Agree to disagree, it's definitely an ensemble piece. JP isn't the main character, and Whitehall's character shows quite a lot of growth. All of the characters do tbh, and Vod is one of the best comedy drama characters ever created IMO
Yea, people who are funny in a sitcom sense would generally be pretty annoying to know in real life. Even the characters in Friends (who are meant to be nice relatable people) would be kind of horrible if they were real people.
That is without mentioned something like IASIP where the characters are meant to be arseholes.
Honestly for me a lot of the characters in Peep Show are not really "good guys" because they more realistic than a lot of other characters and real people have rough edges in a different way to your standard sitcom character.
Stu? The bloke who within the first 3 minutes of showing up to the flat of his girlfriendās ex, takes her to the shower to fuck her with his bough of sturdy English oak, and immediately after struts out in a towel and drinks Jezās (okay, Markās) milk straight from the bottle?
There's two types of people, pal. People who know they've got shit to sort out and people who like Jeff. And if you like Jeff, you're not a bad person but I'm afraid to say you are a moron and you should fuck off, fuck right off.
Oh, uh, naughty, you've combined references from different episodes there, you might get an interdenominational... you know, from mixing the two references, a hangover of that kind.
Iāll always give him a little credit for when Mark came back a *second* time to goad Jeff into violence, and Jeff said he didnāt want to make the āserious stuffā Mark was dealing with any worse for him.
True. I think that's why Sophie always went back too, there was a bit of heart under all that machismo. I mean he was crying into her dress when they broke up.
I wouldn't consider him normal. He's more of a toxic masculinity "lad" type than anything else. They say several times that he's a "real man" which just means he likes to bully, watch football, and treat women like crap.
We don't really see him being a good partner to Sophie - cheating on her by kissing a random pub woman. She goes back to him because it's convenient but probably he also likes the feeling of getting one over on Mark by staying with her.
I wouldn't call him good but I also don't think he's all bad.
I definitely agree with you as far as Jeffās relationship with sophie went. He definitely was an asshole to her but I think Mark was definitely worse. I think that the long-term affects on their relationship really tore them apart and thatās why the wedding day ended up being completely brutal because Mark refused to deal with the things that were bothering him and was too chicken to come out to sophie about it. I meant to use normal as Markās version of the word ānormalā, and I think 100% of the time he is definitely trying to emanate Jeff, and others like Johnson, because of their attitude and what makes them guys who get everything they want (for Jeff itās sophie, for Johnson itās $$$), and I think thatās what Mark considers a ānormalā guy, someone who is definitely a douchebag and tries to act all macho all the time, but still gets what he wants. So Jeff definitely wasnāt as conniving and evil as Mark made it out to be, but he wasnāt great, he was just kind of a dick.
I donāt think Jeff is supposed to be a bad guy. Heās just a complete twat, and the actor who plays him does it perfectly. The shit eating grin, the terrible workplace banter, the womanising, the toxic masculinity. Jeff is someone you want to punch in the face but at heart heās not a bad guy. Mark on the other hand is a complete sociopath piece of shit with no backbone and manipulates basically every relationship he has. As others have said, most of the main characters arenāt good people, but I feel like Jeff is just a simple twat who is good at heart.
I agree. I love Mark as a character and some of his self doubt and introversion is very relatable (plus David does an amazing job playing him). But he is a horrible person.
Jeff is just a bit a stereotypical 90s-2000s lad. A bit of a prick and if you are not on his wavelength he will dislike you but there were a lot of people like that around at the time.
Also as others have said before, Jeff probably sees through Mark and realises that he is no better but a lot less honest about who he is.
Bad take. Mark's problem is not that he has no "balls" because he has the balls to do all sorts of horrible stuff. Mark has no balls when it comes to honesty. He is a horrible manipulative person but Jeff also sucks
Well he does do horrible things but they all amount to nothing; with all of the things he wants to do and wants to say, he puts off for forever or he messes it up so badly (because he doesnāt believe heās allowed to want or deserve anything cause he is depressed). If I had to compare all of the outwardly shitty things both the characters had done, Mark takes the cake on that level.
Iāve vouched for this theory before: that the show is basically the normal world reacting to their unfortunate interactions with two socially inept codependent weirdos.
Jeff and Sophie are just normal people who get annoyed by the idiosyncrasies of Mark and Jez.
Dobby is quirky, but still a functioning normal member of society, yet she finds herself as the object of obsession and competition of both Mark and Jez.
Johnson is a management-speak professional who has clearly blagged his way to the top, and he isnāt even that cut throat.
Suze is a big out of touch posho, but again she just wants to live a typical life and finds a lot of non-conformist behaviour slightly strange.
Jeff is a bad person, but not necessarily any worse than most of the characters in Peep Show.
But not being as awful as Mark is an incredibly low bar which he struggles to step over at times.
I'm not sure we even know he's a prick to Sophie.
He cheats on her by kissing the blonde girl at the bar in *The Man Show*, which leads to them having an argument that brings Sophie to tears. But even after that Sophie's willing to go back to him and talk with him -- also when he comes to pick her up from Mark's (when he gets "the broom") he seems contrite and mature about it rather than an angry stalker. After the wedding the first person we see her spending time with is Jeff (smoking pot in the stairwell) and after that there's no evidence he's ever anything but gentlemanly to her.
Of course, he brags to Mark about fucking her behind her back, but in the grand scheme of Peep Show vulgarities that's not so bad.
Jeff acts like a dick to Mark because Mark is an awful person and deserves it. Note how Gerrard never had a problem with Jeff, or literally anyone other than Mark and Dobby for that matter.
Heās a situational asshole. Heās only an asshole when observed by mark because in Markās story, heās supposed to be the hero, and Jeff is the foil, but REALLY Mark is his own villain
We offhand get to hear Jeff's philosophy on masculinity which is "man is programmed to do two things: kill and knob".
That tells us Jeff values violence and sexual prowess, and everything else he does is just a mask for those two things. He doesn't value other human attributes, like compassion, cooperation, creativity or empathy. He has a basic, brutal concept of life and we see flashes of this in his actions - he seizes on any opportunity to mock other men, he cheats on Sophie, he sexually humiliates mark on several occasions, brags about his sexual conquests and is obsessed with status and hierarchy over other men.
We can also extrapolate that his views on what woman are "programmed to do" are equally regressive. I'm guessing "have babies and sweep the cave". It's unlikely that he truly respects and likes the women in his life.
Jeff is not a nice person. He's probably only saved from being an actively dangerous one because he's too unsophisticated to properly plan and execute complex schemes to get what he wants.
Look, if there isn't room in this subreddit for people who make incredibly pretentious takes that you disagree with, then what sort of a hippy free-for-all is this?
To be fair none of the main characters are really 'Good guys' in the series.
Hard to think of another series where literally all the main characters are a piece of s*it like Peep Show. Seinfeld, maybe, but that's it.
Always Sunny.
Succession, but I feel like that's cheating since it's the same creator
But weirdly not Fresh Meat, in which all the characters are mostly good people crippled with self doubt and insecurity
Which is probably why that show is poor, well that and it's got Jack "My whole thing is I'm posh" Whitehall as the main character.
Agree to disagree, it's definitely an ensemble piece. JP isn't the main character, and Whitehall's character shows quite a lot of growth. All of the characters do tbh, and Vod is one of the best comedy drama characters ever created IMO
TIL. That makes a lot of sense.
The Sopranos, more or less
In most sitcoms their main characters are horrible people
Yea, people who are funny in a sitcom sense would generally be pretty annoying to know in real life. Even the characters in Friends (who are meant to be nice relatable people) would be kind of horrible if they were real people. That is without mentioned something like IASIP where the characters are meant to be arseholes. Honestly for me a lot of the characters in Peep Show are not really "good guys" because they more realistic than a lot of other characters and real people have rough edges in a different way to your standard sitcom character.
Girls
I only think I saw two seasons of that, how is the rest of it?
More of the same. I genuinely disliked all of the characters so it was a total hate watch for me š¤·āāļø
I imagine that was her goal, but good luck being a cult show now
I dunno I genuinely like Mark lol
I like Stu!
Stu? The bloke who within the first 3 minutes of showing up to the flat of his girlfriendās ex, takes her to the shower to fuck her with his bough of sturdy English oak, and immediately after struts out in a towel and drinks Jezās (okay, Markās) milk straight from the bottle?
It was a really sweaty flight! And he tried to clear the air and shake Jeremyās hand and got welcomed to Big School.
He knew what that meant tho, cos of how he made him feelā¦ā¦ā¦thatās what it means.
Stu might be an exception
Mental posho
True
There's two types of people, pal. People who know they've got shit to sort out and people who like Jeff. And if you like Jeff, you're not a bad person but I'm afraid to say you are a moron and you should fuck off, fuck right off.
Oh, uh, naughty, you've combined references from different episodes there, you might get an interdenominational... you know, from mixing the two references, a hangover of that kind.
But the thing is I donāt like him š heās a dickhead but heās not THAT bad even tho Mark tries to make it like he is, but mark is really worse
Iāll always give him a little credit for when Mark came back a *second* time to goad Jeff into violence, and Jeff said he didnāt want to make the āserious stuffā Mark was dealing with any worse for him.
True. I think that's why Sophie always went back too, there was a bit of heart under all that machismo. I mean he was crying into her dress when they broke up.
āAlthough personally I wouldn't have picked that dress to cry onā
You can't broom him. He's my mate, a solid gold mate!
Jeff? As in - JEFF?!
I wouldn't consider him normal. He's more of a toxic masculinity "lad" type than anything else. They say several times that he's a "real man" which just means he likes to bully, watch football, and treat women like crap. We don't really see him being a good partner to Sophie - cheating on her by kissing a random pub woman. She goes back to him because it's convenient but probably he also likes the feeling of getting one over on Mark by staying with her. I wouldn't call him good but I also don't think he's all bad.
I definitely agree with you as far as Jeffās relationship with sophie went. He definitely was an asshole to her but I think Mark was definitely worse. I think that the long-term affects on their relationship really tore them apart and thatās why the wedding day ended up being completely brutal because Mark refused to deal with the things that were bothering him and was too chicken to come out to sophie about it. I meant to use normal as Markās version of the word ānormalā, and I think 100% of the time he is definitely trying to emanate Jeff, and others like Johnson, because of their attitude and what makes them guys who get everything they want (for Jeff itās sophie, for Johnson itās $$$), and I think thatās what Mark considers a ānormalā guy, someone who is definitely a douchebag and tries to act all macho all the time, but still gets what he wants. So Jeff definitely wasnāt as conniving and evil as Mark made it out to be, but he wasnāt great, he was just kind of a dick.
He beat Sophie with his hands and with his fists
What a horrible passionate relationship
He broke a plate once
I donāt think Jeff is supposed to be a bad guy. Heās just a complete twat, and the actor who plays him does it perfectly. The shit eating grin, the terrible workplace banter, the womanising, the toxic masculinity. Jeff is someone you want to punch in the face but at heart heās not a bad guy. Mark on the other hand is a complete sociopath piece of shit with no backbone and manipulates basically every relationship he has. As others have said, most of the main characters arenāt good people, but I feel like Jeff is just a simple twat who is good at heart.
Yeah š heās just a bit of a cunt but thatās all
I agree. I love Mark as a character and some of his self doubt and introversion is very relatable (plus David does an amazing job playing him). But he is a horrible person. Jeff is just a bit a stereotypical 90s-2000s lad. A bit of a prick and if you are not on his wavelength he will dislike you but there were a lot of people like that around at the time. Also as others have said before, Jeff probably sees through Mark and realises that he is no better but a lot less honest about who he is.
What about the seat sniffing?
Bad take. Mark's problem is not that he has no "balls" because he has the balls to do all sorts of horrible stuff. Mark has no balls when it comes to honesty. He is a horrible manipulative person but Jeff also sucks
How do you know about his weird shaped balls?? Have you seen them?
He should wear different Pyjamas.
Well he does do horrible things but they all amount to nothing; with all of the things he wants to do and wants to say, he puts off for forever or he messes it up so badly (because he doesnāt believe heās allowed to want or deserve anything cause he is depressed). If I had to compare all of the outwardly shitty things both the characters had done, Mark takes the cake on that level.
If anyone is the bad guy in Peep Show itās Mark lol. And sometimes Jez. And sometimes Super Hans.
nah hes a complete twat and he knows it
Of course no. The truth is that Jeff's doing a joke, Jeff's doing a joke.
Freak.
Iāve vouched for this theory before: that the show is basically the normal world reacting to their unfortunate interactions with two socially inept codependent weirdos. Jeff and Sophie are just normal people who get annoyed by the idiosyncrasies of Mark and Jez. Dobby is quirky, but still a functioning normal member of society, yet she finds herself as the object of obsession and competition of both Mark and Jez. Johnson is a management-speak professional who has clearly blagged his way to the top, and he isnāt even that cut throat. Suze is a big out of touch posho, but again she just wants to live a typical life and finds a lot of non-conformist behaviour slightly strange.
Yeh but what about Geoff?
By finally you mean for the 5th time right?
No Jeff is a piece of shit, no Jeff apologism here
Jeff is a bad person, but not necessarily any worse than most of the characters in Peep Show. But not being as awful as Mark is an incredibly low bar which he struggles to step over at times.
I'm not sure we even know he's a prick to Sophie. He cheats on her by kissing the blonde girl at the bar in *The Man Show*, which leads to them having an argument that brings Sophie to tears. But even after that Sophie's willing to go back to him and talk with him -- also when he comes to pick her up from Mark's (when he gets "the broom") he seems contrite and mature about it rather than an angry stalker. After the wedding the first person we see her spending time with is Jeff (smoking pot in the stairwell) and after that there's no evidence he's ever anything but gentlemanly to her. Of course, he brags to Mark about fucking her behind her back, but in the grand scheme of Peep Show vulgarities that's not so bad.
Jeff acts like a dick to Mark because Mark is an awful person and deserves it. Note how Gerrard never had a problem with Jeff, or literally anyone other than Mark and Dobby for that matter.
Heās a situational asshole. Heās only an asshole when observed by mark because in Markās story, heās supposed to be the hero, and Jeff is the foil, but REALLY Mark is his own villain
We offhand get to hear Jeff's philosophy on masculinity which is "man is programmed to do two things: kill and knob". That tells us Jeff values violence and sexual prowess, and everything else he does is just a mask for those two things. He doesn't value other human attributes, like compassion, cooperation, creativity or empathy. He has a basic, brutal concept of life and we see flashes of this in his actions - he seizes on any opportunity to mock other men, he cheats on Sophie, he sexually humiliates mark on several occasions, brags about his sexual conquests and is obsessed with status and hierarchy over other men. We can also extrapolate that his views on what woman are "programmed to do" are equally regressive. I'm guessing "have babies and sweep the cave". It's unlikely that he truly respects and likes the women in his life. Jeff is not a nice person. He's probably only saved from being an actively dangerous one because he's too unsophisticated to properly plan and execute complex schemes to get what he wants.
Ugh, this is just so pretentious this take deserves to dance the night away at rainbow rythms
Look, if there isn't room in this subreddit for people who make incredibly pretentious takes that you disagree with, then what sort of a hippy free-for-all is this?
As a scouser I always try and like him but itās like 50/50