Recently on his blog James Reasoner did a blurb for the Brit sitcom The IT Crowd, which sounded like something I’d like — yep, hilarious. So I just returned the favor and suggested he look up Better Off Ted.
I’ve only mentioned Better Off Ted once before on this blog, casually, with the plaintive lament: “Will I ever own a hard copy of Season Two of Better Off Ted?”
Yeah, plaintive. One of my all-time fave TV shows, endlessly watchable — and re-re-watchable. So it irked me that Season Two wasn’t available on DVD, much less BluRay. Sure, at the moment both seasons are streaming on Netflix. Until they get pulled. Or the signal stops. Which is why — for my faves — I want hard copies. Same for movies. Authors. Music.
That lament rang out two years and two days ago, but I am happy to report that I put my money where my mouth is and got Season Two as soon as it hit DVD, just before Xmas last year. Now I think what I need is a BluRay compilation of The Complete Better Off Ted, with extras like contemporary commercials, interviews and outtakes — stuff you can look up on YouTube, but it all deserves to be part of the total package. If they’re going to cancel a great show the least they can do is put everything together. The vulgar outtakes which could never have been aired on broadcast TV for the episode “The Impertence of Communicationizing.” Or the cast reunion for the rap video “Revenge of the Nerds.”
I was hoping for a bit of deja vu when I learned that Phil and Lem were going to be reunited in the 2014 TV pilot Mission Control — but like Hoke, that one was killed off before ignition. We probably need a cable channel that only screens pilot episodes for series that never get picked up.
But then, what if we really liked those pilots. . . .
Yet another thing to get depressed about, hence the need for Better Off Ted. The IT Crowd. My Name Is Earl. . . .
