Just like Mof, my eyes were opened to the delights of Saxondale on Thursday. I'd caught the first episode of the first series but wasn't overly impressed (perhaps my expectations were too high, seeing as though Mr. Coogan's involved) and I didn't watch anything of the rest of the run. But it seems I was too hasty in my assessment, as I really enjoyed it this time - and along with Mock The Week and My Name Is Earl, it's all making for a rather wonderful night of TV.

So, while I'd similarly written The IT Crowd off after one episode last series, I was in the mood to be open-minded, maybe even lenient. And you know what? I did laugh. I laughed on a few occasions and smiled on various others. But the thing is, Neighbours also makes me laugh on occasion, but I'm afraid that doesn't mean I consider it a classic sit-com.

I'm slightly put off the whole thing from the very start because I know that Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy has done the theme tune, and I *love* Neil Hannon, and I don't that spoilt by him being associated in my mind with an awful show.

But that's just me. Another, much more reasonable thing that puts me off the show is the audience laughter. Now I know that there's a real audience there, and that what we're hearing is, therefore, pretty much the reactions they gave. But if that's the case, then the producers really need to give their warm up guy a raise. The audience screech with laughter at every single line, and it really makes me less willing to laugh along. I've no problem with the traditional set-up of a live studio audience (ahh, doesn't that just make you think of Cheers?) but when half-decent jokes, which were just starting to endear me to the show, are smothered by howls of laughter, well, it kinda puts you off.

Because there *were* some half-decent jokes, and even some completely decent jokes. Jen was invited to the theatre to see 'Gay - A Gay Musical', but Moss and Roy managed to blag an invite - and there was some humour to be had from their reactions to the show. There was also a great set-piece, very reminiscent of the more farcical side of Father Ted, in which Roy sneaks into the disabled toilet, but, when he pulls the emergency chain rather than the flush, is so worried that he'll get into trouble for using it that he just pretends to be disabled when stewards come to help him. It's dumb, but it's funny.

Writer Graham Linehan has always done silly, often even predictable jokes *very* well, because he's known that he's had the cast to carry them off, and make them sparkle. In Father Ted he had the fabulous Dermot Morgan and Ardal O'Hanlon, and in Black Books, he had Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey. The problem with The IT Crowd is that it doesn't have that calibre of performers, and so the silly jokes just stay silly. Chris O'Dowd is certainly the pick of the lot as Roy, but Richard Ayoade fails to deliver the sort of comedy we know he's capable of, and Katherine Parkinson is just annoying.

There were laughs to be had (I liked the confession from Jen's in-the-closet friend: "I thought I could make it work between us because you look a bit like a man") and it was nice to see Noel Fielding doing a bit of standard Noel Fielding business as Richmond the goth. I'll stick with it this time, but I'm still not sure that it's actually worth it.