TVSquad

Today marked the online premiere of the new U.K. Channel 4 sitcom, The IT Crowd. I'm an IT guy myself, so the curiosity overcame me, and I had to watch this first episode. In fact, if the premiere episode is any indication of what to expect, I may just keep on watching it. I just hope they keep providing them online, or I may be out of luck.

The premise of The IT Crowd is pretty simple. In the just-over 23-minute premiere we meet Jen, a computer illiterate Gillian Anderson lookalike, who's just been hired by an incompetent boss to manage the IT department. The two-person IT department consists of Roy, a "RTFM" T-Shirt wearing slob, and Moss, the giant-afro sporting clueless nerd. It doesn't take Roy and Moss long to learn that Jen knows nothing about computers, so they hatch a plan to get her sacked. They all quickly learn that the aforementioned clueless boss fires anyone who doesn't act as a "team", and realize they're just going to have to deal with each other.

The primary set of the basement IT lab was clearly put together by someone in-the-know about how many IT departments are run. I've been in places like that, with dead or dying monitors piled to the ceiling, using computer parts as bookends, and posters and bumper stickers everywhere. Then of course there's the typical phone calls to the IT department, with the usual "did you turn it off and on again?" question so frequently (though necessarily) asked.

There are times with other comedy shows out of the U.K. that the humor was lost on me, but not so with this one. There's definite potential there, even though they're going the route of a live studio audience. While I can imagine there may be a flub or two with their computer terminology in future episodes, I have faith that they have consultants on hand to help them get it straight. The writers for this show are clearly trying to reach out to us IT people, and we're a picky bunch.

And if they don't have anyone on hand to help with the IT accuracy, they're only a few keystrokes away from finding what they need.

The televised version of The IT Crowd airs on February 3 on U.K. Channel 4.