The IT Crowd ran for four series and 24 episodes on Channel 4, from February 2006 to July 2010. That premiere was 20 years ago. A fifth series was commissioned. It was never produced. The show’s last episode, a special, aired on 27 September 2013.
Graham Linehan created, wrote and directed it. Ash Atalla produced. Chris O’Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson and Matt Berry starred. The setup is small and precise: the IT department of Reynholm Industries, a large London corporation, staffed by two technicians who know everything and a manager who knows nothing.
Trailer, via The IT Crowd.
Moss, Roy and the basement that runs the company
Maurice Moss, played by Richard Ayoade, is a technical genius. He is painfully shy, highly intelligent, and has few social skills. Roy Trenneman, played by Chris O’Dowd, is a snarky Irish technician who despises his job because it requires him to work beneath his capabilities. He goes to great lengths to distract his workmates so he can relax and read comic books or play video games.
Katherine Parkinson plays Jen Barber, their tech-illiterate manager. Roy and Moss resent her at first. Then they find she is useful — she helps them deal with “socially normal” people. That reversal is the engine of the whole series, and it is a better engine than the premise suggests.
The department sits in the basement. The company above it does not understand what the department does, and the department does not respect the company. Both sides are correct.
Denholm steps out of a window
Chris Morris plays Denholm Reynholm in series 1, recurs in series 2, and guests in series 3. He is the egocentric founder and CEO of Reynholm Industries, and he is under investigation for embezzlement when he steps out of a window.
Matt Berry plays Douglas Reynholm, Denholm’s long-lost, womanising son. Douglas is recurring in series 2 and a regular from series 3 through the special. He returns to inherit the company after his father’s exit.
Noel Fielding plays Richmond Felicity Avenal, a former up-and-coming executive banished to the IT department’s server room after he became a goth. Richmond is recurring in series 1 and 2, guests in series 4, and appears in the special. He lives in the server room. That is the joke, and it holds up.
What the show does with a laugh track-sized room
The IT Crowd is a studio sitcom with a narrow set of rooms and a narrow set of people. It has four series of six episodes each, which is 24 episodes, which is not many. Linehan writes to the cast rather than around them. Ayoade gets the longest pauses. O’Dowd gets the loudest reactions. Parkinson gets the thankless job of being the audience inside the show, and she makes it work by never playing Jen as stupid — only as out of her depth.
The show’s best material is about status. Roy has skills nobody above him can measure, so his job is to answer the phone and pretend the problem is smaller than it is. Moss has skills nobody around him can share, so his job is to be managed. Jen has no skills in the department’s subject and every skill in the department’s survival. The three of them need each other in a way none of them would admit.
the staff of its information technology (IT) department
That is the whole show, stated plainly. The comedy comes from the distance between what the department is and what the company thinks it is.
The IT Crowd against the shows it is measured by
| Element | What The IT Crowd does | What the format usually does |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | Basement IT department at Reynholm Industries | Open-plan office or family home |
| Lead trio | Two technicians and a manager who knows nothing about IT | One protagonist with a supporting cast |
| Boss | Denholm, then Douglas, both Reynholm | A single recurring authority figure |
| Outsider | Richmond in the server room | A neighbour, a rival, a guest star |
| Run | 4 series, 24 episodes, 2006–2010 | Longer runs with annual series |
The comparison is not flattering in every row. A 24-episode run is short. A sitcom that changes its CEO mid-run is taking a risk, and The IT Crowd takes it by making Douglas a bigger, louder, worse version of his father. Matt Berry plays him as a man who has never been told no and has never needed to hear it.
The fifth series that never happened
A fifth series was commissioned. It was not produced. The series finale was broadcast on 27 September 2013, three years after the last regular episode. The show received critical acclaim and has a cult following.
The source does not say why the show ended, and it does not connect the unmade fifth series to the ending as cause and effect. What is on the record is narrower: a fifth series was ordered and never made. That is not a tragedy. It is a very IT outcome: the ticket was raised, the request was approved, and the work was never done.
The published critical score sits at 6.7 out of 10, with a Metacritic score of 67 out of 100. That is a fair number for a show like this — good, not great, more loved by the people who found it than by the people who reviewed it.
Where the show is weakest
The IT Crowd is funniest when it stays in the basement and weakest when it tries to leave. Douglas is a broad character, and Berry plays him broad. Denholm is a sharper creation because Morris plays him as a man who believes his own nonsense without pausing to check it.
The show also leans hard on a small number of running bits. Richmond in the server room is a great image and a thin character. Jen’s incompetence is the premise of dozens of scenes and the source of a few of them. When the show repeats a joke, it repeats it exactly, which is a choice, and not always the right one.
The source gives no ratings or viewing figures, so nothing here can be measured against an audience.
What the show actually gets right
The IT Crowd understands that IT work is invisible when it succeeds and blamed when it fails. Roy and Moss are not heroes. They are people with a rare skill, employed by people who cannot evaluate that skill, in a building that would stop functioning without them and would never say so.
That is a real observation about work, and the show makes it funny without making it bitter. Roy despises his job and still does it. Moss is brilliant and still takes orders. Jen knows nothing and still holds the department together. The three of them are stuck with each other, and the show never pretends otherwise.
The show also gets the physical comedy of the office right. The basement is dark and cramped. The server room is where Richmond lives. The distance between the department and the executives upstairs is a staircase, and the show treats that staircase as a border.
Our verdict
The IT Crowd is a good sitcom with a great premise and a short run, and 6.7 out of 10 is about right. It is not a landmark of British comedy. It is a show that found its people, kept them for 24 episodes, and then did not come back when it was supposed to.
What matters here is the trio. O’Dowd, Ayoade and Parkinson are the reason to watch. Ayoade’s Moss is the performance that will last, because it is the one that could not be recast. O’Dowd gives Roy the frustration the show needs. Parkinson gives Jen the dignity the show would otherwise lack.
What is noise is the mythology around the fifth series. It was commissioned. It was not produced. The source does not say why, and it does not tie the non-production to the show’s ending. That is a fact about scheduling, not about quality, and it has been treated as the latter for years.
The show’s cult following is real. What the source does not give is any ratings history, so the claim that the show outlived its numbers cannot be made here. Twenty-four episodes is enough to make the case that the show found an audience. It is not enough to make a bigger one.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.