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

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.