this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
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followup question: what's your thoughts on The IT Crowd? because i have a friend who insists they are the same show, and i disagree but can't form a coherent argument as to why.
Comparing The IT Crowd to The Big Bang Theory is like comparing Pavarotti to a braying lamb.
BBT is the braying lamb, for the avoidance of doubt.
i agree, but why?
Well let’s start with the jokes. They are just subjectively funnier, with many tie-backs and connections (Seinfeld/CYE long running set ups).
TITC is laughing at the normies and celebrating the geeks. TITC isn’t afraid to be really funny, which means recognising the human condition and laughing with it. The characters aren’t “good people who fail”, they are “humans who fail”, which mean we recognise them and empathise with them. Who hasn’t wanted to give a really impressive speech and said some bullshit.
BBT is bland. The characters are bland, with only external failures. The jokes dare not really poke fun at anyone and the jokes are sentence-long. Finally the actors and the script just aren’t as out there, so it all just feels dull as dishwater.
the one scene that really got me to pause was when moss laughs at a circuit board. i've been that guy. i've laughed with colleagues about bad hardware design. but... the audience is not consisting solely of electronics engineers. they're laughing at him. more exactly, they identify with jen in that scene, and joins her in thinking moss is weird.
Yes, I agree.
But I think you need to see it in the larger context. Episode 1, and much of season 1 (series 1 as we would call it here in the UK), is about moving into their world so we get to known them and appreciate them. Jen is the viewers’ guide into this world and her journey towards becoming one of them is the viewer’s journey. So what starts as a laugh at geeks ends up sympathising with the geeks (“but we did all the work!!”) and becoming the geeks (observe how Jen’s office starts as a managers office but slowly ends up with Manga artwork).
So her laughing at the geeks, and her inability to understand them (white noise), is crucial because it takes the viewer’s hand and leads them into the basement.
The most powerful example of this journey is when Jen becomes entertainment manager (“It’s not for you!”) and we have one of the show’s genuinely touching moments , whwn Roy grapples with his breakup and finds release in a session of tabletop RPG. This moment works so well because of the strength of the actors, the script and the fact that it has brought the viewer into the circle; the normies are now loud, obnoxious “business men” who are set free by adopting geekiness.
idk man. s3e2 (the "ludicrous display" ep) has an extended bit about moss being anal about staples. it's still laughing at him. and there's no foil for him there, the gag is just that he wants to know how many staples have been used.
Yes I actually agree. Moss is definitely the butt of some jokes, but he gets so much love in other places that I can stomach it, despite feeling like the show isn’t always completely kind to him.
yeah i also find him lovable, but the point is it's the same sort of gag ttat tbbt does. and they're all over the show. so why do we feel so differently about them?
The IT Crowd is a show about a group of fools getting into ridiculous situations at work. It’s a good laugh and has some classic moments. My partner doesn’t make or get tv/movie references, but even she can drop references from it into casual conversation.
Big Bang Theory is a bland comedy that wants to be much more than it is - relationship drama, social exploratory, situational comedy. But it tends to fail 90% of the time, and the closer it gets to ‘relationship drama’ the more grating it gets.
Something I realized while reading this is that I can't think of any quotes from it. Besides "Bazinga", but that was designed to be intentionally annoying and then was used to mock the show.
I can think of references to basically every other sitcom I've seen, and I can vaguely remember some scenes from BBT, but nothing quotable. My spouse liked it, so I've seen every episode at least once, but it was honestly pretty forgettable.
My verdict was originally "not bad". But maybe being forgettable was it's best quality.
I haven't watched much BBT, so grain of salt, open to being called out for mistakes.
I'd say The IT Crowd was more centered about a workplace, even if many of the jokes are about their romances, hobbies and personal life, and even if BBT had workplace episodes. The central set of IT Crowd is their basement office, the central set of BBT is an apartment. And I don't think that's a trivial difference, it changes the kind of humor and how relatable much of it is.
Also, a big gripe about BBT was the laugh track. It's normal for sitcoms to have canned laughter, IT Crowd had it too, but BBTs is uncomfortable. Like trk said in another reply, "If there was no laugh track you wouldn’t even know jokes are happening." There are plenty of BBT No Laugh Track edits on YouTube and it highlights how much better it could be without the forced laughter.
Finally, BBT is a lot more US humor than British humor, not to say that as point in itself, but I feel like it makes the BBT feel to me a lot more like "laughing at nerds" despite that being a major factor in BBT. I also feel that Moss is played more wacky and exaggerated than (say) Sheldon, who certainly has strange peculiarities but is played more subtly or realistically, which I feel makes their character more mocking than absurd parody.
(also I just like the theme music much more)
interestingly it crowd was apparently filmed with an audience.
All episodes had live audience. Doesn’t mean all the laughter is real laughter, though, but there was definitely a live audience.