If you worked in tech in the early 2000s,The IT Crowdwas one of those shows that really captured the nostalgia of both the era and what life was like before Slack and the interconnected workplace we live in today.
Released in 2006,The IT Crowdwas a British sitcom that ran for four seasons and a special. The show focused on the misadventures of the IT team of the mysterious Reynholm Industries, who spent their days feeling underappreciated in the basement, keeping the company’s computer systems running and handling tech support.
The show did a great job of turning the everyday frustrations of tech workers into something we can all laugh at. Watching them now really takes me back to those days, and these four episodes really captured the essence of the early 2000s tech workplace, the rise of social media, and the frustrations we all face in our careers.
you’re able to stream all seasons ofThe IT Crowdfor free onTubiandPluto. The list below is not ranked.
4Yesterday’s Jam (Season 1, Episode 1)
The pilot episode,Yesterday’s Jam,sets the tone for the series, highlighting familiar workplace themes and pain points we can all relate to. The show starts with Denholm Reynholm (Christopher Morris), the unhinged CEO of the company, interviewing Jen Barber (Katherine Parkinson) for a job. Jen lies on her resume about her technical background, and Denholm, like many executives of the time, has no clue what IT does.
Without a second thought, he hires Jen as the Head of IT and sends her from the executive level down to the dirty and poorly-lit basement, where she meets Roy and Moss (Chris O’Dowd and Richard Ayoade), two IT guys who quickly realize that Jen knows nothing about technology. Banished to the basement, they spend their days doing IT support for bosses and coworkers who ignore them until something breaks. Feeling taken for granted after a recent tech support incident, Roy describes how he was on his hands and knees fixing someone’s computer, and they set their coffee cup down on his back as if he were a table, leaving a coffee ring on the back of his shirt.
This episode perfectly showcases the frustration of having non-technical managers leading highly technical teams and the everyday reality of feeling undervalued, ignored, and at times abused.
3The Red Door (Season 1, Episode 4)
InThe Red Door, the already strange world of the IT department gets weirder. Jen gets fixated on a mysterious red door at the back of the office. Roy and Moss warn Jen never to open the door, but as soon as they are called away, Jen goes through the door only to find a soft-spoken goth named Richmond (Noel Fielding), who spends his day isolated in the humming racks of the server room with little to no human interaction.
The overly dramatic Richmond tells Jen how he was a shining star at Reynholm Industries until he was exiled to the server room, after embracing the goth culture and the band Cradle of Filth.
As ridiculous as the whole setup seems, Richmond represents the sysadmins of the time: workers who spent their days in frigid server rooms, out of sight and out of mind until something broke. They were essential when it came to keeping the lights on and computers running but rarely interacted with people outside the IT teams.
The episode also highlights the tension between technical workers and their non-technical bosses, a common recurrence throughout the entire series. Jen sneaking into the server room despite clear warnings not to mirrors another common frustration with IT tech workers: leaders meddling in systems and workflows they don’t understand, many times with disastrous consequences.
2Friendface (Season 3, Episode 5)
Friendfacedoes a great job of capturing the early days of social media when the world jumped in headfirst without really knowing what they were getting into. The fictional Friendface website is clearly a parody of Facebook, and in typicalThe IT Crowdfashion, things quickly spiral out of control as the team starts using it.
Jen gets hooked first, and she quickly convinces Roy and Moss to join. Soon, the whole team is flooded with friend requests and awkward memories. Roy is put off when an ex-girlfriend reaches out, creating an uncomfortable confrontation. Jen connects with old friends from high school and gets in over her head, and Moss is forced to connect with his mother on the Friendface platform, who has marked her feelings as “sensual.”
This episode takes me back to those days, where the line between your work and personal life started to blur. Social media was a disruptive force that took the world by storm. Before I knew it, everyone had their own online profile. It was also the time when the online reputation management industry got its start, which perfectly segues into the next episode.
1The Internet Is Coming (Season 5, Series Finale)
The series finale ofThe IT Crowd, titledThe Internet Is Coming, takes aim at viral videos, corporate PR, and online outrage. Roy and Jen become the target of the online community after a mishap is caught on tape outside a local coffee shop. Jen accidentally throws her coffee on a homeless person, and Roy gets upset with a barista who has dwarfism. A passerby captures it on camera, and the short video clip is quickly dubbed the “Viral Video of the Year.”
Meanwhile, Moss has a crisis of confidence, and on the advice of CEO Douglas Reynholm, played by Matt Berry, begins wearing ladies' slacks to great effect.
In an attempt to do PR damage control and rehabilitate her image, Jen attempts to launch a women’s safety product using Moss’s DIY pepper spray. Naturally, the entire plan goes off the rails, and hilarity ensues.
Like the best episodes ofThe IT Crowd, what unfolds is both ridiculous and surprisingly accurate. The finale was all about the mob culture of the internet, clueless leaders in the workplace, and how unprepared we are for the fallout.
The IT Crowdis one of those shows I find myselfwatching repeatedly. It leans towards the absurd, but its take on working in old-school IT and the general pain of working in the office hits home for me, and always has me laughing. From clueless executives to awkward workplace dynamics, and all the endless mundane tasks, the show captured the frustrations and common misunderstandings that defined the tech workplace in the early 2000s.
