Just saw 'Idiocracy', by the wonderful Mike Judge, and...well, it ain't no 'King Of The Hill'. It ain't even 'Office Space' or, for that matter, 'Beavis and Butthead'.

It doesnae work, and I can see why it was shelved. No conspiracies here, the film is just half-baked. What bugs me is that there's nothing that couldn't have been fixed with a few rewrites. The idiotic future world it creates is riddled with so many logic holes, that you just never buy it. (For instance, if everyone's so dumb, who's building the machines?) Also, in the end, the film is not a lament for intelligence, but a lament for averageness... it's something of a sorry day when a major plot point turns on whether or not water makes crops grow. ("He was right! He was right!")

And you know what? The film is set too far in the future. Five hundred years is too long, especially when you consider who's running America right now. Ten years would have been fine, and would have made the humour more cutting, less slapdash.

A real shame--a bit more time behind the word processor and this could have been something special.

Lines from Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic", modified to actually be ironic.

Got this reply to my post about Arthur.

"Um, you said several times in the series 1 commentary that Arthur was
writing for series 2. So, erm, there's yer leak enquiry sorted."

Also...

"Wasn't it mentioned on the 'IT crowd' DVD commentary?

You're to blame! LOL!"

Yes! Yes, I knew that and I was testing you! Testing to see if you were paying attention to the commentary!

This is another example of the way us genius-types work. We try and weave a web of confusion, so that no-one is ever quite sure what's going on...up is down, black is white, oh, all right, I forgot. I forgot I said it. There. Are you happy? Brilliant...I have managed to turn informer on myself. This is why I must never try to commit the perfect murder.

I did get Arthur in for a bit (round the time of the commentary, I guess) for a bit of brainstorming. It was fun, as always, but we didn't actually get much done, so the second series is still an 'all-me' affair.

Why didn't it work out? Many reasons...chief among them being that Arthur and I have always written as equal partners, and because the show is, in the end, my 'thing', it was hard to summon up the requisite amount of tomfoolery. A shame, I know, but there it is.

Bloody blog! Bloody brain!