• jsomae@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    People be forgetting that the first season or two of the big bang theory was legitimately very good.

    The first season or two of the IT crowd was… oh yeah, the whole show.

    IT crowd’s best episodes were best-in-class. tnetennba. But it had a lot of meh too.

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I’ve watched IT Crowd half a dozen times.

    I haven’t managed to finish an episode of BBT before I switch it off in disgust.

  • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    In my mind, I still picture this as the archetype of an office’s boss inside a boss’s office. If it doesn’t have the 4th breaking wall picture, then it’s a fake boss

    • ZeffSyde@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I always felt like it was a show for moms of geeks and nerds that missed their kids once they moved out.

    • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      It had a good few first episodes with fun geeky jokes, but it quickly turned to bad jokes and lazy stereotypes and relied loosely on stereotypes to contain the geekyness.

  • MY_ANUS_IS_BLEEDING@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    If BBT was made today it would be accused of being written by AI. Fully flanderised characters, and endless filler episodes.

    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      I believe this is what happened to Dr Who. When it started it was for science and history nerds, science sounding gobble-de-gook, cos play outfits, very low production values (the infamous duct tape boots). All just good fun.
      When it was rebooted the focus had shifted. The Doctor as the cool guy, a Jesus figure, became more and more pronounced. They started to make fun of nerds on a regular bases. Amazing writing and production values, but at some point during the Tennant era I stopped watching in disgust.

      • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The original Doctor Who was an educational show mostly aimed at school aged children that used a sci-fi gimmick to teach history lessons (much of which are a bit outdated now). They would alternate storylines between future and past settings through most of William Hartnell’s run.

        Towards the end of classic Who it was already much more like modern Who than those first seasons.

  • Rose56@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    IT Crows was amazing, I laughed to death. Where the bigbang theory was not so funny, too much detail IMO.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      IT Crowd was three British goofballs doing elaborate running gags over 24 episodes.

      BBT was four creepy bigots and a nice blonde woman doing pop culture references and calling one another stupid for 279 episodes before spinning out an 80s nostalgia prequel series.

      It was the difference between a few cherished cleverly crafted comedy routines and endless derivative slop.

        • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          This is a charged topic that needs grace and nuance to do right. When blackface is done with the input, support and consent of the black community, it can re-open discussions about how black identities continue to be co-opted by white media.

          Tropic Thunder is a great example of blackface as social commentary.

          Sarah Silverman did it, too, as…I think a statement on stereotypes? There were levels there but I don’t think they were intentional.

            • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I don’t believe it was, no. I said what I think should be done, not necessarily how things have been done.

              I still think Tropic Thunder did it well, since it’s not making fun of black people, it’s making fun of how out of touch white people can be. I’m basing that off what Brandon T Jackson and other black perofrmers have said about it in the years following its release.

        • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          Anyone down voting you never saw tropic thunder or did and have no sense of humor, probably think big bang theory is banging.

    • Kraven_the_Hunter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      I wouldn’t say dumb people. It’s a caricature, much like Dennis the Menace is a caricature of small children in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. Only Big Bang Theory wasn’t based on an existing comic. So more like Friends being an unrealistic caricature of a late-20’s/early-30’s group of people living n NYC.

      Entertainment doesn’t always have to be authentic.

      • prole
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        2 days ago

        So more like Friends being an unrealistic caricature of a late-20’s/early-30’s group of people living n NYC.

        Actually a pretty good comparison given how awful Friends is.

  • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I’ve only seen the one episode of BBT, I think the first one, where a goddamn theoretical physicist spends a whole day forgetting the basic properties of light.

    My family stared at me the whole time, expecting me to find it funny. Then THEY got mad at me when I said that was the dumbest shit I’ve seen in a while. Later I found out that Sheldon uses Ubuntu and brags about it.

    But, okay, dumb jokes aside - the show doesn’t explore any concepts or situations in new and interesting ways And THAT’S why it’s bad.

    Shelden uses linux. Hahahaha. That’s it. A good writer could make a whole episode about that, alone, and it would be hilarious. Imagine him on internet forums. Imagine him fumbling during a talk because his laptop wouldn’t work with whatever vidchat/system/software his hosts used, and getting haughty about it. Imagine Sheldon traveling across the country to “fix” an entire auditoriums tech to run on Arch after his failed remote speech. Walking away all “You’re Welcome” as the staff can’t figure out how the fuck to use it.

    • Lucky_777@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Funny, but now you’re talking about the layman being cut out. Ratings won’t survive and it dies after one season. But that would be better lol

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        2 days ago

        I mean, the IT Crowd ran for 5 seasons while actually being funny to people working in the field it portrays, unlike Big Bang Theory which many nerds (not just physicists) find un-funny

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    No no IT Crowd is a show about sysadmins, not geeks lol. There’s a very clear difference.

    • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      And Moss was a nerd not a geek. He wasn’t obsessing about comics, videogames etc. like the characters in BBT.

      • frazorth@feddit.uk
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        1 day ago

        Yeah, it’s an interesting difference.

        There was a lot of pop culture references in IT Crowd, all the music posters, the retro computers, etc. but the cast didn’t even acknowledge it.

      • Camelbeard@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I also think this is a cultural difference. The comic book obsession seems more like an american thing. In the Netherlands and Belgium there is also a big comic book appreciation, but it’s much less about heroism and more humorous.

        • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Okay but he didn’t obsess about the British equivalent of comic books either. Geeks obsess about consumerist pop culture whether it’s comics, LEGO or Harry Potter. And Moss did non of that.

  • 2hundredpancakes
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    2 days ago

    I remember IT Crowd as having some really funny moments back when I watched it, but also being very hit or miss. Looking back, the episodes with the theater gays and the trans woman were… deeply unfortunate. Also it turned out Graham whatshisface is a full-time transphobe. So it’s consigned to the trash bin for me.

    BBT, I never saw more than a few episodes and what I did see was very bland tbh.

    TL;DR maybe they both suck actually

    • Denjin@lemmings.world
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      1 day ago

      Not disagreeing that Linehan has some awful opinions and that has leached out into a couple of his writings. But, the theater episode, at no point, makes the fact that people are gay the butt of the joke it’s the main characters that are terrible people in that episode, particularly Roy.

      It’s like getting upset that Father Ted is racist for the episode that specifically makes racists the target of the joke.

      • 2hundredpancakes
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        1 day ago

        Not at all. My issue was with the portrayal of the characters themselves – so vapid, touchy-feely, and simply stereotypical of the “theater gay” trope. Plus, after all her opining, whatshername was right about that guy’s orientation.

        Also, I found the theater material a bit, uhh… it felt to me like a Rocky Horror parody written by an adolescent person. Yes we’re all singing “I love willies” because that’s what being gay is about, yahaha.

  • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    I watched one random episode of BBT after it was recommended to me by a few people. That one episode was enough for me to decide that I never want to see that show again, and also that I should disregard all recommendations from the people who said I should watch it.