The IT Crowd, Season 1 (2006)

Note: I originally wrote this review several weeks before it was scheduled to post.  Shortly before reaching the scheduled posting date, I learned that the show's writer and director is a notorious transphobic activist.  I've kept the original text of the review below, but changed my rating to 'Not Recommended'.  Don't watch shows by bigots, folks.

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The IT department of Reynholm Industries consists of just two socially awkward young men: Maurice, who is intelligent but painfully shy and impractical; and Roy, whose brash exterior is a front for his own feeling of inadequacy.  Labelled losers by the rest of the company, they lurk in a basement workplace that is as shabby and neglected as are they themselves.

But then the IT department gets a new manager.  Jen knows nothing about computers and has bluffed the equally tech-ignorant CEO of the company into giving her the job.  But she considers herself a 'people person', and persuades Roy and Maurice that she can use those skills to improve their standing with the rest of the company.  Hijinks ensue.

'Hijinks ensue' is pretty much the basic premise of this show.  Each episode presents a particular workplace situation - such as an unsuccessful date with a colleague, the completion of a project, or the problems of shared kitchen space - and develops them in kooky and over-the-top, exaggerated ways.

The IT Crowd is frequently quite amusing, helped immensely by a talented and charismatic cast.  It does however fall a little too often into the easy 'nerds are socially inept and don't know about anything except computers' punch-down kind of humour.  Yes, we are supposed to sympathise with them in their struggles, but we're also supposed to laugh at them, instead of with them, a little too often for my tastes.