This weeks was an improvement on the first, and I enjoyed Mr Goodman. Hell, I even laughed out loud when he went to re-adjust the skewiff pictures... However, there's still something about it that doesn't work. The main problem is Chris Addison himself, who's like a blank void at the heart of the show. He just can't carry it. Maybe a young Rowan Atkinson or Simon Pegg could have done something with his role, but not Addison. They'd be better off with a crash test dummy doing his lines.
Quote: Perry Nium @ July 18 2008, 9:48 AM BSTI'm like you on this one, a bit perplexed. I really do think there's a decent comedy in there trying to get out but its just not quite there.
To me it feels like it hasn't been "glued together" properly. It's frustrating because I'm watching it, willing it to improve (because I think the BBC is right in commissioning audience comedies) but it doesn't.
Yeah, definitely. It's like, every (well, most) individual constituent part of the show works; good setting, some great gags, characters who are at least 'not bad'. But it just doesn't work when all put together. At times it feels like every aspect of the show is being overshadowed by something, and that something in turn by something else and so on. I just don't understand it.
Why did someone not stop them and say "Wait, this just isn't working properly"? :/
Oh, and I still hate that 'Russian' guy from episode one. I can't find a single positive thing to say about the character or how he was used. AWFUL in every way.
I also wih this show wasn't so setbound. Just because it's filmed in front of a studio audience, doesn't mean you can't film some exterior stuff and pipe it into the studio. It might help to make the university backdrop more convincing, because at the moment it doesn't convince (in the way I believed Black books was a bookshop in London, and I believed that Father Ted et all all lived on Craggy Island).
Well, the next episode is about some sort of protest, so maybe there will be some exterior shots of people protesting outside the university.
Quote: chipolata @ July 18 2008, 11:12 AM BSTI also wih this show wasn't so setbound. Just because it's filmed in front of a studio audience, doesn't mean you can't film some exterior stuff and pipe it into the studio. It might help to make the university backdrop more convincing, because at the moment it doesn't convince (in the way I believed Black books was a bookshop in London, and I believed that Father Ted et all all lived on Craggy Island).
Oh I dunno, the setting feels alright for me. I'm not entirely convinced of their just bursting into the Dean's office every five minutes, but otherwise it's fairly believable.
Except when they replaced one doorway with another.
Have there been any other sitcoms set in universities? I know the Young Ones was about students, but I can't remember seeing the actual university they went to.
Quote: Aaron @ July 18 2008, 10:54 AM BSTWhy did someone not stop them and say "Wait, this just isn't working properly"? :/
I think it takes a very brave person indeed to stand up (after hundreds of thousands of pounds have already been spent) and say "Actually, can we start again?"
I think when these things get momentum it's hard to stop them, and you just have to stick with it till the train comes to a stop and hope the wheels haven't completely fallen off by the end.
Quote: Perry Nium @ July 18 2008, 11:18 AM BSTI think it takes a very brave person indeed to stand up (after hundreds of thousands of pounds have already been spent) and say "Actually, can we start again?"
I think when these things get momentum it's hard to stop them, and you just have to stick with it till the train comes to a stop and hope the wheels haven't completely fallen off by the end.
Which begs the question, is the way we commission and make sitcoms the right way?
Quote: Griff @ July 18 2008, 11:22 AM BSTA Very Peculiar Practice was set in a university, although that was a comedy drama.
I liked that. Andrew Davies, wasn't it?
Porterhouse Blue - again comedy drama
Come on everyone, let's play...
Spot The Door!
*crowd cheers*
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Quote: chipolata @ July 18 2008, 11:17 AM BSTHave there been any other sitcoms set in universities? I know the Young Ones was about students, but I can't remember seeing the actual university they went to.
Doctor In The House, and part of Doctor At Large.
Quote: chipolata @ July 18 2008, 11:17 AM BSTHave there been any other sitcoms set in universities? I know the Young Ones was about students, but I can't remember seeing the actual university they went to.
The American sitcom The Big Bang Theory is set at the real-life private, coeducational research university Caltech.
Well remembered!
Quote: Perry Nium @ July 18 2008, 11:18 AM BSTI think it takes a very brave person indeed to stand up (after hundreds of thousands of pounds have already been spent) and say "Actually, can we start again?"
One of my gripes about Extras was that When the Whistle Blows was a satire of a show that doesn't exist any more...Gervais was attacking the crap he grew up on, not modern comedy - and then along comes this and makes Extras look like the work of Nostradamus!
Just waiting to see Addison on celebrity big brother crying because he did say "penguin"
Quote: Aaron @ July 18 2008, 11:31 AM BSTWell remembered!
Well, I never watched it, but I knew it was set at a university.
