Quote: Ian Wolf @ April 30 2013, 8:45 AM BST
Having read all the reviews for the show - because I have to for this website as I'm the one who links them to the guide - the critics hate this show, but mainly because you can hear people laughing.
The Guardian gets upset that it's pre-Office. If that means "funny" rather than "sneery and uncomfortable". then I'm all for it.
One of the pieces of received wisdom that has to be challenged is that The Office is the highpoint of comedy of the past twenty years, and after it, everything changes, rather like the aftermath of a large meteor hitting Mexico and killing the dinosaurs. Hence the endless parade of workplace-set, laugh-free, shaky camera pseudo-docs. The more advanced version of this conceit is that in fact the KT boundary of comedy is Curb Your Enthusiasm, a claim undermined by the fact that approximately no-one actually watches it, whereas the Office was at least somewhat popular.
There's nothing wrong with laugh-out-loud studio-based comedy. When it's done well, as I think Vicious is, then it's funny. It's entertaining. It passes half an hour. When it's done badly, or with a contempt for the audience (essentially, "I wouldn't watch this, but I'll make it for the little people who don't know any better") then it's "The Wright Way" and it's horrid.