Season 1, Episode 1: "Warring Factions"

An unusually-confident Mark goes after Toni

Not that anyone blogs anymore (who has time to bother with more than 140 characters?), but for the record we begin today the first of a series of exhausting "reviews" of the television programme Peep Show - to be completed either when I run through all episodes, or just stop wanting to do this. I put "reviews" in quotes because I think this will degenerate more into me randomly mentioning things I think of when I watch, rather than any sort of critical analysis. It will only be of use to someone who has seen it.

If you're reading this you are likely already familiar with this wonderful show; in the event that you're not yet hip to things, it's this sitcom from the UK about two oddly-matched friends living in the south end of London, in which we are constantly privy to the thoughts of the two protagonists. To give you a rough idea of their personalities, the actors play the Apple/PC guys in the UK versions of those ads. That doesn't really sound like much, but it's genuinely the best, funniest TV show ever made.

We begin our reviews, appropriately, with the first episode, "Warring Factions," which Wikipedia tells us was broadcast in September, 2003. From what I remember from the DVD commentary, this wasn't the first one filmed, but the network thought it would make the best premiere episode. Perhaps. I think Mark is a tad out-of-character in his pursuit of Toni, so I don't personally recommend it as a jumping-on point.

- Jeremy's introduction is fairly spot-on: he's dancing topless in front of a mirror while he listens to his own song. If this hadn't been intended to be the first episode, I wonder how such a perfect scene ended up at the start.

- Similarly, Mark's introductory scene - an awkward encounter with a female - perfectly sums up who he is and what he thinks about women and social conventions.

Some firsts:
- Jeremy's song shows up now and again in the background throughout the series. A music video for it is on the first season DVD, and floating out there on YouTube.
- Jeff is first mentioned in one of Sophie's first lines, "what do you make of Jeff's memo?". Very easy to miss, fellow Peepers!
- Mark mentions his lawyer sister, who shows up years later in two episodes years apart.
- Mark references the awful relationship he has with his father. This gets mentioned often, but we've yet to really meet Mark's dad. He's definitely a character I'm waiting patiently to see (he showed up for literally one second in the fourth season finale), and I'll feel cheated if we don't.
- Mark's weird testicles are mentioned for the first time. This is a recurring gag for quite a few episodes.
- Mark's interest in the Second World War (or is it an interest in Nazis?) comes up.

- The kids who harass Mark are perfect. There's no way some casting agent auditioned them. If they're actors, they each deserve a... Bafta? I guess? I imagine the producers just found some shitty little hooligans on the street and told them to do what they would normally do in front of the camera. The way they jump and spit on the wall - there's no way someone would script that. Just genius.

- One of the kids calls Mark a "clean shirt," which is one of the more memorable lines from the series (I use "series" in the proper, North American sense). One of the robbers in the fifth season premiere calls him the same thing. So far as I can tell, this put-down is a Peep Show original.

- Jez' half-painted orange room is perfect for the character.

- Super Hans is spot-on in his first appearance, with his rant about the logo in the foam and power brokers "getting their dicks sucked by big Alsatian dogs." With the possible exception of Johnson, Super Hans is word-for-word the funniest character on the show.

- More overtly than usual, Super Hans' dislike of Mark shows up in his scene. It's in the background in subsequent episodes, but there's always the implication that Mark and Super Hans don't particularly care for each other. Perhaps appropriate, as Super Hans and Mark stand in direct opposition to one another - much moreso than mismatched Mark and Jez.

-Come to think of it, Super Hans is sort of like Jez without any warmth or redeeming qualities.

- This one makes for an odd first episode, for two reasons. First, the way in which Mark aggressively pursues Toni is entirely out-of-character for someone who is normally a fairly awkward, introverted man. Second, Jez and Mark are in constant opposition to each other for almost the entirety of the episode. While it's pretty hip these days to have characters hate each other in sitcoms, the animosity in this episode is way off the charts for these guys.

- Mark tries to get the name of an acupuncturist for Toni's leukemia-stricken sister. In later episodes, I don't think even a lust-driven Mark would stoop to such a move, so devoted to Reason and the Scientific Method that he is. Oddly, it's Jez who eventually voices opposition to acupuncture.

- Toni's a pretty fun character. She eventually disappears after the second season, but it would be nice if she popped up at some point in a future episode, particularly since she played such a big role in these earlier seasons.

- Toni gets a pretty good line when she protests she's "not some kind of next-door fuck jar."

- Toni's sister, Paula, shows up again muuuch later, in the fifth season premiere. She's one of a tiny handful of tertiary characters who make more than one appearance (Mark's sister is the only other one I can think of, but surely there are others). Her role in that one is so small and unspecific to her character that I wonder why she came back at all.

Peep Show, naturally, mentions a few UK-specific things that I've never heard of. Among them:
- The Hampton Court Maze: A maze dating back to the 17th century, a bit to the west of where Mark and Jez live.
- Tim Henman: A tennis player that Mark evidently likes. This episode implies that Mark is a big tennis fan (or at least a big Tim Henman fan), yet this interest is never mentioned again.
- Rizla: A weed-based party game whose popularity is, from my research, confined entirely to the UK.
- The offy: The off-license, or place outside of a pub where you can grab booze.

- The fellow who does eventually get Toni (and Paula?) is very Jeff-like in his alpha male put-downs of Mark and Jez. Perhaps he's a sort of proto-Jeff.

- This episode has a rare fade-out near the end, clashing with the point-of-view rules the show eventually rigidly adheres to. I think there are very few incidents like this outside of the first season (another example would be the omniscient third-person perspective during the flashback when Jez and Super Hans do the "bad thing").

- This season has the quirky, almost off-putting minimalist theme song. It eventually gets dropped for some out-of-place rock tune. I'm not saying the original is brilliant, but it's interesting how much at-odds it is with the song they eventually settle on. Surely the change was forced on them by Channel 4. The original song lives on, of course, in the little beeps and boops around the episodes' ad breaks.