The It Crowd Us Pilot Full Episode

[Jesper Sahu]

TheIT Crowd is a British television sitcom originally broadcast by Channel 4, created, written and directed by Graham Linehan, produced by Ash Atalla and starring Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson, and Matt Berry. Set in the offices of the fictional Reynholm Industries in London, the series revolves around the three staff members of its IT (Information Technology) department: technical genius Maurice Moss (Ayoade); work-shy Roy Trenneman (O'Dowd); and Jen Barber (Parkinson), the department head/relationship manager who knows nothing about IT. The show also focuses on the bosses of Reynholm Industries: Denholm Reynholm (Chris Morris) and, later, his son Douglas (Matt Berry). Goth IT technician Richmond Avenal (Noel Fielding), who resides in the server room, also appears in several episodes.

The comedy premiered on Channel 4 on 3 February 2006 and ran for four series of six episodes each. Although a fifth series was commissioned, it was not produced.[1] The programme was concluded with a special "farewell" episode that aired on 27 September 2013.[2][3][4][5] The IT Crowd was critically acclaimed and has a cult following.

Roy and Moss, the two technicians, are socially inept geeks or, in Denholm Reynholm's words, "standard nerds". Despite the company's dependence on them, they are generally ignored and considered losers by the rest of the staff. Roy's support techniques include ignoring the phone, hoping it will stop ringing, and using reel-to-reel tape recordings of stock IT suggestions such as, "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" and "Is it definitely plugged in?". He wears a different geek-related T-shirt in most episodes.[8] Moss' deep knowledge of technical topics is reflected in his extended, overly detailed suggestions, while he cannot deal with practical problems such as extinguishing fires and removing spiders. His shyness makes it difficult for him to relate to others, often leading him to cite bizarre facts or dwell on himself and/or technology. When someone shows their ignorance about computers, he can be arrogant.

Jen, the team's newest member, is hopelessly non-technical, despite claiming on her CV that she has "a lot of experience with computers" (often pronouncing the word as "comp-you-ters"). As Denholm is equally technologically illiterate, Jen's interview bluffing convinces him she should be the head of the IT department. After meeting Roy and Moss, Jen redefines her role as "Relationship Manager", yet her attempts to bridge the gap between the technicians and the company's other employees generally have the opposite effect, landing her and her teammates in ludicrous situations.

Creator Graham Linehan wrote the series after a PC Tech with poor people skills made a house call. The show was video-recorded with a live studio audience.[9] Of this choice, Linehan said, "I trust my instincts, so I'm going to do it my way and hope people come to me."[9] The first series was recorded at Teddington Studios, and subsequent series at Pinewood Studios, with intermittent location footage. Cinematic-style footage was also recorded before live tapings. The show's title sequence was produced by Shynola.[10]

The programme is broadcast internationally. In Australia, it has been broadcast on ABC1 and UKTV. In Bulgaria, GTV began airing it in July 2008, while Comedy Central Germany started airing the first series in September 2009. ETV has aired the programme in Estonia. In Poland it has been shown on Comedy Central Poland, TVP2, and Fox Comedy. In the Czech Republic, it was broadcast on Česk televize and HBO. TV 2 Zulu has aired it in Denmark, as has Comedy Central in the Netherlands. Canal+ runs it in Spain. It aired in New Zealand on TV One. It airs sporadically in the Republic of Ireland on RT2 and on the RT Player.

In the United States, episodes have been shown on IFC; all four series and the special are also available on Netflix, Tubi TV, Pluto TV, and Hulu, and for purchase in the iTunes Store. Canadian channel G4 ran the programme during their Adult Digital Distraction block in July 2007. Reruns also aired on BiteTV in Canada until it relaunched as "Makeful" in August 2015. It was broadcast in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile on I.Sat. In Mexico, it has aired on Canal 11 since 2010. It was also broadcast in Spain on Canal 3xl in 2011.[11]

However, Linehan felt a special "farewell" episode could be produced. He was already busy with his TV adaptation of Count Arthur Strong and his work on The Walshes, and the IT Crowd actors had also taken on other commitments. Thus, it was not until June 2013 that the show's final episode was filmed.[15]

Linehan said he would like to explore particular IT Crowd characters in future spin-off-style specials, particularly Matt Berry's character, Douglas. In a 2014 interview, Linehan said he had a half-formed idea about expanding on the Douglas character but that with Matt Berry busy with his series Toast of London, Linehan would need to "pounce when he's taking a rest".[16] Linehan has also discussed reprising Benedict Wong's character Prime from the episode "Final Countdown".[14] Wong has said he would be "thrilled" if Prime got his own series, joking that it could be called Prime Time.[17]

The premiere of the programme on Channel 4 was watched by 1.8m viewers, described as "disappointing" by BBC News;[34] however, Linehan stated he was "playing the long game" and reflected how the first series of Father Ted also "went pretty unnoticed" but went on to gain viewers and awards.[9] The series four finale on 30 July 2010 saw the programme reach its current ratings peak of 2.17 million and was highly successful in its time slot.

The IT Crowd has won awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTAs), the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (the International Emmys), the Rose d'Or television entertainment awards, and from the fan voted Comedy.co.uk Awards organised by the British Comedy Guide. It also received a British Comedy Awards and an Irish Film and Television Award.

In 2006, the series was voted Best New British Sitcom at the 2006 Comedy.co.uk Awards, out of 17 nominees.[35] In 2007, it was voted Comedy of The Year at the 2007 Comedy.co.uk Awards, out of 100 nominees.[36] Nominated in the 2007 BAFTAs for Best Situation Comedy, alongside Green Wing and Pulling, it lost to The Royle Family. In 2008, the series won the International Emmy Award for Comedy[37] and the 2008 Rose d'Or for Best Sitcom.[38] Nominated in the 2008 BAFTAs for Best Situation Comedy alongside The Thick of It and Benidorm, it lost to Peep Show. In 2009, it won Best Situation Comedy at the 2009 BAFTAs. Also in 2009, Graham Linehan won Best Television Script at the 6th Irish Film and Television Awards, and Katherine Parkinson won Best Comedy Actress at the 2009 British Comedy Awards.

However, a September 2007 report in The Hollywood Reporter said that the show would not reach production, despite the development of several scripts, as it "didn't quite spark" with new NBC chairman Ben Silverman.[45] In 2012, the pilot was leaked online.[46][47]

A third attempt at an NBC remake was confirmed in January 2018. Unlike the two previous versions, Graham Linehan was to be involved as a writer and executive producer. However, no further developments have been announced.[49]

If you've been following my column for the last year or two, you already know that "Lunatics" is the free-culture animated science-fiction series that we are creating with free-software applications like Blender, Synfig, Audacity, Inkscape, Gimp, and Krita. We are finally crowd-funding for our pilot episode "No Children in Space" on Kickstarter. If we get funded, this will be a major step forward for free-culture and free-software in the media industry. Come check it out, tell everybody you know, and/or get a copy on DVD or other cool stuff from the project!

This is already a larger project than most free-culture productions, and it will grow: we currently have about 20 people directly involved to a greater or lesser degree (and closer to 100, if you count all of the passive collaboration from appropriated free-culture materials such as music tracks and sound effects).

Part of our plan is to give back to the community, both in terms of the new assets created for the project (such as 3D models and graphics), but also by paying shares of our "Creator Endorsed" sales to actively-contributing artists as well as some passively-contributing artists (such as musical artists whose tracks are in our soundtrack).

For this pilot episode, we've already got a small team of six Blender modeling and rigging experts, a Synfig expert who will be doing animatics and also final animation for the show, and a cast of seven principal voice actors for the pilot episode (six series regulars and a guest).

The pilot episode follows young Georgiana Lerner (age 7) on her way to the Moon with her mother to join the rest of the colonists. That's because it's really her arrival that turns "ISF-1" into a settlement instead of a mere "base" on the Moon. Along the way, we pick up most (not quite all) of the series regular cast, and we take a kind of "voyage into the future" where we start from the rather archaic (19th-century) technology of trains, pass through 20th century technologies up to and including spaceflight into orbit, and then depart into the science-fiction realm with the Moon Shuttle that takes us beyond the present. It's a vision of the future, versy much tied to the present -- a smoothly integrated future that always feels "just around the corner" from where we are now.

There will also be some room to contribute directly. After we start getting our primary 3D assets made (to establish style and take care of the most critical design work), we'll be announcing a community call (and one or more day-long, themed sprints) for more models for the pilot.

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