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The IT Crowd

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Modèle:Otheruses4

Modèle:Infobox Television

The IT Crowd (Modèle:PronEng or Modèle:IPA)<ref>Linehan, Graham While I'm At It


. 8 February 2006</ref><ref>Modèle:Cite video</ref> is a British sitcom written by Irish director Graham Linehan and produced by British Ash Atalla for Channel 4.

Currently, two series of six episodes each have been produced <ref name="secondseriessixepisodes">‘The IT Crowd’ Series 2 begins tonight!</ref> and recorded in front of a live audience, series 1 at Teddington Studios and series 2 at Pinewood Studios. The first two episodes were broadcast by Channel 4 on Friday 3 February 2006, the second series started on 24 August 2007.<ref>Standard Nerds</ref>

Linehan has confirmed that a third series will be produced.<ref> Simpson , Gemma 



     (October 12 2007)
   
.    Q&A: Graham Linehan 
. silicon.com

. Retrieved on [[October 16 2007]]. </ref> On 2 November 2007, The Guardian reported that The IT Crowd would return in 2008 as part of Channel 4's increased commitment to comedy.<ref>The Guardian C4 celebrates birthday with pledge to redraw remit and save its soul


. 02 November 2007</ref>

Sommaire

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Situation and plot

The IT Crowd is set in the offices of Reynholm Industries, a fictitious British corporation in central London. It focuses on the shenanigans of the three-strong IT support team located in a dingy, untidy and unkempt basement - a stark contrast to the shining modern architecture and stunning London views enjoyed by the rest of the organisation. The obscurity surrounding what this company actually does (despite announcing profits such as "eighteen hundred billion billion") serves as a running gag throughout the series.

Moss and Roy, the two technicians, are portrayed as socially inept geeks or "standard nerds". Despite the company's utter dependence on their services, they are despised by the rest of the staff. Roy's exasperation is reflected in his support techniques of ignoring the phone in the hope it will stop ringing, and using reel-to-reel tape recordings of stock IT suggestions ("Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and "Are you sure it's plugged in?"). Moss's wide and intricate knowledge of all things technical is reflected in his extremely accurate yet utterly indecipherable suggestions, while demonstrating a complete inability to deal with practical problems like extinguishing fires and removing spiders, as well as his being socially inept.

Jen, the newest member of the team, is hopelessly non-technical, despite claiming on her CV that she has "a lot of experience with computers". As Denholm, the company boss, is equally tech-illiterate, he's convinced by Jen's interview bluffing and appoints her head of the IT department. Her official title is "relationship manager", yet her attempts at bridging the gulf between the technicians and the business generally have the opposite effect, landing Jen in situations just as ludicrous as those of her team-mates.

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Cast

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Central

  • Roy - Chris O'Dowd: Roy is a laid back, lazy IT engineer who goes to great lengths to avoid performing his role within the organisation. He constantly eats junk food and has a low regard for his career in technology, despite signs that he is more than capable. He is a big fan of comics and often reads them when he is supposed to be working. His work attire is very casual compared to his colleagues; he wears a new geek-related t-shirt in every episode. Before becoming an IT consultant, he held a job as a waiter, during which time he would carry the food of rude customers in his trousers until he served it to them. He often attempts to attract women by methods such as pretending to be a "bastard" because he believes that that is what women want. He is rarely successful, but still has better social skills than Moss. When angry, upset or worried, his voice adopts a slightly higher pitch.
  • Maurice Moss - Richard Ayoade: Maurice Moss (Age 32, although his online dating profile seems to assert it is 22) is a typical computer nerd, and displays characteristics typical of nerd behaviour. The humour in his character is derived from his socially ignorant comments and his intricate and detailed knowledge of technical subjects. He lives with his mother. Both he and Roy feel they never get the credit they deserve in the company. They also show little interest in anything related to sport, as seen in "Fifty Fifty" when asked about a prominent sports match that had been on television the previous night, neither of them knew what had happened.
  • Jen Barber - Katherine Parkinson: Jen is a woman who enters the department in episode one as a new starter, placed there seemingly at random by boss Denholm, despite her lack of technical or technology management experience. Although originally intended to be the manager, her role was changed to that of "relationship manager" due to her ability to converse with other employees within the company. She has admitted to a propensity for telling lies in order to further her own goals, as evidenced by her current occupation as a member of the IT support team. She is easily excited by stereotypical female pursuits such as shoes and men. During the second season we learn that she had been quite a heavy smoker several years previously; she took this habit up again, but quit when she realised that due to anti-smoking laws she was facing social isolation.
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Recurring

  • Denholm Reynholm - Chris Morris: Denholm was a director of Reynholm Industries, and a parody of modern earnest upper management, always ready with new and often ridiculous initiatives, such as mixed-gender lavatories in the office, stress-busting seminars, and other equally ludicrous ideas, all intended to boost performance in a company he openly boasts as employing attractive people who do very little work and all engage in adulterous relationships. Denholm was also very easily distracted, and often paid little attention to the people he happened to be having discussions with. He committed suicide by jumping out of a window after being informed the police wanted to interview him about a scandal involving the company's pension accounts.
  • Douglas Reynholm - Matt Berry: The son of Denholm, Douglas takes over Reynholm Industries after his father's death. He disappeared for seven years after a court case, but returned to attend Denholm's funeral. He speaks in a very dramatic manner, is something of a libertine and has a history of sexual harassment. He attempts to flirt with Jen during his own father's funeral. He shares several of his father's behaviours, including his arrogance and thus appears to be unable to remember any of his employees other than those he finds attractive. He had supposedly killed his wife by setting the house on fire. (In reality, Berry is only nine years younger than Morris.)
  • Richmond Avenal - Noel Fielding: A Goth whose new-found love for the black-metal band Cradle of Filth instigates his downfall from being Denholm's second-in-command. He works in the server room behind "the Red Door" all on his own, shunned by the rest of the department, who find his affected sense of gloom annoying, even though he personally describes himself as "cheerful". The episode introducing Richmond and Jen's discovery of him is something of a parody of the Tim Burton film, Edward Scissorhands. Richmond's manner of speaking to others is reminiscent of famed horror actor Boris Karloff, although when Richmond is on his own he speaks in a voice somewhat closer to Fielding's own. When Richmond tells stories, he tends to pause and look off into space dramatically, puzzling those around him. Richmond often conducts himself in a manner that non-gothic people may consider 'gay'. He is shown to read Heat, moments after a comment Roy had made that he did not know any heterosexual men who read Heat. However, in the 4th episode of Series 2, "The Dinner Party", he attends Jen's dinner party and is alluded to having sex several times with one of her female guests.
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Guest appearances

  • Daniel Carey - Oliver Chris: Daniel is the security guard that Jen falls for, but unfortunately her plans for romance go pear-shaped after she fails to help him as a "phone a friend" on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
  • Patricia - Alice Lowe: A woman who goes on a date with Roy. The date ends badly because Roy somehow winds up with a smear of chocolate on his forehead, which is perceived by Patricia to be excrement.
  • Paul - Danny Wallace: Fired by Denholm from his position as cultural adviser for his choice of gift to the Japanese, but regains his position after a quick hand on the "Profanity Buzzer" - never shown to actually speak.
  • Bill Crouse - Adam Buxton: Goes on a date with Jen and after being told by Moss that she'd subsequently died, told the entire office that he was the last person to sleep with her. Nicknamed "The News" because of his propensity to announce those who he has slept with.
  • Dr. Julian Holmes - Toby Longworth: A stress expert who visits the company to give a presentation, and ends up very stressed himself due to Roy and Moss's behaviour.
  • Dr. Mendall - Frances Barber: The company psychiatrist who has a crush on Moss, and the feeling is mutual. Roy claims that she looks exactly like his mother.
  • Judy - Cheryl Fergison: A horribly ugly woman that Roy gets entangled with while trying to meet a woman named Julie. Roy claims she has hair on her eyes and three rows of teeth. She is revealed to be a pod-person at the very end of the episode after the credits roll, in a clear reference to Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
  • Derek Pippin - Silas Carson: One of Denholm's top employees, who becomes the head on Reynholm Industries after Denholm commits suicide. He hates the IT department, and says he wants to use the basement for something a lot more useful, like "a big toilet", but is fired by Douglas Reynholm when he takes over the company.
  • Johann - Philip Rham: A German man, who Moss intends to learn to cook from, however he turns out to be a cannibal.
  • Helen Buley - Amelia Bullmore: The head of BHDR Industries, who are "the top makers of that product that has something to do with our company", according to Jen.
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Episodes

Main article: List of The IT Crowd episodes
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Broadcasting

In a first for Channel 4, each episode of the first series was available for download via the station's web site for the seven days preceding its initial TV broadcast. Downloads were only available for UK viewers and were supplied in Windows Media Video format. Each download was encoded with DRM restrictions, though there was no DRM on the first two episodes. The program attracted the interest of the software development community worldwide, resulting in almost immediate cracking of the DRM protecting the episodes and widespread availability on peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent.[citation needed]

The IT Crowd was broadcast in Australia on the ABC in 2006 and the second series will air soon.

The show is broadcast on S4C in Wales on a one week delay during the popular Friday night line-up.

In Latin America, the show is broadcast on Sony Entertainment Television. In Canada, the series made its North American debut on July 16, 2007 on G4techTV Canada.

The show is broadcast in Spain since November 24, 2007, on [[Canal+]] with the title Los informáticos.

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DVD

Image:Itcrowddvd.jpg
One of the Series 1 DVD menus showing a parody of the many isometric adventure games such as Head Over Heels.
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Series 1

The first series was released in the UK as "The IT Crowd - Version 1.0" on November 13, 2006 by 2 Entertain Video Ltd. The DVD start-up sequence and subsequent menus are designed to resemble a ZX Spectrum game, even to the extent that the loading sequence features the famous striped border. Games similar to Jet Set Willy and Head Over Heels play while menu choices are made; characters are replaced with representations of the characters in the TV show.

Also included on the DVD are subtitles in leet. The leet subtitles, for the first episode, are not a direct translation of the show and include many references to geek culture that were not included in the original episode. The second episode has the subtitles ROT13 encoded, episode three has all the words in the subtitles sorted in alphabetical order, episode four has the text base64 encoded and the last two episodes are direct leet translations.<ref> IT Crowd DVD has subtitles in leet


.</ref>

It is possible to run the decrypted VOB files for episode four from the DVD through a subtitle OCR program such as SubRip which will produce a text file containing the base64 data. After removing the extra line feeds and time indexes, the resulting file can be processed by a base64 decoder and it will produce the 15.3KB plain text of the subtitles (using Unix linefeeds). The base64 encoding does contain one error: line 423 and 424 are duplicates and one must be removed for proper decoding (the text is "LAoKCgp0aGUgcGVvcGxlIHRoYXQgdHVybmVkIH").<ref> Decoding the Base64 subtitles


.</ref>

The DVD also included a short film written and directed by Linehan called Hello Friend, which starred Ayoade in a silent role, and also had an appearance from Little Britain's David Walliams.

The first series DVD was also released in Australia on December 6, 2006.

An American version of the DVD was slated for a September 4, 2007 release, but on August 14, 2007 it was revealed that since the American version of the show has been pushed back to an early 2008 start, the DVD will be released on February 18, 2008.<ref> IT Crowd DVD News


.</ref>

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Series 2

"The IT Crowd - Version 2.0" DVD was released on October 1, 2007, together with a box set containing both the first and second series. Initial plans to release series two without region encoding did not go ahead.<ref>Linehan, Graham Please! My cheeldren need wine!


. 25 September 2007</ref> Retail chain HMV sold an exclusive limited edition version featuring a set of four postcards in the style of popular viral photos such as Ceiling Cat—here replicated as Ceiling Goth.

The disc contains a commentary track, outtakes and "Recording The IT Crowd" featurette. Whereas the first season DVD menus parodied 8-bit games, the season 2 DVD menus parody 16-bit games and make reference to All Your Base Are Belong To Us, Mortal Kombat, Tetris and Lemmings. They were animated by London animation studio, CHASE. There are also several 'hidden' extras encoded into the subtitles. These are done in much the same way as the base64 subtitles from Series 1, and include two JPG images and a text adventure game file. Episode 4 has a BBC BASIC listing, and Episode 6 has light bars in the corner of the screen which can be decoded using a light reader. <ref> Hacking the IT Crowd Series 2 DVD


.</ref>

There is an error on the early pressings of the series 2 DVD which causes the disc to pause and skip. There is a solution to the problem, simply by turning the subtitles on and then off again. Newer manufactured discs have solved this issue entirely.<ref> It Crowd DVD – You’re not going to believe this, but…


.</ref>

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Cultural references

The show features a large number of references to geek culture, mostly in set dressing and props. Dialogue (both technical and cultural) is usually authentic and any technobabble used often contains in-jokes for geek viewers. Some of the more obvious references include: 


  . 
 "
   Divine intervention 
     
 " , The Scotsman
  , June 4, 2006
 
  . Retrieved on [[September 10, 2007]]
 . </ref>
  • The slideshow at the end of "Yesterday's Jam" is a stock iPhoto slideshow, including the default music.
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Foreign remakes

Modèle:Seealso


.</ref> Jessica St. Clair played Jen, Joel McHale played Roy and Richard Ayoade reprised his role as Moss.<ref> IMDB: The IT Crowd (2007)(TV)


.</ref> The show was originally reported to have a midseason debut in 2007-08,<ref> NBC Fall Preview


.</ref> however recent reports indicate that NBC may not move forward with the show.<ref> NBC May Unplug 'IT Crowd'


.</ref>

  • A German version of the programme has been in production since June 2007, starring Sky du Mont, Sebastian Münster, Stefan Puntigam and Britta Horn.<ref> German version


.</ref>

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Awards


. 23 February 2006</ref>

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References

<references />
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External links

Modèle:Wikiquote

Modèle:Christopher Morris

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