I stopped watching after the second series.

I wish I could wholeheartedly like it. It combines elements I like, such as David Mitchell, Robert Webb, consistent character narration. But no. For the most part, I don't find it funny, I just find it depressing. I may laugh occasionally, but I finish episodes feeling decidedly neutral, if not out and out miserable.

I finish episodes feeling decidedly neutral, if not out and out miserable.

That's why I stopped watching it.

*sigh*

I tried, I really did, but you've hit the nail on the head here for why I had to stop watching it.

We seem to have an incredibly similar taste in most things. :D

You even like mysteries, right? *g*

How do you feel about cop and spy shows/films from the 60s and 70s? That's where I lose most people.

I am fairly sure I would like them, were I to actually set aside the time to engage with them. It's the tying me to a chair to watch them part I have trouble with. There's almost always something from the past ten years to watch instead.

Of the quirkier side, for instance, I used to really like Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and The Persuaders, when they used to be on Nick at Nite and I had cable.

That's a POV that makes sense to me. There's just a certain sense of style that I love about those old shows as well as appreciating when actors weren't all groomed to within an inch of their life and didn't all look the same. *shakes stick at kids on lawn* I've been watching Callan recently.

I'm going to do us both a favour here and assume that you're talking about the *original* Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and not the bastard remake that we should never mention again.

Much as I love Vic Reeves? OF COURSE I mean the original :D

Callan! I know for a fact that when I was a wee tacker I used to watch that. (I used to watch a lot of inappropriate material when I was younger. My parents were not so much with the televisual restriction.)

You know, you have a point there. Hmmmm. I still haven't watched the Pros I acquired... and I have The Thick of It and Deadwood waiting for me once I've stopped torturing myself with Peep Show...

Oh to be a tv addict. It's too hard.

Same here. My dad used to travel a lot with his work so when he was home we'd stay up to be with him and as he loved cop and mystery shows too I think I may have imprinted on them like a bizarre TV watching duckling.

Pros tend to be a love or hate experience for most people. I love the show, but then 70s buddy cop with a gritty spy overcoat filmed in and around London and starring Martin Shaw, Lewis Collins and Gordon Jackson... along with a host of "OMFG (famous actor you've suddenly recognized) was once that young?" Yes, this might be relevant to my interests. *g*

Heh, yeah, Peep Show is something that it is very much your thing or it isn't. There's not much middle ground. I love it but sometimes I do watch it through my eyes, it's so cringe inducing.

I actually love the characters, though. I am not sure quite what that says about me.

I sometimes work my way around to liking Mark or Jeremy, but then they do or think something so incredibly douchey that I swing around once again to contempt.

Yes, they are truly horrific much of the time. Yet, I am not bothered by their behaviour for some reason. It's quite possibly because I grew up hanging out with a lot of douche-y people, honestly. Not my close friends, but the kids who were always at the same parties and who ran in the same crowd. Some of the characters on Peep Show, though they're absurd remind me of people I use to know. People that I really wouldn't want to see again, but despite their behaviour, I still retain some weird affection for them. It's similar to how I feel about the characters on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia They're all pretty wretched but I still like them. Of course, part of it is that I am laughing at them and their stupidity and all around horribleness.

Peep Show is one of the few shows that I love that I cannot recommend to people. Generally you either love it or hate it!

I find it hard enough to relate to other people at the best of times, but to add elements I find completely offputting to the mix makes it impossible for me, even if they're fictional. It's actually one of my pet hates that thoroughly wretched people somehow often manage to make friends, yet someone who's far from perfect, but hopefully not a ball of horridity and malice, finds it difficult.

:D

But I do appreciate the show on an aesthetic level.

I can understand that. As far as fictitious assholes go, I generally can enjoy them in comedies(Peep Show, IASIP, Seinfeld, among other series) but I can't with dramas. I've only occasionally tuned into to House the last three seasons or so only in part because the writing(which was always spotty) has deteriorated. Mainly, I can't watch it anymore because every last character is an unsympathetic jerk.

And as far wretched people in real life making friends, well, it's often just that they have acquaintances and make very surface friendships.

I often feel that way about "quality" shows. Like, Six Feet Under for example. I recognized that it was well done but I hated it. I tried and tried to watch it but I could not get into the show.

Oh, I hate when something's objectively good but I just can't dig it. Because I want more things I watch to be both good and enjoyable, y'know?

I generally don't have a problem with finding good and enjoyable things, but now that I've started Peep Show, I want to see it through to the bitter end. I never used to be a show quitter, but I've already quit three this year and it will not do!

Humour is so incredibly personal anyway. I usually find that whenever somebody says "Oh you'll love XXX" my instinctive response is "I bet I wouldn't", but when they tell me "It's really not your kind of thing" the chances are it is. I just don't think anyone can reliably predict what another person will or will not like, especially when it's comedy.

I generally have a really wide-ranging sense of humour, but the humour borne purely out of humiliation is always dicey for me. There are episodes of Only Fools and Horses I refuse to watch.

I feel so much better having read this. I've tried to watch it multiple times, because of that small part that objectively realises how skillfully it's rendered.

Only in my case, it's more like 99%/1%. Hence why I haven't ever watched more than a few episodes, nor am I likely to in the future.

9 percent of my 10 percent is my inner David Mitchell fan (The other 1 percent is my inner Robert Webb fan.)

It consoles me that you're the same.

I think Peep Show is brilliant, and I always thoroughly enjoy the 15 or so mins I can endure before shrieking with embarrassed horror and turning off the TV. :)

I don't think I've ever managed a 15 minute stretch of enjoyment. Maybe a 5 minute stretch? But, yeah, I can see, objectively, that it's quite brilliant.

Life's too short to watch something you just don't like. There are no medals for endurance in TV-land. And much as I love Jamie Bamber, I've never seen all of BS Galactica and probably never will. Superbly done, but my god it's depressing. If I want depressing, I'll watch the news!

Hah, same! I knew I had to give up on BSG as soon as I started wanting to tear it to shreds every episode, so, from midway through series 3 it was nothing to me.