Cast: Chris O'Dowd (Roy), Richard Ayoade (Moss), Katherine Parkinson (Jen) & Matt Berry (Douglas)
Moss becomes worried that his life is stagnating, so enrolls on a German cookery course; Roy attempts to watch a film without someone spoiling the ending; while Jen finds a depressing smoking area...Opening with a hilarious spoof of those UK piracy adverts, the absurdity of IT Crowd really hits some delicious highs with Moss And The German -- leaping off from three mundane starting points: Moss (Richard Ayoade) realizing he's effectively "married" to Roy (Chris O'Dowd), the obsessive desire to watch a film on a big-screen TV without someone ruining its twist ending, and a pure flight of fancy as Jen (Katherine Parkinson) discovers the company's outdoor smoking area resembles Soviet Russia...
As with last week's death clock website, writer Graham Linehan targets another internet-related true life story -- the German who legitimately used the web to find a willing victim to eat! The story is crazy enough, but this episodes takes it to a humorous extreme, thanks to a cello-playing German called Johan, with an accent broader than the River Rhine.
There is a faint whiff of unease with a show as playful as IT Crowd tackling a rather sinister storyline, but it just about works thanks to the ridiculous extreme Linehan's script takes it. Oh, and the fact the German cannibal was actually a decent bloke behind the whole eating people thing...
Roy's storyline is more basic in nature, with him struggling to watch a Quentin Tarantino produced South Korean zombie flick. It works surprisingly well given its simplicity, although his quest becomes repetitive once he's sharing a sofa with company boss Douglas (Matt Berry) and his 50" TV screen. It just about manages to overcome growing tedium thanks to a wonderful last scene at a police station, which acts as a great punchline.
As is often the case (sadly), Jen's storyline is by far the weakest, as it's essentially a one-joke scene stretched beyond breaking point. Yes, it's a good joke to find smokers treated like Russian peasants, and is particularly topical with the recent smoking ban in the UK, but once Jen's trudging up a motorway's hard shoulder with a Russian comrade, all the joke's energy has dried up.
However, it was very nice to see Katherine Parkinson giving Jen a more motherly angle to her scenes with Roy and Moss, instead of the gruff cynic she tended to be last year. It makes sense she's grown to like her geeky colleagues, so scenes when she's quite supportive to their needs created an emotional charge that's usually absent in The IT Crowd. She also remains the only character who can flit between craziness and normality with any real success.
Matt Berry restrains himself from his overblown debut last week, as Reynholm Industries' new loony boss Douglas. I still much prefer Chris Morris in this role, but Berry's good for a few laughs -- such as his "there's somebody at the door!" dance in the hallway. I'm not sure it's wise to have him be so pally with the main characters, though -- as his sudden befriending of Roy seemed very unlikely and purely for plot reasons -- but I hope they continue Douglas' lust for Jen, as that should provide plenty of comic mileage...
Overall, Moss And The German was a very entertaining episode and the best of series 2, so far. It really soared whenever scenes involved Moss (Ayoade; on good form) and the eponymous German weirdo, while Roy's DVD plot made for decent support and Jen's storyline raised a few chuckles. It's not a classic episode, but it came close to greatness at times -- only to be dragged down by some repetitiveness with Roy and meandering with Jen...
7 September 2007
Channel 4, 10.00 pm
