I may have mentioned earlier that the British television comedy Peep Show is great, but I will mention it again. Peep Show is great! Oh man, it is SO GOOD. I'm midway through the third season right now, and I have to say, I am quite impressed by the consistent super high quality of this show! ALL OF THE EPISODES thus far have been top-notch, hilarious, cringe-tastic entertainment. Let me tell you more about it, and why I like it so much!
I came across Peep Show after watching the excellent sketch comedy series, That Mitchell and Webb Look, which has the same two guys as Peep Show. It's very funny! Here is a sketch from it:
Ahaha. That's funny even though I don't live in England where there is, apparently, an excessive amount of football (soccer) coverage; instead, I live in America, where there is, in fact, a dearth of football (soccer) coverage! But if you substitute all the "football!"s for "American football!"s, it makes TOTAL SENSE. (The
heroin addict Christmas one is also great.)
I enjoyed watching That Mitchell and Webb Look for quite some time, mostly via YouTube, but also sometimes at ungodly hours of the night on BBC America (and one glorious Tuesday afternoon three months ago, when there was a marathon!). But THEN I found out about Peep Show, which is a real non-sketch show (!) with Mitchell and Webb (!!) that has actual narratives (!!!) and an innovative point-of-view camera technique (!!!!).
SO. Peep Show is about these two flatmates, Mark and Jez, who are what could be called an "odd couple." Mark is a terminally pessimistic and awkward office worker and Jez is the opposite of that, but also a "musician." But what makes this
interesting is the innovative point-of-view camera technique and the inner monologue voice-overs. Here, watch
THIS! Okay, did you watch that? Good! Wasn't that neat, how each character's thoughts play out over the action, which is often from their point of view? What a great idea that was! (Also, did you notice how immensely quotable it is? "Tinned food is for crackheads and wores.") The point of view thing took a while for me to get used to - there was a lot of staring down at food in the first season - but it's pretty neat. And the voice-overs are great because they double the LPM (laffs per minute).
ALSO:
- Like my other favorite British cringe comedies, The Office and Extras, Peep Show is sometimes very painful to watch! It gets really bad at times, but in a good way. It still manages to be very funny even when the characters are at their most unlikable, which is impressive.
- Speaking of The Office, it is very much like The Office sometimes, but just because half of it takes place in Mark's office and there is lots of Office-type humor. But it is unique and different!
- Also speaking of The Office, the Guardian claims Peep Show is the best British comedy of the decade (lofty claim, I know!), better even than The Office (because Peep Show has been on the air for six seasons without a decline in quality, which I'm not sure is how you judge these things, but sure, IT IS THAT GOOD!)!
- The first season was great, but I've been loving the second and third ones because there has been more action from the supporting characters, all of whom are great, but especially Super Hans the crackhead.
- Okay, so Peep Show is great. Watch it! It's all on YouTube!
