The IT Crowd (2006)

There is a universality to "IT" that makes at least some of it instantly relatable. Ayoade, O'Dowd and Parkinson are terrific as employees who want only to keep their jobs but not let them interfere with their personal lives.

It’s old-school silly, filmed--defiantly, in these laugh-track-less days--in front of a studio audience, rich with sublimely broad performances, appreciative of the well-timed one-liner and the pratfall, in love with jokes of camera placement and confident in the healing power of a running gag.

I suspect anyone who's ever called a "help" desk seeking actual help, only to be asked, "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" won't need a translator to laugh themselves silly over The IT Crowd.

So far, so good, but while writer-director Graham Linehan (working with "The Office" producer Ash Atalla) has created a vivid trio of oddball characters, his ingenuity doesn't extend to finding consistently amusing situations in which to put them.

This story of two computer I.T. guys and their computer illiterate boss is overly obvious and plays on stereotypes in an over-the-top way that may have been au courant in the '80s but feels woefully dated today.

That the funniest straight-ahead sitcom of the American fall television season is a 2-year-old British import airing on a basic-cable network is because of a few things: a dearth of new American sitcoms, the availability of road-tested foreign product, and the ongoing expansion of the vast tracts of basic cable into the kind of programming that has traditionally defined broadcast television.

The IT Crowd packages feeble stereotypes and then hits the send button.

Pure gold. I watched several times. Outstanding sense of humor. One of the best.

The funniest TV series I've seen, with the worst Spanish translation ever. Deserves of cult classic status.

Hilarious office comedy in the same league as … The Office. Definitely not PG humour but very hard hitting sarcastic take on the modern workplace, especially the travails of the under-appreciated IT staff, to which I can most certainly relate. I wish this series went past 5 short seasons, it was so good. Every episode had a strong pulse on a period of remarkable change in society’s exposure to and adoption of technology, especially the Internet. Very much attuned to pop culture too, and of course the expected witty British humour we all love. So nice to see the series end on a twisted positive note, as fortune favored the basement dwellers to rise to the top.