I'm just not enjoying the scattershot approach to this series of The IT Crowd. It all feels very uncontrolled and, worse, often leaves a few decent ideas floating around in a sea of tepid subplots. "Something Happened" was misnamed, as too many things happened over the half-hour, and very little of it made me laugh, and a few storylines actually frustrated me because they had potential for greatness if the episode hadn't been so busy...This week, Roy (Chris O'Dowd) has a massage from a male masseuse who ended his session with a kiss on the backside, prompting Roy to suffer feelings of social embarrassment and outrage that a gay man may have pushed a boundary. A funny idea, taken to an amusing extreme with a silly court-room sequence towards the end, but I couldn't help feeling it was all too trivial and inconsequential. In the end, it felt like an idea that existed because O'Dowd sulking that someone had kisses his bottom is funny, to an extent.
Jen (Katherine Parkinson) landed an awkwardly set-up storyline where she fell head over heels for Norman, the gormless keyboard player with Sweet Billy Pilgrim, a band she saw play with Roy. Again, enormous potential with the idea of Jen falling in love with a geek who makes Moss (Richard Ayoade) appear extrovert and interesting, but beyond a few nice visuals (Jen and Norman's eyes first meeting across a club; their date on a children's roundabout), this storyline just didn't go anywhere very special. In fact, it got quite ludicrous once Jen had somehow become part of Norman's band. A shame, because had the episode focused on Jen/Norman, it may have been much improved.
Finally, Douglas (Matt Berry) had become a Spaceologist, in a parody of Cosmic Ordering (made famous by Noel Edmonds) that started interestingly with a Scientology-esque cheap video extolling the virtues of the New Age belief, but wound up being nothing but a weak way to do the same joke three times (that Douglas's faith is misplaced, because he's just making his own dreams come true through normal means). In many ways, this was the biggest disappointment of the episode, because a clever satirical swipe at Scientology and its ilk is always welcome in comedy, but Graham Linehan's writing's not really incisive enough to offer anything but surface giggles.
Overall, another flat episode in what's becoming a limp fourth series. I think there needs to be less storylines, more substance, and cleverer ways of knitting each strand together. As it is, I'm laughing at a few moments (Moss getting out popcorn and a drink to hear juicy gossip), and I'm still enjoying O'Dowd and Parkinson's performances, but the jokes aren't really hitting their targets for me, and too many great ideas are being wasted under the weight of too much narrative and subplots struggling to leave an impression given the time constraints of half an hour.
I was never a devout fan of The IT Crowd, but I swear it used to be better than this.
Aside
- Sweet Billy Pilgrim are a real band from Aylesbury, England
WRITER & DIRECTOR: Graham Linehan
CAST: Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson & Matt Berry
TRANSMISSION: 9 July 2010 - CHANNEL 4, 10PM
