The US is still fond of "traditional" sitcoms, with laughter-tracks and so on, I think. But even then, the two best sitcoms currently coming out of there - The Office and My Name Is Earl - don't have them and are shot filmically (is that a word?)

Black Books is the last truly great one I can think of that's in the manner that you describe; Father Ted and I'm Alan Partridge before that.

Yep - I was really talking about UK shows. Interestingly, US shows are often shot on film in front of an audience...

Agreed about Ted - and that was last decade! (IAP1 was great, obviously, but that was before the last series of Ted. I don't remember IAP2 being that great at all, but I do need to watch it again. I might be very wrong.)

You have to watch the second series of Alan Partridge again! I thought it was really disappointing watching it the first time, but now I know it's because I had the first series so embedded into my skull I couldn't look past it. Of course, the first series IS better, better written, better shot, bettter characters, better location etc.

However, series 2 is still funny in a twisted way. And I find myself quoting series 2 a lot more, stuff like 'don't rub your fanny on me!' (works when said in the right situation...) or when that ex-druggy woman played by Nighty Night/Human Remains/Big Train/Steve Coogan's live show star Julia Davis rips him off for including the line 'needless to say, I had the last laugh' loads of times in his autobiography, and he says 'Well you could put in your book, 'needles to say......I...took drugs'. It's just the way he says it.

Anyway, apart from Black Books and Alan Partridge, only shit sitcoms get shot in front of an audience now (and sketch shows like Catherine Tate and...Little Britain). This doesn't mean that a good sitcom can't be made with an audience and without a film effect anymore, it's just that people seem to frightened to do it, mainly because it isn't in the current trend. I hope to god that if this new Blackadder series happens it is shot in exactly the same way as the original series', and that will be a large shit in the face of BBC comedy bosses who think that only 'uncomfortable' sitcoms like Extras and Nighty Night can be made now. That's unless the new Blackadder series is a piece of shit itself. But that would be no fault of the way it was shot, just some shite writing by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton.

Er, anyway, this Hyperdrive thing. I'm glad it isn't in front of an audience because it might be too close to Dwarf. I imagine the humour will be something like a cross between Black Books, Green Wing and Hitchhikers (maybe), with loads of overly smug 'oh look we're stuck up numb British fucks in space' thrown in. You just KNOW that the tone will be like that, and I'm scared... Also, it says in that BBC article that one of the crew is gonna be a 'hologrammatic lifeform'. That's so bad, ripping concepts from Voyager.

Sorry, just read that back. I'm full of so much shit it's untrue...

Incidentally, the show is being shot on 16mm - SFX mentioned it recently, along with some lovely behind-the-scenes production photos. So, sorry for my completely wrong assumption that it would be video treated to look like film.

Still, my main point remains - I'm very sorry it isn't a traditional shot-in-front-of-an-audience sitcom. Hopefully it'll be great in its own way, though.

I've got the impression that it hasn't really been that well received. Okay, so it was no Red Dwarf, but it wasn't that bad, if we're honest. We probably just built it up too much.

Are you serious? It was dreadful! It felt like half an hour of bumbling thoughts that trailed off without going anywhere. It didn't get a single laugh out of me. The only smile it raised was Kevin Eldon's OTT acting, and even that was woefully out of place.