Hacker Cinema
I'm Alan Partridge
1997 · TV series · 28 min episodes · 2 seasons
Created by Armando Iannucci, Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan
The fortunes of a former chat show host who is reduced to a lowly slot on Radio Norwich. Alan Partridge is divorced, living in a travel tavern, and desperate for a return to television.
2 positive1 neutralfrom 3 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
3 comments on Hacker News
For those who watch Alan Partridge[1], 'Lexi' would be likely to come to mind, as in one episode of the series "I'm Alan Partridge", Alan meets someone who, like him, loves his Lexus car. He looks forward to seeing two together and coins the term 'Lexi'. Creation of a faux-Latin term is very much the kind of behaviour the audience would expect.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Partridge
There are plenty of lazy and derivative British sitcoms, but I wouldn't call The Office a one-off stroke of genius. A great many British sitcoms have similar depth and substance - Gavin and Stacey or The Inbetweeners would be good contemporary examples. Going back further, you have programmes like I'm Alan Partridge, Blackadder, Porridge, The Likely Lads and so on. None of those sitcoms could plausibly have been produced in the US, they're just not sufficiently marketable.
British TV commissioning isn't perfect, but it affords a level of creative freedom that is largely absent in the US, and that is necessary for programmes like The Office to come into being. British commissioners really do think in terms of artistic merit rather than purely commercial value.
American networks are excellent at producing huge international hits, but there's no room in the system for smaller, quirkier productions. The BBC and Channel 4 tend to take a lot of small risks on cheaper productions rather than always swinging for the fences. Success and failure is far less binary when there isn't the pressure to recoup a huge budget. Some of those cheap experiments will be total flops, some will survive as lowbrow primetime filler, some will find a small but loyal audience, a rare few will be huge hits. None of those outcomes are career-ending catastrophes, they're just part of the process. Commissioners expect and allow that level of variance.
FWIW I find IT Crowd funny, but it's not on my 'must have' list. - Office, Green wing, Alan Partridge, blackadder, brasseye, day today, extras, league of gentlemen, psychoville, police squad, 30 rock, etc would all be above it.
IT Crowd is great, but I wish it was a bit more cutting/daring rather than settling into a formulaic sitcom.