The It Crowd (which we’ve had our doubts about here on Scoop, it has to be said) has been exported wholesale to the US and the comparisons have begun. The LA Times describes the show as ‘reminiscent of The Big Bang Theory’ which might be interesting to Graham Linehan – creator of The IT Crowd – which came out in 2006 a year before TBBT.

(Not that there was ever any real suggestion he was copying.) Graham is of course well aware of the similarities between the two nerd-based sitcoms and the competition his show would face if it made it in the states. He even wrote a blog post this time last year offering pointers to any US producers who wanted to remake the show for American audiences. But the Independent Film Channel have picked up the UK series, no weird glossy happy-ending remakes required. Great news for Graham Linehan, who by all accounts is absolutely lovely, but what have the Americans made of the import?

“[...] finally the show is less about the failure than the bonding the failure enforces. Not that they make a big deal of it; there is none of the palliative warmth to which even cynical American network sitcoms often retreat. But there is a lot of falling over. I laughed a lot.”

Ah. The universal language of pratfall.