The IT crowd is the new sitcom from Graham Linehan (pictured), best known in these parts as the creator of Father Ted.

The three occupants of the basement of Reynholm Industries are Moss, Jen and Roy. Moss is the neurotic, lack-of-social-skills, dressed-by-his-Mum one. Roy is the annoying-but-actually-quite-nice, over-the-top, Irish one. And Jen is their new manager, who knows nothing about computers but everything about shoes. They are the IT department.

The first episode deals with Jen's arrival and the reaction to it. It does feature one of the oldest gags I know, which was disappointing. However, with Moss going into Jen's office to witness her talking on the phone to her boss, waiting patiently for her to finish and then calmly asking her if she wanted her phone connected, it was handled with the perfect comedy timing you'd expect from a writer this good. The fact that the whole gag was repeated later with the computer not being plugged in reinforced Jen's incapability nicely.

The second episode, shown directly after the first, was all about stress. However, the targets were a little weak. The Stress Expert turned out to be unable to keep calm. Jen's shoes, that were clearly from the first moment too small for her, caused her great pain and many problems, and Moss did something stupid and set fire to the office. You could see everything coming, it was all signposted. The jokes that were a surprise unfortunately were not so funny, with the honourable exception of the Japanese translator stepping in to explain exactly how badly Jen had just sworn at him.

The jokes are there, the pacing is there, it's just not quite there enough. Perhaps it's a grower. Many comedies get funnier as they go along, and it seems with this one that with a bit more familiarity it'll become a minor classic. But it badly needs some killer jokes, some moments that really make you want to tell people at work what a great programme it was that they missed.

The three leads are working well together, with the banter between Moss and Roy being particularly good. The fault of the programme is that everything feels like about 70% of where it should be. Timing needs to be sharpened, over-the-top-acting needs to be toned down a bit, the jokes need that one extra re-write to check they work properly. I think I'm going to watch the next episode, but I'm not sure - and that might be the kind of feeling that strikes a death knell for a programme.