Lab Rats

This show appears to be strongly influenced by two '70s comedies, "Doctor in the House" and "The Young Ones." Unfortunately it lacks the charm of the former and the manic mockery of the latter and ends up as forgettable at best.

I really was looking forward to this, I work at a Uni (as an IT person) and I wanted to empathise with the characters, but the "characters" are nothing more than a single concept. With concept characters the actors really have to flesh them out and this isn't happening. There needs to be someone we care about, someone, quirky but normal. Sadly there isn't.

I saw Lab Rats for the 1st time last night & was actually quite impressed. I'm surprised it gets such a low rating here.

I thought it was well written & whenever it seemed that an obvious gag was was coming, it actually flipped round & didn't do what I expected. The acting performances by the cast aren't all brilliant but they're certainly better than sitcoms like 'My Family' or the appalling 'After You've Gone' (which bizarrely gets some good reviews on IMDb). I quickly warmed to the characters, who are all a bit quirky in different ways & compliment each other well. I especially liked deadpan Cara & daft Brian. There were plenty of moments when I laughed out loud & Lab Rats actually has something different about it that sets it above the majority of sitcom mulch. It takes elements of shows like 'The Young Ones' & 'Father Ted' without being too derivative. Admittedly, it doesn't reach the same highs as either of those shows but it could develop into something really good in it's own right. I'd rather watch this than ad nauseam re-runs of 'The Good Life' & 'Home To Roost' (it was dull in the 80s. It's dull & dated now).

Basically, I think everyone should give this series a chance. It's a fresh new comedy with good ideas & sometimes it takes time to get used a show in the 1st series when it's still finding it's feet. It took a lot of people a while to get in to 'The Mighty Boosh', 'The League Of Gentlemen' & even 'The Office' when they first started.

Lab Rats is a new British Sit-com written by stand-up comedian Chris Addison. It revolves around the life of staff who work in the science lab of a University. It is a broad, and silly comedy, similar in style to recent shows such as 'The IT Crowd'.

Two episodes have aired in the UK so far and unfortunately they have failed to hit the mark. The premise of the show is fine and I can understand how the series was commissioned, but unfortunately it is let down by problems with the writing. Some of the jokes work (and there are some good moments), but overall many of the jokes fail. I can see how some of the writing looks good on paper, but fails to work when the cast deliver on-set. Plus for me there were a few occasions where things just didn't make sense. There were jokes that wouldn't make sense in a stand-up comedy routine and don't make sense in a sit-com. The characters are not brilliant but OK. I think some fine tuning or (maybe just time) would works things out. My favourite character ,'Jo Enright as 'Cara' is a suitable "Kramer" to "Jerry" aka Chris Addison's 'Alex'.

The idea was good but the implementation was unfortunately not so great..

The first episode or two were pretty bad; as it went on I thought it improved. I would like to note that the criticism about canned laughter was wrong. On the Fr. Ted DVD Graham Linehan goes into the studio audience "problem" at length - the audience wants to be part of making the show a success, and they laugh too easily. The actors have to wait, timing gets shot and viewers wonder what was so funny. This show reportedly had "live before a studio audience" as an ideal; in practice that does not always make for good comedy. Editors who can put in or take out a hair from a single shot do an extremely good job of editing laughter; if the laughter sounds off, it's probably live.

You would have to be an utterly po-faced misery not to find this program hilarious. Chris Addison brings a touch of the absurd and surreal to the premise of a research laboratory. He is ably assisted by an excellent cast, all adding their various quirks to the mix.

I suspect that this series did not find favour with the BBC who consider anything more daring than Dads Army to be beyond the pale. Let us not forget that they did not like Monty Python or Blackadder so their comedy judgement is not always sound.

The series grew in hilarity as it went on and is worth catching up with for the puns alone.