Best British comedy series to have debuted in the last ten years.

The Office 13: Seemed great at the time, seems more "good" now. The Office worked as an ensemble piece, Freeman and Crook and Jasper Carrot's daughter and the fat guy and the weird woman and that guy from the yoghurt advert all worked well "together". Gervais has made his career before and since as string of "I am star" vehicles, which is why they've all sucked beyond reason.

I'm Alan Partridge 12: First series of IAP may be the most perfect three hours of TV ever. Underrated character: Kevin Eldon's racist kitchen salesman.

Spaced 12: Simon Pegg ennui has long since set in, mainly due to his love of talking in a funny voice about Star Wars. Spaced is more "heartwarming" than it is "funny", I suppose. It's quite a traditional sitcom in that way in that it has a string of sympathetic characters and their relationships are more important than making with the lolz. The only pre-Friends sitcom on this list?

Brass Eye 10: I think this needs to be reshown in its original schedule, ie: directly after Fortean TV. Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe ftw.

The League of Gentlemen 6: Shit, faux-dark, faux-edgy, string of catchphrases with no comic timing.

Peep Show 5: Olivia Coleman: she'd get it.

The Mighty Boosh 4: Bent-faced pederast and non-entity comedy partner do "random" "comedy" for 13-year-old girls. Look, it's a monkey made out of cheese that likes Spandau Ballet.

Black Books 3: See above

The Thick of It 3: Well, R Kelly's career did OK...

The Royle Family 2: Yeah, I fall in and out of love with this show every time I watch it. It's good, it's "accurate", it's just a little too... self-conscious? I don't like it when people set out to create great TV, I prefer it when it happens organically.

Little Britain 2: Light-hearted racism for a Friday night.

Phoenix Nights 1: Actually better than The Office, in retrospect. Kay more loathsome than Gervais, though.

Monkey Dust 1: Shit, faux-dark, faux-edgy, string of catchphrases with no comic timing.

15 Storeys High 1: Not as good as Ideal, be honest.

the Armando Iannucci Shows 1: Second best thing on this list behind IAP. "We went to see... Newman and Baddiel"

Big Train 1: Weird how so much comedy these days is sprung directly from this show. Most influential programme on the list?

Help 1: Third best thing on the list. Wife-beating Italian a personal favourite.

Green Wing 1: Fuck Stephen Mangan.

Jam 0: "Welcome to Goiter"

Saxondale 0: How the mighty have fallen, part 1.

Catterick 0: How the mighty have fallen, part 2.

Rock Profile 0: The Blur profile was the highpoint. "Justine Frischmann...my ex girlfriend... who was in Elastica..."

Extras 0: lol americans

Happiness 0: Never saw the second series. Is this on DVD?

Nathan Barley 0: Appears to be developing a cult following. Saints preserve us.

The IT Crowd 0: Look, it's Richard Ayoade in a wig doing a funny voice. Fantastic.

Marion and Geoff 0: Fourth best thing on the list. Brydon has to be the best comic "actor" in the country, surely?


That Mitchell and Webb Look 0: Man those snooker commentators got old fast.

ii]even though i don't like it, am surprised at jam's poor showing. i voted 'thick of it' -- the xmas spesh of which the bbc should totally broadcast today[/i]

Paedo factor kicking in

'thick of it' is awesome, and 'tittytwat' is probably the funniest compound profanity ever created, but i only ever saw the initial 3-episode run. is that all there is?

the evidence for me needing to see 'i'm alan partridge' series one is reaching total conclusivity.

Underrated character: Kevin Eldon's racist kitchen salesman

Underrated by who! Partridge in the lift with him = genius

would have voted I'm alan partridge

if I were sad enough to participate in these things

The DVD has a really good Ianucci/Baynam/someone else (Coogan? Henry Normal?) commentary.

xxxp

Curiously, I agree with most of Dom's comments

pre-Friends sitcom?

Friends shifted the impetus in a sitcom from caring about the characters to using them as a cipher for gags, to simplify as far down as possible.

Ie, compare Only Fools and Horses to Phoenix Nights.

Big Train 1: Weird how so much comedy these days is sprung directly from this show. Most influential programme on the list?


Big Train is about the best "sketch" show "going around". But still, half the "sketches" are "shit".

But as long as the other half are great that doesn't matter, see "Monty Python"

Where was "'Orrible" in this poll anyway?

Where was "Duck Patrol" in this poll anyway?

Friends shifted the impetus in a sitcom from caring about the characters to using them as a cipher for gags, to simplify as far down as possible.

-- Dom Passantino, Thursday, May 10, 2007 12:19 PM (35 minutes ago)

oh bollocks. i'm not saying i was invested overmuch in 'friends' but i don't think that's true. comparing it with 'only fools and horses' and indeed 'spaced' makes no sense anyway because they come out of very different traditions blah blah blah. but even then the characters in 'spaced' are just as 'cipher-y', if you like, as the characters in 'friends' -- clusters of pop-cult references, almost.

But in Spaced you're meant to be emotionally invested in the will-they wont-they relationship between Daisy and... whatever Simon Pegg's character was called. All I'm saying is that Spaced is the most *traditional* sitcom on British TV in a long time, it's a lot closer to a Marks and Gran production that anything else.

"I don't like it when people set out to create great TV, I prefer it when it happens organically"

what does this mean?

Actually setting out to create Important TV detracts from any enjoyment of it.

not funny

ive seen 8 of these shows, ive never heard of 12. it doesnt seem a good list for 10 years of tv?

the results arent surprising at the top. but a little more surprising lower down, why do you think royle family and phoenix nights gained so few votes?

i think dom maybe just answered my question. i thought he might like phoenix nights, but i think now i see why he might not

i kind of think all of these shows, and perhaps any show, sets out to be important thuogh?

Spaced is the most *traditional* sitcom on British TV in a long time

Since "Phoenix Nights" at least

Spaced is more traditional than Phoenix Nights in terms of format. Think about it: Spaced has characters in a tight location who each week go out on a wacky adventure (paintballing, raving, whatever). It's almost like Dad's Army in many respects.

that was one of the ones i havent seen

i wonder if the phoenix nights vote was from Alba

i think The IT Crowd was sold specifically on the fact it wasn't striving for importance. thing about this list though is that by neccesity it is loaded. i doubt "my family" and "two pints of lager" would have got any votes but it's sort of missing the point to make huge generalist arguements, of the sort we are now seeing, about british comedy without mentioning them.

But "Two Pints of Lager" = unfunny AND unpopular

TPOL not so much, but My Family (and My Hero for that matter), yes.

xp

Plus surely 96% of the people on this forum have merged Coupling and TPOL into one show in their head?

Which has the squeaky voiced Indian girl? Which has the comedy Welsh guy? Which has her from Hollyoaks? Etc.

The DVD has a really good Ianucci/Baynam/someone else (Coogan? Henry Normal?) commentary.

Coogan I think, on series 1. Very good. Also, Alan and Lynn commentary is mildly amusing. Series 2 commentaries not quite as good - mainly lots of snark at Coogan being too busy sexxing Courtney Love being in Hollywood to do commentaries anymore.

Is Help still 'easily available'? I lost my previous 'copy'.

UKNova.

The first series of Black Books, as written by (either Linehan or Matthews I forget) is really good. The latter ones written by Dylan Moran, where the plots are "lol asylum seekers have different customs to me", are fucking awful.

"Fucking awful" is well off the mark. It dropped a couple of notches but it was far from fucking awful. I think you & I have similar tastes, Dom, but I have a soft-knee slope down to comic mediocrity and your tolerance just drops like a stone. (Oh, and we disagree about Boosh/Barley).

TPOL seems to single handidly keep bbc3 afloat. my family and my hero are bigger than anything on that list with exception of little britain. coupling and TPOL are very different beasts. class warrior passantino should have clocked this.

I just have a low tolerance for Moran's "modern life is rubbish, look i've not combed my hair how roguish" schtick.

xp

Coupling and TPOL are meant to be differently classed, I know (main characters in TPOL work at a garage and what's obviously meant to be Gregg's, correct?), but the humour is _exactly_ _the_ _same_.

why do you think royle family and phoenix nights gained so few votes?

in the Royle Family's case i think people are now turned off by how popular it became because of the (over)reliance on catchphrases and maybe even the 'depressing' effect of 'watching people watching TV' overtook anything else. in TRF's defence i don't think it played up some idea of class stereotypes too badly - at least, i think TRF could've worked just as well had it been set in East London or somewhere else so it didn't come off as 'lol Notherners'. Kay likes to do this more (i think?) but it's all wrapped up in the playfulness of the language, accents etc. - in a way that doesn't grate and he's often more subtle than you might expect (i much prefer to say Kay acting than performing on stage as a result). Phoenix Nights was fun(ny) but maybe in the end the characters just weren't strong enough (and That Peter Kay Thing may still be funnier today, or at least more enjoyable).

hmmm TPOL is far coarser, ok the format is the same but the tone is different. would you class these two as pre or post friends?

But in Spaced you're meant to be emotionally invested in the will-they wont-they relationship between Daisy and... whatever Simon Pegg's character was called.

But in Friends you're meant to be emotionally invested in the will-they wont-they relationship between Rachel and... whatever David Schwimmer's character was called.

All I'm saying is that Spaced is the most *traditional* sitcom on British TV in a long time, it's a lot closer to a Marks and Gran production that anything else.

seriously, no way. stylistically it's the least sitcommy sitcom like ever. plus unlike most sitcoms it doesn't go for a broad audience. its jokes are reference-based more than character-based.

was it the first sitcom (ie pre-scrubs, pre-arrested development) to have shitloads of random insert shots?

Post, I'd say. Especially Coupling.

xp

Are you seriously saying you don't see Spaced as an update of Dad's Army?

"Phoenix Nights" - NOT PHUNNY enough

I think we can agree that the absence of A+J and L+H from this poll is a bit like a Slam without Federer and Nadal. Well, OK, Davydenko and Nalbandian. Hey, I'd miss 'em.

There's always this thread: http://ilx.wh3rd.net/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=25046

i think Dom's pre / post Friends thing is more important when you think about it in terms of how a show is written. few british sitcoms i know of have really run with the american "team" system. i know "my family" has, any others? rather than Dom's distinction it could be more of a case of more writers, less character coherence perhaps?

it doesnt seem a good list for 10 years of tv?

in comparison to the US you mean? i haven't seen the lists of French, Chinese, Australian comedies...

wrong to base on nationality perhaps but it seems there's an idea that the UK should be producing better comedy generally - better than the US better than anywhere else in the world. why tho?

or is it just that in a ten year period there should be more comedy that caters for one's own tastes. again tho, why? a few people on ILE are 'above' most of these shows/kinds of humour it seems, just as they are with certain types of music or other entertainment. hating on Little Britain is a lot like hating on Mika or Gorillaz.

Phoenix Nights: good "set piece" humour (racist folk group, Stars In Their Eyes, Ann Summers party), not great character interplay humour. Fair to say?

Dad's Army is a sitcom that is centred around two main character who don't have much in common but are thrown together by a "greater" need. The rest of the cast is an ensemble who revolves around them, and are all "weird" in their own specific way. The humour arises from how the two main characters cope with both each other and these other characters who rotate around their lives. The set-up of the average episode will find the characters escparing the enclosed space that they've been forced into and exploring a "new" space, usually with a large number of characters from this supporting cast.