The League of Gentlemen - C/D? (now with added Psychoville)

I also rewatched them all not long ago and s3 was completely awful.

yup, reading this thread also inspired a rewatch of S3 (I've seen the first two many times)

it's dire

i haven't seen it in ages. It felt quite adventurous at the time - the idea of 6 storylines converging, a skew towards dark drama as opposed to LOL comedy, a development of characters who had originally started out as slapstick one-jokers. It's clear they wanted to go further in that direction with Psychoville and even more-so Inside No.9. That said, I'm trying to think of some really good memorable moments and they're not really coming to me. Maybe this kind of thing has become more prevalent, more clever in recent years, and this has aged badly by comparison.
Is there any artform that ages worse than TV comedy though? I tried watching the Fast Show again recently and it failed to raise so much as a chuckle. Red Dwarf on the other hand still has something about it that works extremely well.

Was very disappointed by 3 at the time, haven't bothered/dared to rewatch since, though I have the complete LoG box set sitting on my shelf.

I thought the Geoff episode in S3 was good, and liked Dean Tavalouris, but that was about it.

I can't believe S3 was as long ago as 2002. The only series not to include a laugh track. Dean Tavalouris was pretty good. The scene in the cafe. In retrospect the bookending episodes were good; the other episodes had their moments. Even the One-Armed Man episode had Steve Pemberton's all-too brief appearance as a car mechanic. I liked the old ladies in the charity shop; Geoff Tibbs on the tube; Stella and Charlie bickering over the Gypsy Kings; the Ross, Pauline and Mickey episode in general. It was a pretty brave break-away from the existing sketch format, but it's been topped since then many a time, and dark comedy-dramas have become a staple fixture on TV since then.

It was a pretty brave break-away from the existing sketch format

Brave is not a word I would use about some TV comedy tbh, S1 and S2 had already broken with existing sketch formats fairly radically in any case. S3 didn't even have the courage of its convictions so shoehorned some 'sketches' in in case you were getting bored with the central story - and these were often the best things in the episode, e.g. Barry Baggs and good old Legz Akimbo.

I really liked season 3, it used to be my favourite but I haven't seen them in years.

xp forgot about Barry Baggs

Enjoyed the latest Inside No. 9 except maybe for the last few minutes
Not sure I'll be watching In the Night Garden in the same way from now on (Derek Jacobi narrates)

Enjoyed the latest Inside No. 9 except maybe for the last few minutes

It was certainly one of their more unpleasant endings. Fairly effective though, I'm still thinking about it twelve hours after watching it. Everything up to the last thirty or so seconds was essentially an elaborate piece of misdirection - would probably benefit from a rewatch. Good, I thought.

I don't think they made it clear enough in the final scenes that it was supposed to be a police interview and not a directors' commentary

That was the punchline though!

yeah, it went over my head. i think it's because the other person in the room was sort of laughing and agreeing with Jacobi in earlier scenes, so it didn't come across quite right.

still, there was a lot to enjoy about the episode. felt like the 'punchline' (no matter how it was executed) was unnecessary really.

the '12 Days of Christine' is one of the best LOG-related things. Might be one of my favourite 30 mins of TV ever, in fact.

I found the 'punchline' abundantly clear (watched it on my own though), and it made the whole thing a lot more interesting/scary than the mere well-executed, weirdly specific spoof it had been before.

everyone should be watching Inside No.9. Riddle of the Sphinx was especially smart

Didn't know it had started again tbh.

confusingly they've included the christmas episode as part of season 3 so the episode numbering is a bit odd. i think last week's (empty orchestra) was the 3rd, but labelled as episode 4.

https://twitter.com/Markgatiss/status/855730647041798144

scroll to the bottom:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2017/bbc-two-edinburgh

(three new shows have been commissioned for 20th anniversary)

aforementioned 3 new shows are 18th, 19th, 20th on bbc2 (ie tomorrow)

Hereford has a new link road opening tomorrow, the day of the first episode. It is called New Road.

Today ykwim

Ok so they doubled down on the Barbara stuff in a really unfortunate way

oh no

(not that I'm that surprised unfortunately but that really sucks)

Yeah that was a bit awkward.

Other than that fine - not embarrassing, not brilliant. Tubbs and Edward still the funniest.

Jeff and the whiteboard was the prime moment for me. Otherwise a bit up and down to be honest. Nothing dreadful but sight gags still maybe the best part.

It was more or less 100% greatest hits fan service, but about as enjoyable as it could be for being that.

Bingo caller tonight was superb.

Felt very much like it might have worked better as the first third of a feature length special - there was a lot of setup to not much payoff. Enjoyable enough though.

Really wasn't sure about where they're going with Pauline (the one transcendent character they've created) but they've got exceptionally good at twists with Inside No. 9 so I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Much better tonight than last night for sure.

Yeah I really enjoyed that one - bit sad it's only three episodes now. Ollie Plimsoles is an exceptionally well observed character.

Bingo caller tonight was superb.

The conceit - a mundane, very British activity stirring up weird repressed emotions - felt familiar for the team, but the execution was perfect. Maybe the best performance I can remember Gatiss giving.

Hated the "take back control" bit though, too on the nose and out of character at the same time.

Third was easily the weakest I thought - not helped by being the gfirst I watched with my girlfriend, who'd never seen it before and was pretty confused and vaguely repulsed by the whole thing.

Just watched and enjoyed the three episodes. "If you have to ask you can fuck off" made me laugh.

i thought the Papa L pun was terrible.

Kind of brilliantly terrible? Maybe?

My favourite cheap laugh was probably the mayor's "Don't teach your grandmother to suck cocks".

I watched all of this and realised I don't have the stomach for their kind of grotesquerie anymore. Some things were really repulsive.

yeah enjoyed approx 50% of it in a sort of mildly amused way (visual gags, Legz Akimbo, Pam Douvre on radio) but everything else either meh or just gross without being funny. thought the vet in ep1 might be going to subvert expectations but no...
Geoff plot obvious but still a bit lol

the media circus was cute

Come on this was terrible

Chap's post up thread kind of nails my feelings, if I'd have been watching with someone new to the show I'd have felt a bit embarrassed to have suggested it.

They're obv capable of the odd bit of magic still but only really the bingo scene hit home, most of this was broad, gross and unfunny fan service like the worst Inside no 9s

The dark, disturbing side of this show has always been the least interesting part of it, but they themselves seem to think it's the most interesting.

i’ve been running off this analogy too often recently, but this series felt like pretty good ‘league of gentlemen’ fanfic

and i appreciate that they did interesting things with characters like pauline, they didn’t merely do job seekers 2017

To be fair to them, the 'fans' seem to like the disturbing stuff too, and it's probably more fun to write and perform.

The tension between the disturbing and the prosaic is where their best humour lies. It's funnier when the horrors are suggested rather than made explicit. OTOH, I wouldn't want them to start making straightforward character comedy or whatever, where would be the fun in that.

Almost all of their best characters are fairly straightforward: Pauline & Micky, Les McQueen; Geoff; Ollie & Legz Akimbo, Charlie & Stella etc.

I think the show has quite a special combination that seems kind of refreshing. When I first seen clips of it in highschool I was completely horrified by it but I got used to it fairly quickly.