs a leader. tucker would want a part in that fight.

if there's a US version, Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel wd be an obvious template. Guy mailed an adversary a dead fish.

US version was tried by Mitchell Hurwitz but ABC killed it after seeing the pilot.

judging from sit down shut up maybe not such a bad move

I shared hearty lols with many of the lines mentioned (willy banjo, just vowels, etc), but also the dissing of I <3 Huckabees

And Anna Chlumsky wtf!!

"and fourthly you have a tiny fucking head"

"let's do lunch some time, we'll have a tete-a-tiny-tete"

no US film release til July.

Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult

Reading this thread reminds me of how many hilarious moments there are in this film but... didn't think any of the American characters were funny esp. not James Gandolfini

didn't think any of the American characters were funny

What, not even Karen Clarke and her dental problems or 'Hanging' Chad?

The dental thing was funny and working out the defence costs on the child's toy calculator.

Steve Coogan wasn't funny either

You must be a hard man to amuse as Coogan's appearances got some of the biggest laughs at the showing I was at.

I don't know why it didn't work, getting Coogan to play Dom Passantino I mean

because if he watched porn it would end up on the register of members' interests got big topical lols

no kidding

but Capaldi vs Gandolfini was short, sweet and as awesome as any verbal duel I've seen on screen this decade

yep

not as good as the series but B+ film. silly little thing really but felt important that they all looked sans make-up.

fantasied about Tucker appearing in The West Wing afterwards

wish lord john marbury had made a cameo

gandolfini kind of phoned it in - i.e. the "bite heads off kittens" line he was kind of laughing apologetically which works if you have already established yourself as an utterly ruthless bastard but he hadn't really

pretty funny stuff but yeah it sure didn't feel like a movie

bisque

bisque?

bisque

yeah i find myself contrarily glad i never got to see this in theatres

ianucci's grasp of american speech patterns seemed a bit off - not wrong, but like his idea of it was a different level of stylisation away from the way the british ppl speak

this poster upthread otm:

"I like how it was a sort of logical extension of the Thick of It, ie here's what happens when this kind of petty venal politics is applied to something really life or death, and not a government injoke ministry of no obvious purpose"

― EMPIRE STATE HYMEN (MPx4A), Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:13 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark

but i don't think the ending quite nails what they're going for: i guess the general's last argument with the washington woman doesn't quite stand enough as a capstone on the pettiness of the last scenes with the brits. (like haha maybe his reasons for not resigning aren't shitty - the script seems ultimately uncomfortable with the character, with the whole zone of "i've been there" military anti-war rhetoric.)

Americans: it will be available to watch on IFC On Demand this month.

NYT interviews Iannucci and others.

be nice to our movie, america

Anyone been watching 'Getting On' with Jo Brand etc? Has a similar feel, not as lolsome but pretty well observed and all that. Has a couple of Thick of It people including Capaldi.

PS: Since 'In the Loop' came out I am incapable of referring to 'The Thick of It' by anything other than '*In* the Thick of It'. ?!

Saw Getting On tonight. Capaldi directs them! But it feels like they've gone "right, TTOI had lots of swearing, and was depressing, and everyone loved it. So let's do more sweary depressing stuff". And it ends up just being hard to watch, without being very funny at all.

Really loved 'Getting On', can't belive it's only 3 episodes long. Dr Pippa Moore is a genius character. Her polite, middle class niceness barely hiding a venal, careerist snob. The scene with the hamper basket was just jaw dropping in her brass neck. It is depressing but I still lol'd several times through the series.

None of what's in this will be any news to the UK crew but this Slate piece on Iannucci is actually the best mass-media piece I've seen over here on him and most everything he's done over the years.

Literally downloading it (the show, not the movie) right now. Just joined the box dot bz primarily for this show, pretty much impossible to find otherwise (in the US, at least).

Good articles, Ned. Happy to learn the word paraprosdokian.

Also: interview with Iannucci on the AV Club.

finally got around to watching all of these after nrq recommended a while back--fuckin hilarious

i understand maybe 40% btw capaldis accent and the britishisms but what i do get is rofl

"i'm going to take your ipod from its tiny nano-sheath and shove it up your cock"

"Everytime I hear a song I hate, WHICH WILL BE ALL OF THEM, I'll skip ahead BY PUNCHING YOU IN THE BOLLOCK"

it's PUNCHING YOUR BALLS iirc (well I saw it last week, and roffled at great length)

there's a line about the kind of strong cheese malcolm wants, from one of the specials, i wish i could remember what it was

multixpost

Great interview with Capaldi on AV Club too

The only film so far this year I've been compelled to see twice.

I'm not a very good client for comedies in general, but this one made me laugh out very loudly and very frequently. I'm going to start the 'Thick of it' tonight.

Thick of It is a rip-off on iTunes -- it's down as two separate series, with three episodes each

"you ever take the piss outta Jolson again and I will remove your Ipod from its tiny nano-sheath and push it straight up your cock. And then I'll put onto shuffle with my fucking fist. A-and then, whenever something comes on that I don't like - which will be every time something comes on - I'll skip to the next track by crushing YOUR BALLS" fwiw

the explanation that the taskforce story being leaked by a disgruntled civil servant was itself a story that was leaked by a disgruntled civil servant is the most Armando Iannucci thing imaginable, you can hear him saying it in your head

i almost cheered when jamie came on while watching in the cinema. i still think RISE OF THE NUTTERS made for a better one-off special. perhaps because there was a sympathetic central charcter in it. a tory too oddly.

Do you mean Rise of the Nutters would've been better as a theatrical release, rather than this? I could see that.

it's just a better 'one off long episode' type thing than the actual film.

i think the whole thing with characters that look the same as in the show, act the same as in the show, are going out with each other/ have the same relationships with each other as in the show but are NOT 'the same character' was just pointless. a total head scratch.

Do you mean Rise of the Nutters would've been better as a theatrical release, rather than this? I could see that.

No American selling point, so no go there. "Rise of the Nutters" was much better, of course.

"in the loop" really does reward another watch - which makes me think they didn't quite slow down enough in order for people to actually get the jokes the first time around

i think the whole thing with characters that look the same as in the show, act the same as in the show, are going out with each other/ have the same relationships with each other as in the show but are NOT 'the same character' was just pointless. a total head scratch.

But it's a totally different department, so if they wanted to use the same ensemble it just wouldn't have made sense to move them all en-masse. This didn't really bother me tbh.

yeah, they're types more than fully realized characters in the classic sense - i don't particularly care about malcolm's backstory for instance

although a montage of simon foster campaign clips as a dvd extra would be pretty irresistible - i'd love to see some of the idealism, pre- grim reality

That Capaldi interview is great. Looking forward to another series but still not seen the film.

Rebecca Front as an MP is a really good idea.

They should just call her Rebecca Front.

The Popular Front

I *really* liked the 2-part special but no lying, the film made me laugh even more and was the crowning achievement imo

Watched episode 3 of Getting On last night - it's really quite good, isn't it? Possibly better than early Thick Of It, actually, though that's partly because the dynamic is fairly massively different, by which I think I mean it's a lot easier to keep up with. Slower pace, smaller cast and such. Performances are all really pretty excellent too, especially Brand and Scanlan - I don't think I've ever seen Jo Brand better than in the conflict resolution meeting. Glad to see it's getting more episodes next year.

this was v. funny - look forward to watching to catch what i missed. pleased to learn there's a series behind it!

DVD of this is good, loads of deleted scenes with psycho Jamie and Chad vs Liza stuff.

"I mean I don't smoke weed, but I'm not in fight club. I'm in like neutral club. The first rule of neutral club is...let's find out what all the other rules are"

Gina McKee is like wo

apparently she's 45

don't remember seeing this

http://topazbean.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/no-you-fucking-cant.jpg

http://twitter.com/AIannucci

end of oct.

Gina McKee is like wo

apparently she's 45

i know right? seriously.

end of oct.

Wicked.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/i/512xn/400f50c532a3f35781a73ad7d2af43c64ee49ca3.jpg

A to-do list that's longer than a fucking Leonard Cohen song.

israel

This is still the funniest thing on TV.

"Knife addled rape sheds" = lololol

I find this so unfunny. I think I must be old or something.

liked the whole set up with the name Liam Bentley and idea of Tucker setting it up, and Murray calling Glenn a 'batty man'

has Capaldi actually got that much greyer himself since The Rise Of The Nutters (the difference between him now and in that is striking) ??

i didn't notice that. love the idea of somebody being able to go tow to toe with malcolm and this new gal might have what it takes. when she fucked with malcolm about her eldest daughter the look on his face was priceless.

toE.

No laughs here, either - actually unwatchable. Just an angry man act and no direction whatsoever.

I do want to see the earlier episodes (just happened to come across it randomly last week). I suspect this was much funnier when there was such a thing as a *New Labour* project.

Lots of laughs, highly watchable.

It was a little slower than usual episodes - seemed like they were setting the scene for stuff later in the series now they have longer run.

Best line: "You're like the fucking coffee machine: from bean to cup, you fuck up"

all the way to the boathouse

you would seriously need to watch this like 3 times to catch all the lines

I do like the idea of Capaldi/Front relationship developing into some screwball love/hate bitch-match - kind of like an Anglo Donaghy/Lemon... or even Grant/Russell.

just hoping Jamie will show up before too long

Think it'll be a few episodes before we see Jamie, building anticipation, cake/icing and all that.

xpost

Now I think of it, I can totally see Fey muttering to herself "He is *so* Russell Crowe" on the way back from the lift.

Grant/Russell?

http://www.astrodiary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/russell-grant-2.jpg

(Cary and Rosalind, yeah?)

Ken Livingstone says:

"I can't bear the swearing and the aggression. It's not funny: it just reminds me of too many people I met among the Blairites and I hate the sexually aggressive language."

What a cunt.

KEN 4 MAYOR, etc etc

I'm with Ken. It's just boring after a while. I enjoyed it early on (you know when it was all green fields and warm beer and cricket on a sunday) but now it really does seem like, what's the fucking point?

I walked into In The Loop knowing goose-egg about it or the show--my friend gets free tickets; "wanna go to a movie?"; "sure"--I was pleasantly surprised. Serious loling.

I liked it by and large, but for the first time the flowery swearing felt a little try-hard, rather than off-the-cuff.

The plotting was less baroque than usual. Still fucking funny though.

Charlie i agree - the hard open on Malcolm was a mistake imo - why not let things bubble a little and build the anticipation?

"I wouldn't piss on you if you were allergic to piss."

a face like dot cotton licking piss off a nettle

and the violent sexual imagery warning

"today, you have just laid your first big fat egg of solid fuck"

probably my biggest laugh was at:

"the kraken awakes!!"

malcolm had no comeback for "well at least my career's got a trajectory, you're working for a party that's going to lose the next election" - suddenly he found he had no leverage with this person

there was some great stuff on the red button as well

"get your feelings out for the lads"

loved this one

No Jamie in this series according to Chris Addison :(

Some genius has made a Best Of.. =
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRC0qQ8zA-E

I love the "oh I'm terribly sorry" when he bumps into the cleaner.

that is great, that he and malcolm understand and are polite and appreciate the consequences and don't live in a bubble, where as bumbling ben doesn't.

If I felt every conjunction like it was an event then I'd be pretty bored of them too. A little gutted about Jamie, if only they were saving him for a next series w/Tory govt. Not in the bubble is right, having those two to root for as the incredulous outsiders to the south-east/oxbridge/political bubble is more cathartic than a million newspaper jokes about moats.

Best one so far in this series, maybe. WILMAAA!

"I've got a to-do list longer than a big willy"

I love the "oh I'm terribly sorry" when he bumps into the cleaner.

Ripples through into this one as well, when we see that Malcolm pretty much instantly knows who the peoples champion woman is just from her name and knows exactly how to behave round her (until she blabs about Glen, then he can revert to type). Actually, when he punches Glen there is a maid making up the rooms in the background -I kept on waiting for the reveal it was her who leaked the story.

Love the press officer guy, need more of him. "Hey you, twat face... and I mean that literally by the way." "You can't actually break your nose, you know, it's a myth."

Favourite bits might actually all be from the red button. "Are you autistic or something?" "No, but it's surprising how many people ask that..." and Malcolm being told he's live on the Telegraph's webcam blog from conference and running away. And Glen kissing that woman - "It's like a really bad porn film, where the woman wants an economic advisor to come round and explain the last five years of government policy. And then they start fucking."

It's being set up for Tucker to have some kind of mental breakdown, isn't it?

Because that's never happened to a Labour press apparatchik before...

The press machine's being totally unable to deal with the internet and yet trying to nonetheless was bound to crop up in this series. They did it brilliantly I thought.

"Am I being threatened by Harold Fucking Bishop or something?"

"You breathe a word of this to anyone you mincing fucking CUNT, and I will tear your fucking skin off, I will wear it to your mother's birthday party, and I will rub your nuts up and down her leg while whistling Bohemian fucking Rhapsody, RIGHT?"

Daaark episode.

KNOWLEDGE IS PORRIDGE

This Canadian is really frustrated by his inability to track down DVDs (or, better still) torrents for "The Thick Of It". They simply don't seem to exist. Or rather, a torrent for the first series does - if you sign up for some private site that banned me based on my email address (?). But no other sources, and nothing for the second series - and I guess the third is on now?

Anyone out there have a better source or anything?

season 3 seems to be ending up on the usual sites soon after broadcast. season 2 is apparently not out on dvd yet in the uk : (

p.s. the last ten minutes or so of that last episode of season 3 were dark!

season one was transmitted in two blocks of three episodes, which are all on the season 1 dvd. then you have the two specials, which were released on dvd earlier this year. it's all on dvd save the current series (obviously).

are the two specials "series 2" then, because the current series is referred to as series 3 on iplayer?

The episodes with the Tories in are next-level. The floppy haired opposite number to Ollie is such an arse.

Possibly. I think they counted the first three episodes as the first series and the second three episodes as the second when they were broadcast, but they released them on DVD as the complete first series. xpost

Yeah iTunes sells the first three eps as Series 1, and the second three eps as Series 2.

did Nichola tell Malcolm that Peter had said to her he wouldn't use the daughter thing against her? i just wasn't sure if her turn to the dark side was in spite of that (she trusts Malcolm more than Peter?)

That was pretty brutal, but very good.

Also I now have the image of Peter Mannion making love to Jeff Wayne's war of the worlds seared across my brain.

that last scene between malcolm and nichola might be the best thing i've seen from this show yet.

this show has a knack for giving us absolutely despisable people doesn't it? the useless PR guy the last time ("you're not jewish are you? oh good"), now the tory hair dude.

the whiteboard was a thing of terrible genius.

and it's a little weird having EVERY episode shot at the building i work in..!

I was wondering where I recognised it from.

even the outdoor smoking area with the "wild grasses" is from there.

Ollie's iPhone tickering "Nichola's gone all Jeremy Kyle" is the first thing that has made me want to buy one.

Brilliant episode. Where do you work, Tracer? I keep thinking I recognise the place.

It's BBC White City, isn't it?

Close - it's Broadcast Centre, right next door.

this show Politics has a knack for giving us absolutely despisable people doesn't it?

Last night's episode was next-level. Any scene involving Ollie, his girlfriend and her flatemate is just hilarious. Ditto the face-off between Malcolm and his opposite number right at the end.

what was so great- i couldn't tell if malcolm & tory malcolm were making it up or not.

Tory Malcolm (Stewart) is SUCH a prick. I was firmly on Malcolm's side.

I used to be a parliamentary researcher (one magical summer...), and the relationship between Ollie, Phil and Emma is dead on.

I thought the bit at the end was to show that Malcolm and Stewart basically hate the people they're supposed to be working for more than they hate each other. The bit when Stewart suggested hanging both MPs out to dry and Malcolm was like "hey, I like your style" was great.

Phil is probably the most loathsome of all the characters in this, just totally indefensible and funny as hell for it.

The radio producer was great in this one as well - I really felt for her.

I loved her exclamation "this is the first time we are going to brek some news that isn;t the manager of ipswich resigning"

Ditto the face-off between Malcolm and his opposite number right at the end.

this was srsly awesome

also loved when Phil and Glen were just casually talking about The Stig

matt i thought malcolm was disgusted by his opposite number throwing his man to the wolves?

the 'face-off' being on five live was just insult to injury.

Dunno, I thought he said something along the lines of "if you carry on like this I might find you less than completely contemptible". It's not like Malcolm hasn't thrown MPs to the wolves anyway. It's not in either's interests to protect DOSAC, they're working on behalf of the govt and opposition so "fuck it, let's let these idiots hang themselves and go and minimise the damage elsewhere" is exactly what you'd expect them to do.

i don't know, malcolm has definitely hung people out to dry before but only when it suited party strategy. from the attention given to this interview from both sides, it seems like they both are supposed to care about how their charge comes across. (and malcolm's basically won - he stanched the bleeding by shoving the pierced guy into the room, and now he's got his opposite number to promise to say that his guy was not in possession of all the facts)

the showdown scene near the end was probably the first bit of fictional bbc tv i've seen since The Office that gave me that 'this is actually amazing' feeling.
malcolm's clearly heading for a breakdown.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/interviews/1513/peter-capaldi-for-in-the-loop-

http://bp3.blogger.com/_WkKZJVG5wTk/Rsq2wsyFjFI/AAAAAAAAdTg/87Lo8bEFBeM/s400/Prime_Suspect_3_94.jpg

!

I'd like to read that interview, but white writing on a black background makes my eyes go funny.

xpost - !

jeffrey wells is banging on about him as a potential best supporting actor dark horse: http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/11/maestro.php

xp, don't leave home without it: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

Ooo, that's handy caek, thank you!

The three-part porn invective from Tucker to Glen as he listened to the radio was priceless:
"Are you making porn for the visually impaired or something?"
"All I can hear is the sound of Nicola Murray getting royally fucked"
"Is it a fucking Bukkake at Bedtime?"

Was recounting this at work and a co-worker had never head of Bukkake. So she Googled it. Foolish, at work.

good episode. missed the opposition though.

Malcolm's heart-to-heart with Terri was deeply weird and unnerving. He's definitely losing it.

Watched this episode with a friend who's never seen it before, and she was in hysterics throughout, which was great to see.

"And if you run into any problems, I want you to SOLVE those problems"

that was aaaaaaaaaamazing.

i have to ask though- why the fuck is chris addison called ollie in the thick of it and toby in in the loop?

he's a different character, working for a different department. same with terri, who is roz in the movie, and glenn who becomes michael.

yeah but eurgh, use different actors

they're good actors!

i know but using some of the same actors for the same roles and some of the same actors for different roles is rong imo.

History Mayne has written an interesting article which touches upon this very topic: http://cinema-scope.com/wordpress/?page_id=980

nice article.

cosign

giant gaystacks

i haven't listened to this one yet, and i don't know how iannucci will respond to being asked about his process by mckee fans, but this is usually a pretty good show so: http://creativescreenwritingmagazine.blogspot.com/2009/11/in-loop-q.html

Malcolm's heart-to-heart with Terri was deeply weird and unnerving. He's definitely losing it.

OTM. This episode was brilliant. They're all brilliant! Rebecca Front is so awesome in everything she's in.

The bit where Ollie glances round to see Tucker behind him on the other side of the glass was like some weird nod to Jurassic Park - the look of disgust was incredible (and similar to his face when Terri was pointing out his mistakes).

^^^

"I want you to get the BBC and fucking nuke them; nuke them and rebuke them."

"It's gonna be just like the Shawshank Redemption, except with more tunneling through shit, and no redemption."

"The situation is febrile... you don't know what the fuck 'febrile' means, do you?"

These last two episodes have been intense as hell, as intense as the two specials were.

I've often thought Tucker looked like some sort of predatory reptile actually, glad to see it wasn't just me.

Ollie is actually very different to the Toby character in In The Loop - Toby's sort of clueless and out-of-his-depth but basically well meaning whereas Ollie is an immature little cunt.

Agreed.

I have to say that Joanna Scanlan as Terri has become my favorite character by some distance. Watching her is just amazing. She's the only one who doesn't fall apart, yet it's because she's utterly insane.

ollie is immature but one of the notable things about this series is that he's obviously grown - at least in the responsibility he's afforded - and taken on a higher role. when malcolm's not around, he's malcolm. speechwriting instead of buying cheese.

Malcolm is also obviously treating him as someone who is semi competent rather than just a shouting board as before

Some of my fave Malcolm moments are when he makes little friendly jokes with people as he's leaving post-bollocking.

the names for ollie are getting so good:
unbaked gingerbread man
man in the little red and yellow car

not sure anything will ever top 'the node of node hall' tho.

not that that was for ollie but still

wow

otm

for a comedy, that was better drama than most dramas. (thought it struck the wrong note that it was brought on by something as trivial as a mistake in the crime stats tho.)

I figured it was the bald mustachioed guy getting vengeance by taking advantage of a fuck-up he caused. Also the government is a total shambles and it's been building to this all season.

yeah, baldy taking advantage of a PM losing the plot, I thought. That's why he couldn't/wouldn't let Tucker near the PM. Was waiting for some actual violence, this time

the thin blue line guy killed it.

wow that episode was better than the movie.

it was weird to see malcolm actually relish being a double-act with his enemy. maybe it was just for appearances sake but if so, it was a convincing performance. not that anyone seemed to notice. in fact no one seemed to care about any of the efforts he made to hold onto his job. that, the journalist junket, actually doing favors for dosac..

the man from hellmonte he say FUCKIN AYE

i thought rebecca front was amazing this week, too - especially at the end, running away from malcolm's sacking, it had like a Godfather intensity...

I liked how even the bollockings showed baldy was a cock: he was sexist and misogynistic to Nicola. Tucker is an equal opportunity misanthrope, he picks on people for being shit in their actions, not because they are women.

A lesser bollocker would have, eg, picked on Terri's weight for an insult, but they never have that I can remember. You know baldy would, tho.

is that the end of the series or is there another one next week?

another one next week, i believe...

also really loved the (incredibly brief) scene where malcolm was comforting his scretary (?) immediately after he'd been sacked, while the guy from 4 weddings and the guy from the specsavers ad were badgering about...

it said to be continued at the end

also

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

what happens then? what does malcolm do?

Wow.
Also, Malcolm Tucker has my wallpaper!

Still haven't watched this again (this show basically demands to be watched at least twice) but I don't recall Malcolm engaging in a single "creative swearing" session at all? Until the end obv.

It will be very interesting if they have an entire episode without him.

Thanks to the BBC running this series at the same time as Match of the Day, I've missed almost all of this

The DOSAC guys will be desperate to have Malcolm back by next week I think. Think Nicola was already thinking it was better to be outright bollocked by Malcolm than smarmed into doing something by an obsequious twat like Steve Fleming.

Actually the dude playing Fleming was brilliant - that constant manic smile at all times even when really angry!

Wow.
Also, Malcolm Tucker has my wallpaper!

― Not the real Village People, Tuesday, 8 December 2009 02:58

Malcolm also had Chris Eubank's and Murray Walker's autobios on his shelf

I don't recall Malcolm engaging in a single "creative swearing" session at all?

Yeah his losing of plot/control coincided with the smart crude zings becoming boring profanities. Good bit of writing, I thought. Not sure I like my comedies becoming tense dramas mid-series but as tense dramas go it was very watchable.

Not liking Thin Blue Line dude :(

malcolm had some kids paintings on his office wall, what's that about? funny that his (attractive) secretary was so sweet on him (i guess they were firing her too then?)

Malcolm's unlikely to be bollocking his own secretary as much as hapless civil servants and MPs I would imagine, because she isn't doing very much that's public facing.

Not liking Thin Blue Line dude :(
Yeah, I thought he stood out as pretty pre-watershed sitcom-ish, not in keeping with the either the (semblance of) naturalism that everyone else seems to be bringing to their performances or the fly-on-the-wall style camerawork. Found him to be totally jarring, tbh.

he stood out as pretty pre-watershed sitcom-ish

thanks, you've perfectly articulated what it was that was annoying me but that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

for me the problem was he was so repulsive i don't particularly want to see any more of him

i thought he was terrific. as someone returning to the scene with a major agenda his ill fit with the rest of the cast actually worked for me.

that's what i thought was good about him!

he should be jarring: he's a figure from another era.

xposts

I agree he should be a jarring character but he struck me as too much of a comedy actor doing comedy acting and was unconvincing as a vindictive sneering political player. I think he was badly cast rather than badly written.

I dunno, I really didn't find him any less convincingly sociopathic than Malcolm. The intensity he projected was really unnerving when set against his cartoon character face.

Brilliant episode, but kinda predictable after last week, no?

A government doesn't spiral out of control like that in the course of a day, so it kind of had to be predictable.

i wasn't sure about the first two episodes and actually stopped watching, but i can see that they're trying to move away from comedy, to a extent. all the stuff about the mp's kid just isn't funny and isn't meant to be. and for some reason i identify with malcolm and feel really bad for him.

I think he was badly cast rather than badly written

But without him we wouldn't have had the "he looks like a lego policeman" line, which was perfect.

Super Mario was even more choice.

malcolm had some kids paintings on his office wall, what's that about?

He's mentioned a niece a few times, presumably hers.

My friend who who used to work at the Home Office told me last night she doesn't like TTOI because it's 'not realistic'. Huh. I told her she wasn't realistic.

A lesser bollocker would have, eg, picked on Terri's weight for an insult, but they never have that I can remember

pretty sure he has, tbh.

he told her to put her tits away or similar wrt peter mannion's visit

yeah but that's cause she got all slutted up innit

he's usually pretty inventive ("the little man in the red and yellow car" and "shitehead revisited" are probably my favourite two this series). he'll go there sometimes but this fleming guy is just old-school chauvinist and not a wordsmith.

malcolm's flat was lovely

Fucking snooker had better get to fuck in the next 20 minutes.

bravo

great to hear armando talking about the next series in such concrete terms, too

where was he talking about the next series?

comedy awards

i liked that they gave the part of probably the nastiest character we've ever seen on the show ('the fucker') in tonight's episode to tom hollander who seemed to be the silliest and most hapless in the thick of it/loop world. fantastic bit of acting as he made me feel queasy very quickly. shame he wasn't in it more as an entire episode of him would be apalling in a good wway.

There was a hint of what he was capable of in that department when he went off on Toby for showing up late and hung over to his meeting at the State Department. A spitting aggressiveness paired with a weird soft neediness that is very unsettling.

I will admit feeling a little let down. It seemed too easy after the cliffhanger last week. Still terrific, obviously. Favorite line is probably "It's a show for people who tried coke once but didn't like it. Well, that's a bullshit description but you know what I mean."

where was he talking about the next series?

There was a mini-doc on the red button too, where they usually have the deleted scenes.

no jamie in this series ;(((

Julius was fucking brilliant in this episode.

the onion bahji bit had me it stitches

Yeah. the punchline, which the whole bit was building to, was just perfect. These actors must freaking love getting to play these scripts. What a feast.

a feast of onion bahjis

did iannuci say anything about when the next series will be broadcast? are they going to wait to see who wins the general election?

It makes dramatic sense for the next series to focus on fighting the election... Which would require a pretty quick turnaround.

Also The Fucker has obviously been set up as the main antagonist for next series. Can't wait to see him and Malcolm clash.

from what i can make out, iannucci is doing a show for hbo, and my surmise is, it'll be a TTOI-style thing set in the us dept of treasury. but he has said there'll be more UK TTOI. an election special would be great but idk if they could pull it together, and he doesn't seem to have said one way or another.

i get the feeling that tom hollander is hot-ish property and im not sure he'd be a major player in another full series. though that would be great.

in the past, such as they have one, they've kind of skipped over the major political events (or at least shown only the foreplay). i wouldn't be surprised to see them skip the election, kind of like how entourage never shows the movies being made.

i get the feeling that tom hollander is hot-ish property and im not sure he'd be a major player in another full series. though that would be great.

― Smokey and the S'Banned It (history mayne), Sunday, December 13, 2009 11:50 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my sentiments exactly

really loved this movie

did the programme get broadcast in the U.S. at all? do we have any fans of that on this thread?

Think we're more likely to get two longer specials than a full series. The tension between new psycho tabloid Tory boss and touchy-feely Tory dude could be fun as well. Loved the floppy-haired twat running after the new big man as well.

i watched series 1 and the specials over the weekend too by the way. i love how many times the floppy haired one mentions things are "like queen" or "like freddie".

Think we're more likely to get two longer specials than a full series.

there's also chatter about an alan partridge film so yeah.

and also another series of 'charm offensive' -- putting that in the calendar fo sho *cough*.

tbh i think this last ep should have been a long one, with malc out of the running for a while longer. half an hour felt like too little, though i loved the in-at-the-last-minute-ness of The Fucker.

did the programme get broadcast in the U.S. at all? do we have any fans of that on this thread?

― caek, Sunday, December 13, 2009 6:58 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont think it got broadcast in the US but i torrented it and love it, even if i only understand like 60%

i understand maybe 40% btw capaldis accent and the britishisms but what i do get is rofl

― max, Friday, July 24, 2009 10:24 AM (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

looks like my understanding has increased by 50%

i was kind of skeptical of the actress who played nicola in the first couple episodes but she really knocked it out of the park at the end didnt she

i dont know if that euphemism translated--she "really bowled a good innings" at the end

Max - she's a familiar face on British TV, particularly in Ianucci shows.

I agree that Malcolm's exile didn't last long enough (onscreen at least), I wanted to see exactly what he would do out of the political game... but the Fucker was the icing on the cake. Once we realised who The Fucker was my housemate and I practically high-fived each other.

(He's based on that former NOTW editor whose name escapes me, right?)

looks like my understanding has increased by 50%

― max, Sunday, December 13, 2009 6:09 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

really appreciate the accuracy of this, btw

haha max, that was going to be my next question.

i actually struggled with understanding bits of jamie last season too, so don't feel too bad. but really i'm curious about how much of the things they are satirising are generic/international, and how much you think "i can tell they're taking the piss out of sth there, but i don't really know what"

Coulson, yeah xp

btw, i think hit for six is the preferred nomenclature, but is not an exact synonym for out of the park.

Jamie's even better when you get the little Scottish injokes

eh i spend enough time on this board to get some of the references. i wont claim to get any of them--i gotta say its a testament to the strength of the acting and writing that i can still get the joke even w/out getting the reference.

i think a lot of 'types' are pretty international, or at least cross the atlantic reasonably well. the parliamentary system is different than ours but the same kinds of "wankers"/"masturbators" always end up in government.

*claim to get all of them

honestly feel like good comedy is still funny even when you don't know what it is they're taking the piss from

I think this whole season felt like 45/60 min drama eps edited down to 30 min sitcoms. Was expecting a bit more to the season finale.

"wankers"/"masturbators"

really excited at the prospect of iannucci making an american version for HBO

btw, i still think ianucci's peak is "my fly's got no nose" "how does he smell" "he's got a thousand eyes, and that compensates"

beatoffers

they should do a 1-hour election special the way they did w/ the power transfer, and then the next season post-election.

Iannucci claimed in the podcast linked upthread that the HBO thing was about an internet start-up.

rly? that's a let-down. he was talking elsewhere about doing a treasury dept thing iirc.

I think this whole season felt like 45/60 min drama eps edited down to 30 min sitcoms. Was expecting a bit more to the season finale.

― Stevie T, Monday, December 14, 2009 12:16 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, id go w/ this.

The manic pace with no time for breath is part and parcel of The Thick of It though. It only became a problem when they started to focus heavily on the Malcolm situation. The earlier episodes of this series, and the radio show in particular, were perfectly formed.

kinda surprised to see the mild negativity about the last episode; the specials & this series have been way darker and more fraught than the bumbly, hugh abbott earlier stuff, and someone upthread mentioned them progressing into the nicola's-kids-school content that maybe even isn't meant to be funny. i don't think going slower in the last ep and making room for the pre-election warfare makes a funny show less funn, it gives some gravitas.

Also I lolled at useless touchy-feely Tory guy going all "fly, my pretties, fly!" only to be immediately decapitated.

i just think they could have savoured tucker's absence for longer, maintained the suspense, is all; it was still a great episode. the radio show was one of the best eps -- the ending, with tucker and bald tory exchanging scandals wasamazing, and the topper is, it's tucker's fiftieth birthday. it's his life.

I genuinely thought we were going to see a wife or kids or something at some point this season but, nope, he lives in the office except when he's greasing newspaper editors up with ghee.

I'd need to watch it again but I thought for a second when he arrived home and told the press to mind his hedge there was someone looking out his window.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pd5w4/The_Thick_of_It_Series_3_Episode_8/

0:44 - kid looking out through the window

Deliberately zoomed in on for a split second.

Loved detail in the performances: the halfheartedness of Tucker's "Fuckbob Shitpants"; the half beat between Nicola's "Honi soit qui" and "malky fuck". Which subtleties, to get back on my David Haig hobby horse, make DH's approach stand out as much broader than it maybe actually is.

Julius was fucking brilliant in this episode.
Yes.

i didn't really like the way everything reverted so quickly. malcolm has pretty much exactly the same job and same office as he did before. i know this was the point really but agree it seemed too fast/anticlimactic.

would happily watch half an hour of The Fucker tho.

Julius on the decks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqIZ-PZX8yg

this movie was great

yup

agreed

http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/01/28/10413/thick_of_it_special_dropped

congrats to In the Loop for the Oscar nod.

they just can't get the cast to behave, amirite

is thick of it online or do i have to torrent

i started watching it here but the picture quality is awful
http://tv.blinkx.com/show/the-thick-of-it/MtE2rQdfPrVdVqwQ

season 3 is on iplayer at the moment if you can get a UK IP, otherwise yeah, torrent.

why bbc iplayer h8 america

pay ur tea rates imo

“We’re all tremendously thrilled to get this nomination,” writes Armando Iannucci, the writer and director of the satire “In the Loop,” a nominee for best adapted screenplay. “‘In The Loop’ was just a simple little film about how Tony Blair’s an idiot, so it’s nice to see Tony Blair’s idiocy get such international recognition.

“‘In the Loop’ was just a low-budget independently funded film, so the nomination must be proof that with limited resources but an enormous amount of profanity, you can achieve anything. Personally, it means that I will become unbearably arrogant in my belief I should have complete artistic control over all my projects, to the point that I must never be let near a camera again.”

haha.

I was having lunch with some friends and our producer rang and said, you know, “Yay! You’ve got the nomination.” I had given myself a very busy schedule so that I wasn’t looking at computer screens and stuff and I actually forgot about the announcement. Then I got the call and ran out to take it, rang my family and before I knew it an hour had passed and they had taken my lunch away. The highs and lows of Oscar season.

What for exactly, if you don't mind me asking?

script

Wow really. In The Loop is awesome and if we ever fap, I will buy you drinks all night.

haha

http://incontention.com/?p=21964

:( british version of rickrolling

haha

all that needed was british accents and a laugh track and people coming in and out of rooms very quickly

"today you have laid your first big fat egg of solid fuck."

This was pretty good, but it was a long episode of "The Office," paced as such.

nah. makes as much sense to compare it with 'festen'.

but iannucci sorta kinda pre-empted 'the office' ne way with 'i'm alan partridge'. wasn't quite there but p much.

i dunno what you mean re pacing -- fast? slow? iirc 'the office' doesn't really build up to a big crisis like this film, doesn't involve parallel action and conversations between two continents, etc.

havent watched the film yet but finished the series and 2 specials. malcolm tucker is the best tv character in forever

wait, is there another series after the nicola one?

no.

for unfathomable reasons, seasons one and two are three episodes each.

so technically it's series one, series two, the two specials, then series three.

right. hard to see this being any good in u.s. form but who knows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8gMOJJqxtE

<3 glen

http://www.ifcfilms.com/inside-ifc-films/full-in-the-loop-screenplay-now-online-with-a-special-note-from-armando-iannucci

kind of hilarious how much the behind the scenes alan johnson stuff in this is like the thick of it http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qplfp/The_Great_Offices_of_State_The_Dark_Department/

http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/four-lions-trailer/2trpus57

not actually related i know

ok i found the actual four lions thread nothing to see here

but iannucci sorta kinda pre-empted 'the office' ne way with 'i'm alan partridge'. wasn't quite there but p much.

The office sketch in The Day Today!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/02/homo-erectus-osborne-stab-darling

these are killing me

willy banjo

have to see this show now

welp

this was s.thing they did not foresee!

While I totally understand the reasons behind it, I've been getting kind of annoyed with all the Tucker/thick of it etc. references recently. I suppose people can be pleased that their TV show/movie became so ubiquitous so quickly.

i wasn't feeling the guardian column so much

and the last series was a bit variable (ie some brilliant, like the richard bacon ep, some less so)

but you know, it was pretty obscure when it first aired

The Tucker-as-columnist thing didn't work because Tucker is only that brutally honest in private - he wouldn't actually write that way in a national newspaper - so it felt off.

There's a great out-take from the Malcolm Punches Glenn episode where Tucker's running off to urgently prevent something and a guy stops him and goes "you're live on the Times Online vodcast, is there anything you'd like to say to the people?"

Tucker looks at the camera for a split second then runs off up the stairs, but then stops halfway, turns round, thinks about what he's just been asked, does the Aguirre-looking-at-monkey face and then sprints off up the stairs.

hahaha

I think that's the same episode where he calls Ollie a "minge flannel," which killed me. I also liked "the beige power ranger" and "the unbaked gingerbread boy" for S3 Ollie insults.

Are they going to do more of these? Will Malcolm still be the focus, but in opposition?

I don't think they should do anymore

One-offs maybe, but not a whole series

there will be more

as i cryptically said a little above, they possibly dropped the ball by not having lib dems

would have been a good thing to introduce in series 3 instead of concentrating-too-much-for-my-liking on glen and the annoying civil servant woman

I could watch annoying-civil-servant-woman all day, I think her character is amazing.

Peep Show keeps going on and on, a la US TV progs, so I expect there will be more

there's only been like 16 eps of this tom!

with major cast changes!

Oh, I thought there had been more. I missed most of the last series, and I didn't see the first series at all, so I must have only seen about 5 or 6 of these!

I thought they were going to do a handful more specials as the build-up to the election? The end of the last series would certainly be a weird note to end on, given they'd just introduced The Fucker.

o god it wd be so epic if he became a regular

i was more into the tory shenanigans than rebecca front's lot in the third series

roger allam crushing it all the way through + the steve hilton guy

Roger Allam rules, of course. You know that Dad's Army episode where Capt. Mainwaring's long lost brother shows up and he's a disreputable drunk? I reckon TTOI could do the same with Peter Mannion and get Christopher Hitchens to play his brother.

ha

if IA wanted to upset people (he should) then a show about internal lib dem-tory politics would be just the ticket

feel like they've 'done' the other lot enough, though obviously you can't not have tucker

lid dems are so colourless, though, not sure how to 'do' them

IA = AI = armando iannucci

AI = Lib Dem supporter

late to the party & i've just watched this over the past few weeks after catching snippets of episodes on TV and thinking "i don't like this" or "i'm over this sort of thing" but i was just wide-eyed with amazement through most of it, esp. the specials.

it took me a while to get through each ep because i had to rewind and watch sections over either because i couldn't believe what i had just heard or because i loved what i had just heard and had to hear it again.

glen is amazing, would actually like more of him, not less. julius is really astonishing though, a headfuck of a performance, it's incredible what he does in each brief scene he has. capaldi, well, it goes without saying how good he is. but he really really is.

lid dems are so colourless, though, not sure how to 'do' them

Shame they've already got Julius because he's be a perfect LibDem. They don't really have a Campbell/Coulson figure though.

There's a great out-take from the Malcolm Punches Glenn episode where Tucker's running off to urgently prevent something and a guy stops him and goes "you're live on the Times Online vodcast, is there anything you'd like to say to the people?"

this is great, probably the best episode of that series

"did you have a nice poofmas?"

Aiannucci
Quiet day on Twitter from me. We're writing a Thick of It book at the moment. Should be out later in the year. All new material.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/10/yes-in-the-loop-writers-get-an-hbo-show.html

Good news for In the Loop superfans: Simon Blackwell and Armando Iannucci will write Veep, a new political comedy show from HBO that may star Julia Louis-Dreyfus. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Veep “follows a female senator who becomes vice president of the United States and finds the job is nothing like she expected and everything everyone ever warned about.” Terrific! We can now scratch the Blackwell-Iannucci-HBO-Louis-Dreyfus collaboration off our list of fantasy creative alliances, below.

oO

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/11/gears-of-comedy-total-pussy-test-drives-monster-military-hardware/

lawl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkkP_klodNQ

haaa... love this show.

we are in a prison drama. this is like the shawshank redemption, only with more tunneling through shit and no fucking redemption.

I just caught Peter Capaldi being a Wise Man on BBC's 'The Nativity' - kept expecting him to swear.

I noticed he was going for the Sean Connery school of Scottish accent acting.

he seems like a chill person irl

i guess that's what acting's about

I read a thing where he claimed to never swear IRL as well. Malc must be deeply cathartic for him.

In answer to all those who've been asking, a new series of The Thick of It is commissioned and work begins on scripts next month.

hope they make hollander a reg

the steve hilton guy is hilares too

#excited

ya

so HBO has picked up iannucci's "veep," wherein julia louis-dreyfus stars as a senator who becomes vice-president

looking forward to that. love armando and really like julia louis-dreyfus. also she's really good looking for a woman that must be about 50.

loved 'in the loop' when i saw it but only a recent convert to 'the thick of it' proper. 'KNOWLEDGE IS PORRIDGE'! god that made me laugh like a simpleton.

one thing I found interesting about "In the Loop" was how the American characters seemed a lot more appealing than the British ones, in that most of them seemed to be doing things for principled reasons (albeit crazy principled reasons in the case of the hand grenade guy), while the British characters were mostly stupid and just going with whatever seemed to be the flow.

think you might have been watching "ILX" by accident

haha

british characters were mostly cynical/self interested, tbh, rather than stupid

Well the Minister who goes to America and his assistant are not exactly shining lights in the brain department.

Are the new specials ever coming out or do they have to keep frantically rewriting them every time some new bombshell hits British politics?

most of them seemed to be doing things for principled reasons

doesn't gandolfini end up on the line of "and in the end i decided that ACTUALLY the MOST principled thing when you think about it is to NOT resign"

yeah what is the situash with the new episodes?

Ianucci's been making the US version instead of being in the UK writing anything AFAIK

tho he's said he's really glad abt the delay bcz it means they get to do the coalition govt now

veep starts 22 april on hbo and presumably around the same time on sky atlantic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0dMZo3l_5k

sitting down to watch this properly and in order over weekend.

Just re-watched all but the last season over the last week or so. Its been interesting to watch Malcolm become less of a caricature over time.

7 new eps written

http://www.digitalspy.com/british-tv/news/a382383/armando-iannucci-weve-written-seven-new-thick-of-it-episodes.html

Armando Giovanni Iannucci OBE

ugh

don't they give these trinkets to every member of the british entertainment industry who (often after a long domestic career) has some success in america

http://i49.tinypic.com/11bqjhu.jpg

a+

Ouch. I think Campbell's right about this in this case, but maybe he should have let someone else do the dirty work. Something I thought he'd be good at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtJVXcuHssI&feature=player_embedded

well, TTOI isn't really the sort of thing that lends itself to a 30 second trailer so i'm still hopeful in spite of ^^^that.

Inception?

https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/243683223169814528
https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/243683392330293249
https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/243683787639250946

That indicates significantly less Malcolm Tucker overall maybe, unless the early episodes involve a lot of running back and forth between parties.

The Thick of It Tories generally bring the lols more than their non-Tucker Labour counterparts though.

really? the Glen and Ollie combo is pure gold. then there's Jamie, Julius... really there's no one on the other side anywhere near as good as that. Peter Mannion and Emma Messenger are good (and excellent actors) but Vincent Franklin is pretty characateur-ish as well as pretty badly played imo.

i mean he's not terrible but everyone else is so good that it kinda shows him up. and i'd guess he's pretty much the main character now.

More likely to be about Peter Mannion than Vincent Frankin's character, who I agree is relatively weak. PHIL is amazing though, although mostly as a foil for Ollie.

that andrew rawnsley interview with armando the other do was crazy. armando being all calm and sensible, rawnsley being a concern trolling herb.

Great series opener.

i thought it was quite bad, the writing was poor: just a series of one-liners in place of any kind of substance. a couple of good one-liners admittedly but not bedded into a believable scenario. the direction was poor as well, a load of actors who didn't seem to know what they were supposed to be doing. i don't thing this is the directors fault though.

i know dosac is supposed to be some lolworthy non-department but i just didn't believe the scenario with the apps and then i didn't believe the fake furore with the minister going home with his half bottle of champagne. it was flimsy.

also it was annoying that they did that )re in the loop) thing of re-using an actor from a previous episode in a completely different role. one of the actors (i dunno who since i couldn't actually tell who anyone was supposed to be) was previously used as the newspaper editor in spinners and losers. the one who was trying to get ollie's ex gf to get ollie to dish the dirt so that he could have a headline for the morning's paper.

the glorious confusion of the rise of the nutters/spinners and losers episodes worked because the central characters were already bedded in. you can't really use that format on new characters who we know nothing about. no amount of one-liners and frantic camera moves can substitute for that.

overall this was a lot like veep.

rubbish, this was great. I especially liked the casual nazi references from several tories,

this was fucking waste

only writer credited was will smith the prick who plays the conservative apparatchik

idk if this is iannucci making a bbc1 sitcom episode as oblique condemnation of coalition era cultural degredation, or he really doesn't give a fuck anymore now he's running tings for HBO

credit to roger allam to putting in a good shift in a failing enterprise

to/for

i thought it was alright but i just watched the last series opener this morning and its a lot tighter

but that's one disruptive presence in a scenario we already know, which is kind of a fun thing to write and a delight to watch executed well -- whereas this is 'let's try and make round characters out of these people we're used to just seeing one facet of' which is a lot more work on both sides

i don't know, it seems like they're going all in on this having a continuous plot rather than being episodic? so i am okay with the idea it might take a minute to get off the ground

It was a bit light on incident for a TTOI episode, but I still laughed a lot. Love Mannion and Phil.

felt sorry for the actors playing terri and glenn

well Terri had to deliver the superficially funny lines

"Ever the charmless minor royal." & (to Glen) "You look like a week-old party balloon. I just don't want you ending up as one of those 'before he turned the gun on himself' guys."

which, you know, may be funny but even if you do think they're funny it's not Terri, that's not her character. that's just trying to write every character like a variation on malcolm tucker. there were worse examples eg. Mannion calling Terri a fart in a frock we what to waft out of here. which definitely isn't funny OR in character.

It's not funny, but it is in character for Mannion. I basically agree with you on inserting mini-Tuckerisms into the mouth of any character who happens to be standing about at the time, but TTOI has been doing that for ages - Terri and (especially) Glen have had loads of those jarring one-liners in the past.

lol at calling stuart "doctor robotnik"

Actually the one-liners seemed particularly jarring coming from the new LibDems.

the glorious confusion of the rise of the nutters/spinners and losers episodes worked because the central characters were already bedded in

The central characters in this episode have been bedded in for ages, they were hardly introducing an entire cast at once.

Thought the episode was very funny but flawed. The LibDems were a bit clumsily handled - the guy playing the MP had the mix of petulant impotence down nicely and obviously they're necessary in this series, but the episode as a whole fell victim to the modern malaise of trying to include too much stuff at once.

The main Tories were all excellent and Roger Allam was more than good enough to carry the episode in his own right. The scene where he was dying in front of the 6th form IT class was hilarious and excruciating. Glen having defected to the LibDems made sense as well.

I like Stuart as a character but, I dunno, Ianucci should really have taken a second look at his collection of Tories because real life has overtaken him madly. You can give Mannion a pass as some kind of avuncular and marginalised Ken Clarke type but if the episode was missing anything it was a properly evil Tory bastard to rival Malcolm Tucker. The lack of an Andy Coulson figure so far feels like a missed opportunity. The gag about Stuart taking a morning off after Steve Jobs died was pitch perfect though.

Splitting the two sides like this is a bit odd, I have faith the thing will improve massively when they move over to the opposition and then set the two groups up against each other.

i know dosac is supposed to be some lolworthy non-department but i just didn't believe the scenario with the apps

I just about bought this because a) it's not that much more convoluted and stupid than some actual government policies and b) if Dosac actually existed it would have been cut in its entirety, the only conceivable reason for it existing would be to put some kind of liberal gloss on brutal Tory policies, which I suppose is going to be the theme for the series.

You can give Mannion a pass as some kind of avuncular and marginalised Ken Clarke type but if the episode was missing anything it was a properly evil Tory bastard to rival Malcolm Tucker.

the only precedent here is tom hollander's cameo as an estuarine coulson type at the end of the last series, but hollander has his work cut out being hollywood's favourite undersized englishman (so i guess he will turn up in a cameo on veep s2 as the british ambassador or something)

yeah i did spend a little while thinking 'whatever happened to 'the fucker''

2013    Untitled Woody Allen Project               Undersized English Chap

Yeah I was assuming Hollander just wasn't available, they need someone though, there's no way the Stuart guy would have lasted into a real Tory government (and maybe he won't).

the real version is on sabbatical at stanford iirc

there isn't actually any need for most of the characters now that the writing is basically 'offscreen character x is a bloody old bastard' x1000

jed p much otm, here, though i wasn't quite as despairing. it did have an awkward 'radio play' feel to it, though, the direction fairly staid & the sorta framing & acting of fergus & the other guy p poor.

also it was annoying that they did that )re in the loop) thing of re-using an actor from a previous episode in a completely different role. one of the actors (i dunno who since i couldn't actually tell who anyone was supposed to be) was previously used as the newspaper editor in spinners and losers. the one who was trying to get ollie's ex gf to get ollie to dish the dirt so that he could have a headline for the morning's paper.

this is way off though! the guy was previously the night shift editor of the independent - afaic this seems like a fairly salient take on the small village quality of westminster, that he's pointedly resurfacing.

this def underperformed though. i feel like w/this being the final series there's actually some room for some real weight to it, in the same way that there was with in the loop, which was way more affecting & depressing than it was amusing, leaving you with questions about politics. having the opposition involved next week is kinda promising. but yeah mannion didn't quite flesh out, & there were a lot of kinda veep-level weak lines (i wish there was an app that could send him a dead cat, &c).

i loved it when terri stood up for herself. even if it was a calculated move to get herself fired.

more like episode two of the last series, actually, nicola snookering herself into pitching a policy on wooden toys

Glen having defected to the LibDems made sense as well.

yes this was great, both that it made sense for him to have done it, and the horrible clash between it having re-energised him and made him care and try to be involved, and his entire new world treating him like Ollie did

also just having Mannion as the lead was so delightful I glossed over the clunkiest lines.

BTW anyone in the US may want to note that this is available on hulu as are all previous series.
(also appears to be a hulu co-production this series)

"this is way off though! the guy was previously the night shift editor of the independent - afaic this seems like a fairly salient take on the small village quality of westminster, that he's pointedly resurfacing"

he's the same character?

well it seems so. same actor same character name. it doesn't make it any more believable to me though.

ps i wasn't despairing about it though, i just didn't think it was any good.

sure. btw the n-bomb & the rape joke really kinda stood out in this, both v graceless aside from being like ... a rape joke, &c. (that said, that there was an implied osbournian chancellor was neat).

Glen is going to get an astonishing savaging when he and Malcolm finally come into contact with one.another.

yeah it felt like a weak start, didn't really like the back & forth between the 2 new guys that glen was following around. it did pick up about halfway through, the app presentation to the classroom made me laugh cuz lol technology

Yeah the LibDems feel like the weak link. The Thick of It up until now has not even bothered to acknowledge that the LibDems even exist, now it feels like they're there just because they have to be. The Liberal spin doctor didn't seem to have any distinguishing character traits at all.

the guardian review was one of those articles they publish that seem like 200 concatenated tweets

but i did think the "too many characters" point was fair. can't really see a way round that in the coalition era tho.

The Liberal spin doctor didn't seem to have any distinguishing character traits at all.

That may be the point

yes let's make a sitcom about how boring the uk political class is and we will achieve this by making all the characters completely indistinguishable

That was fucking great,

do u think there's any chance they'll have an increasingly irrelevant Tucker become all faux-earnest and bleeding heart, all being chummy w/ lefty/gin/tea middle class twitter and being publicly worried about Stiliyan Petrov's cancer

no not really

next week's looks like fun

this is kind of more like the first series in some ways, than the last series

this is what happens when they don't let some wasteman write it

Definitely need to form a band called Quiet Batpeople.

Also Tinker Taylor Soldier Cunt.

i like malcolm's glasses. having the other member of shadcab be receptive enough to suss out his agenda is a neat move, too.

do u think there's any chance they'll have an increasingly irrelevant Tucker become all faux-earnest and bleeding heart

i think i said this last week but i hope there is some sorta earnest-teachable-moment vibe to the end of this season (it's the last/barring specials, according to ianucci, fwiw) - it's strong & realistic enough to hold weight and actually comment on the directions of politics, i hope it kinda ventures into that territory a little, a la in the loop.

his description of star wars was amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5iRmPBve80

haha yes

was this ever posted here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcFaizGw860&feature=related

Ollie's new brylcream mop is horrendous but spot on

there was a bunch of good small stuff, also, a kind of nice density of constant amusing but well rendered bullshit. i liked the straw frisbee line.

The plotting doesn't seem as manic as it used to be.

i thought that was great.

i've always wondered who malcolm's pub mates are, the kind of people who speak his language, people for whom his manner isn't a giant shock to the system, who don't cower in fear at his very presence. maybe he hasn't had mates like that for a long time. but at some point he did.

maybe the scottish guy in the earlier series?

also, while his style may be acerbic and caustic and cynical, i think malcolm's perhaps the only character in the series who genuinely gives a toss about what they are supposed to be doing - his yearning to be governing, to get power to do good, seemed entirely in earnest to me.

for the rest of em, esp ollie, its just jockeying for power for its own sake, its just a job

I thought all the criticisms applied to the first episode (autopilot dialogue, implausibility, etc) went double for this one. It must have been a challenge to know what to do with the settled cast but Nicola Murray as Leader of the Opposition defies belief to begin with and making her even more incompetent, to the point at which she can't even walk in a straight line, seems like a ropey point to start from.

Next week looks promising, though.

The dialogue worked better in this one because the characters are better developed and they didn't feel the need to spread out all the Malcolm lines among eight different people.

Nicola as Leader of the Opposition did seem to stretch credibility but hey, they elected Ed Miliband. And it was meant to convey the kind of paucity of front bench talent you get when governments have just been thrown out. There would be basically no reason for Nicola and Malcolm to even be in a room together otherwise.

I wonder if this series would have worked better had it focussed on the election and the frenzied period running up to the formation of the coalition.

I was definitely less keen on this episode than the first. I think I had a similar problem with the first few episodes of the last series until it started picking up again.

One of the reasons this episode was less manic was surely because the principal characters had nothing of consequence to actually do. But overall I thought the first episode was actually funnier.

I didn't laugh at anything in the first episode. I laughed heartily at the brainstorming session and the Star Wars bit in this therefore it wins

The Star Wars bit was great, admittedly.

It did seem that the Malcolm Tucker lines were shared out again here - you wouldn't normally get Ben or characters like Murray's assistant trying to zing him to his face.

He's not the PM's attack dog any more though, that's the thing.

Yeah, he's been neutered. I think this series could play out a nice poignant arc for him, actually, either redemptive or else a slow slide into nothingness.

And by redemptive I don't mean he somehow becomes "nice"; rather that he gets his bite back.

enjoyed this episode much more than first. trailer for third looked promising though.

This series has been v. slow compared to previous series, but I'm guessing that it's gonna heat up as the political backstabbing gets going. Thought the characters were a lot less well-defined too; Ben Swain didn't seem to have a different personality than Nicola Murray, and that seemed to come from indistinct dialogue.

also, while his style may be acerbic and caustic and cynical, i think malcolm's perhaps the only character in the series who genuinely gives a toss about what they are supposed to be doing - his yearning to be governing, to get power to do good, seemed entirely in earnest to me.

― Trad., Arrrgh (stevie)

This is an interesting angle, and I think I agree. Also he has been seen on a couple of occasions to be kind and charming with 'civilians' iirc.

He wants to be in power but we haven't seen much evidence that he wants it for any other reason than power. Certainly not from previous series.

His conversation with Ollie in the cafe doesn't really count because he was trying to get him onside.

Also he has been seen on a couple of occasions to be kind and charming with 'civilians' iirc.

yeah these are some of the best minutiae of the thick of it - malcolm showing deference to the public, to cleaners, &c, at a time when blinky ben is unaware of their status as human beings

I'm searching for the word to describe the feeling this season, I think 'lethargic' might be it? There is this sense of futility and absurdism hanging over it all. We've seen the minister change, we've seen the prime-minister change, and now we've seen a change in government. And nothing really changes at all. I think that might be why it seems less plotted and manic, there was this sense of struggles on the horizon in the specials and the third series, and now all it's all over with, and people don't know what to do.

apparently something big (possible Leveson-ish) is coming up though

i've enjoyed this season less than the rest - though we're only two eps in, and i did really enjoy the last one. could it just be diminishing returns? i stopped watching veep after three episodes tbh, because it just seemed like a lesser TTOI.

have any of iannucci's projects made it to a fourth series thus far? maybe longevity of an idea or format isn't his thing - he's brilliant in short bursts though.

Longevity in sitcoms is never a good thing though, they always run out of ideas. It's a truism but that's why Fawlty Towers and The Office were so great, they knew when to stop. The Thick of It should have called it a day after the last series.

seems kinda premature imo

& i think analysing the success of ianucci's projects according to their # of series is k skewed, too, because they've all been so irregular (cf the thick of it, which is at four 'series' of different kinds, the third probably the only conventionally 'series-esque' one) - it isn't like the office, at which its longevity or appeal is evident by it getting reupped, but they've all had weird arcs. the many projects of alan partridge would prob counter yr stat also.

gah you british people your shows don't make any sense, why bother trying to analyze anything that's not 22 half-hour episodes long

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_maisssF8YK1qz6f9yo1_500.jpg

peter capaldi is a really amazing actor.

otm

Best of this series so far.

like how there's no effort to humanise the Lib Dems at all

moral abattoir

A dummy asks: what does ""Let's McIntyre this" mean?

Stand up and walk about a bit while you're talking, I assumed. Or point out really obvious things as if you're the first person to have observed them.

ha at the latter, from an insight-vacuum like Stewart it just means exactly what he annotated it as in the same sentence though

I thought it was just that he wanted everyone to stand up and Mcintyre is a 'standup' comedian

This one was excellent I thought.

yeah. terri might be my favorite character now!

"Coverdale. Comms."

yeah. terri might be my favorite character now!

― TracerHandVEVO

Nah, Mannion all the way. He was magnificent in thought camp.

this was virtually laugh-free for me. maybe i don't like the thick of it and i just like pater capaldi as malcolm tucker?

i didn't love it as much as everyone else seemed to, but thought the second half was good; it's still way less clever, or less thoughtful, when it's w/the tories - like big chunks of last night, the thought camp things, were constant absurdity, like a whole episode of monkey tennis. i thought glen was really good, & the contrast he provided to the jr lib dems pretty sobering.

For some reason nothing in the episode made me laugh as much as Glen and Phil talking about women they fancy. "I like Emily Maitlis".

"200 years ago he wouldn't be allowed to milk a cow"

"Fucking amazing things these phones. I have an app that allows me to lob grenades into people's dreams."

big bag of useless doubt

this was great! this series feels slightly more mechanical, in charting specific power plays rather than just sprawling through a day, but the writing's so excellent & its critique is so damning.

So good.

that line about retweeting

I remember getting to a certain point and thinking "god I don't want this to end"

The twists and turns of Ben's resignation were magnificent

I wept with laughter for five minutes after Malcolm's 'flowers from the collision hotspot' line.

Sublime!

'coked-up, cousin-fucking chinless aliens' will stay with me.

oh that's what he said!! i had trouble parsing that one

the emphasis on 'chinless' left me with 'coked-up-cousin fucking chinless aliens', seemed v strange

"he looks a bit like a quentin blake illustration"

also lol at tucker flirting with the nurse

Consensus that it was the best of the series so far?

yep definitely

was it 623 twitter followers he had? lost my shit at that for some reason

Consensus that it was the best of the series so far?

last week's edges it for me, Mannion's slow-burning frustration at the Thought Camp was magnificent

also: Fergus running

ha ha he said unexpected item in bagging area

I was very happy to see Glen and Ollie back together.

glen as decorative LD ornament doesn't totally grab me, but glen as disaffected, depressed government functionary, inert to the climate & still to some degree vaguely principled, is great & powerful, i think

"he looks a bit like a quentin blake illustration"

i was trying to guess who this would be and then it was ollie, perfect

^ that and the flowers gag in close succession were the best thing so far this season

on a par w/last season's "the man in the little red and yellow car"

btw ― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap) is making me lol

Was this not on last night? Not on iPlayer.

no, Beatles retrospective thingy. Cos you can never have enough of those

Stoked for the Goolding Enquiry