I told myself I wasn't going to pass judgement the IT Crowd on Channel 4 until I'd seen 3 episodes. Today I saw the first 2. It's the product of some people with a fantastic track record: Chris Morris is in it, Graham Linehan wrote it and Ash Atalla produced it so the prospect was apetising. The trailers I've been seeing weren't so tasty but lets not rush to judgement I thought. Which is just as well because right now I really want to slag it off. I probably wouldn't want to write it off so quickly if I hadn't stayed tuned to Channel 4 and watched My Name is Earl imediately afterwards. It was the first episode I'd seen and it just blew it's predecessor out of the water. It's original and there's no inane laugh track telling you what's funny. It's just funny and get this - you supply your own laughs. Why can't some of our best comedy actors, writers and producers come up with something even half as good as this? Is it budget?? Surely throwing money at the show can't make it funnier.

Maybe I got lucky. Perhaps that was a good episode and the rest will also feature an actor phoning in a pantomime performance of a crass stereotype. Once I've seen 3 of each I'll decide.