"The Office" For Dummies

How is it that some British comedies are so nuanced and intelligent and perfectly pitched (and, yes, hilarious) so as to make you feel like something of a boor by comparison and the rest are so crass and obvious that you're grateful America wrested free from England and just wish the Revolutionary War had been bloodier? (Or, how come we never see the ones in the middleground?)

"The IT Crowd" looks like it might well have been "When the Whistle Blows," that worst-case-scenario incarnation of "The Office" that Ricky Gervais featured in season-two of "Extras." It features buffoonish characters doing moronic things with virtually no grounding in reality and not nearly enough wit.

Chris O'Dowd and Richard Ayoade star as Roy and Moss, two lumpen losers toiling away in the tech services department of a perfectly horrid corporation run by Denholm (Christopher Morris), an overbearingly pompous twit who hires Jen (Katherine Parkinson) to run the company's IT department, even though she doesn't have a clue about what it is she's supposed to do. Mayhem, or what's supposed to pass for it, ensues.

Consider these gags from a future episode: Jen really wants this pair of shoes, only they're not available in her size, so she crams them on and mangles her feet. Denholm announces that in order to reduce office stress, anyone who is stressed out at the end of the day will be fired. He brings in a stress-management expert who, naturally, flies into a rage over Roy's idiotic behavior.

O'Dowd's a little laid back in his delivery, but everyone else tends toward obviousness or worse. Parkinson twists her face up into the same knotted curlicues of bewilderment that her toes become in that shoe episode - she's not even convincing at being in over her head, which is actually kind of a neat trick. Morris bellows every line like he's being paid by the decibel.

NBC developed an Americanized version of the show but scrapped it. So clearly, NBC is still occasionally capable of making a good decision.

- "The IT Crowd:" 10 tonight; IFC.