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

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