Admin - Pilot

Congratulations to Mr. Isaac, must be a great thrill seeing your name on TV.

I thought it was a little slow to begin with but the laughs started coming about midway through. The office manager was the best part for me (Neil Fitzmaurice?) clearly a fuse ready to blow there. I would of prefered it to of concentrated on him, it seemed a bit patchy trying to introduce everybodys story line at once, but I'm sure that would sort it self out in a series.

Overall, I quite liked it.
 

Agree with Aaron - only positive is it gives hope to all of us!

Half the characters seemed like they were acting for a panto, didn't care about any of them.

The cock on the white board said it all for me - a half hearted attempt at funny (the cock) ruined by the line "it looks like a cock". Couldn't have been more dumb if someone yelled back "oh no it doesn't"

Surprised they chucked in so many plot lines to a pilot when we don't know anyone - someone was pregnant, someone was after a promotion, tramp boy fancied the jazz lover, asian guy pretended he was a lawyer etc, etc - its as though they thought they couldn't introduce a character without giving them a little story of their own.

Aaron, please don't start on Placebo! That really was dire.
 

Bums, I forgot to watch. Will it be repeated?

I got caught up with Shooting Stars on Virgin.
 

Only noticed this from looking at the site but cannot argue with Aaron. It was dire. A host of really bland characters nothing separating one from the other.
Wasn't Darrell's squealing ripped straight from Finchy in The Office too?

It was nice to see the guy from Goodness Gracious Me and Rita, Sue And Bob Too back on TV. Not seen him for a while, but again he had nothing to work with.

Quote: David H @ May 12 2008, 11:46 PM BST

Wasn't Darrell's squealing ripped straight from Finchy in The Office too?

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Commbo of finchy, gareth and keith chegwin playing buttons at the Hexagon 1991

BBC3 makes me sad.
 

You mean Johnny Roulette isn't his real name? Bah!

Nice interview, and well done on the pilot David/Johnny. Quite a coup getting Jeff out of Peep Show and the slightly less funny one out of Goodness Gracious Me.

It was pilot-y, as expected. Some bits worked and others didn't. A bit too much of that BBC3-yoof style musical cutting between scenes for my liking, but maybe that's one of the compromises? My favourite bits were dialogue based rather than the grosser "comedy of embarrassment" bits - in fact for me the best line was early on where the careerist woman muttered something like "it's only a theory".

Interesting to see a pilot episode getting made with a lot of characters in it, by the way. It would be interesting to know how much pressure David was under to pare the enemble back a bit. I think there's a lot of general advice as well as discussion on other threads about keeping the number of characters as low as possible, especially for a pilot. For me it might have been easier to get into with one fewer male and female staff, but then again I don't know how their stories are going to progress.

Overall, though, I enjoyed it. It was a cut above last week's pilot in the same slot. On the downside I felt the shadow of "The Office" hanging over it, even though it's clearly aiming for a totally different feel, so hopefully that doesn't scupper its chances.

Quote: M Lewis @ May 12 2008, 11:48 PM BST

keith chegwin playing buttons at the Hexagon 1991

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Quote: Seefacts @ May 12 2008, 11:49 PM BST

BBC3 makes me sad.

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These two posts made me laugh much more than the show they are critiquing did.
 

I quite enjoyed it! I liked the relationship between Mike and Daryl most and felt most of the funniest bits, for me, came from this. There were a lot of characters to get used to but overall I enjoyed it and hope a series gets made.

Quote: zooo @ May 12 2008, 11:46 PM BST

Bums, I forgot to watch. Will it be repeated?

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2:15am. If you have a DVD recorder, or even VCR.

It's also on NEXT Monday at 12:15am. Apparently.
 

Quote: M Lewis @ May 12 2008, 11:43 PM BST

The cock on the white board said it all for me - a half hearted attempt at funny (the cock) ruined by the line "it looks like a cock". Couldn't have been more dumb if someone yelled back "oh no it doesn't"

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Yes, that was one of the weaker bits. Kind of "how to dumb down an un-dumbdownable gag". The cock was okay, the explanation was not.

Quote: M Lewis @ May 12 2008, 11:43 PM BST

Surprised they chucked in so many plot lines to a pilot when we don't know anyone - someone was pregnant, someone was after a promotion, tramp boy fancied the jazz lover, asian guy pretended he was a lawyer etc, etc - its as though they thought they couldn't introduce a character without giving them a little story of their own.

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Yes, I think that's what I was trying to say about the number of characters - especially for a pilot. There was a lot going on which made it harder to empathise.

Who is this demographic BBC3 are aiming at.

Surely the kind of slack jawed young morons they are making output for don't even watch TV?

e4 is just as bad - though The Inbetweeners actually stands out at being aimed at totally different people.

Dear BBC,

Can we have intelligent comedy with jokes rather than idiots saying things that sounds like jokes, but are actually unimaginative references to wee and tits.

Thanks.
 

its a good point (by seefacts) what is going on? Is this age group 18-25? I was hooked on Friends at that age - do "modern" youngsters need tit/cock/f**k/pussy to get a laugh?

I watch Friends re-runs with my two eldest 8 and 11...they laugh/i laugh - why do we have to narrow humour down to a certain group then aim for the biggest retard in that crowd? whats wrong with just being funny?


I'm not saying we should all watch "family" comedy but if you edited the office for a 10 year old it will still be damm funny (if you get it...my 11 year old loves it!) but you edit modern sitcoms of crude humour and there's nothing left!

There should be a quota on gags that they can use with a sexual reference - not because they arent funny...but because it may force people to look a bit harder for comedy within the writting and not just think..."hmm, cant come up with a killer last line so i'll just chuck in a cock" .

Quote: Seefacts @ May 13 2008, 12:01 AM BST

Who is this demographic BBC3 are aiming at.

Surely the kind of slack jawed young morons they are making output for don't even watch TV?

e4 is just as bad - though The Inbetweeners actually stands out at being aimed at totally different people.

Dear BBC,

Can we have intelligent comedy with jokes rather than idiots saying things that sounds like jokes, but are actually unimaginative references to wee and tits.

Thanks.

View Original

For once I agree with Seefacts, why can't they just concentrate on making something funny rather than to 'fit a demographic' - whatever that is!